Search

1000 results for “tiny_bus_stop”

Kevin's Blog @[email protected] · 2025-07-19 · 13:35 UTC
Small Microcontroller Displays
I found myself wanting several small displays connected to a microcontroller, so was doing a bit of a trade-off between various options, and was starting to lose track, so this post collects some of those thoughts together.
It is not meant to be a comprehensive discussion of choosing small displays for projects, but more of a reflection on the displays I already have kicking around in my parts boxes!
Most displays tend to be categorised by the driver chip they use. And then by the bus type used for their connection. So that is how I’ve grouped them here.
A really good reference for many of the displays shown here is: https://www.lcdwiki.com/Main_Page
I2C SSD1306 OLED
This is usually my “go to” set of small displays. They are generally well supported and pretty easy to use.
I generally have two variants to choose from:
On the left is the 0.91″ 128×32 OLED SSD1306 and on the right is the 0.96″ 128×54 OLED SSD1306. Common properties of both displays:
- Monochrome – white or blue.
- I2C interface.
- Usually 5V powered, but some include level shifters to allow 3V3 logic.
- Usually includes I2C pull-ups. Might be to VCC level so be wary if using a 3V3 MCU but powering from 5V – always check the voltage level prior to connecting.
- 128×32 usually a fixed I2C address (0x3C). 128×64 usually allows selection between 0x3C and 0x3D.
- There are variants with VCC and GND swapped, and other variants with SDA and SCL swapped.
Software support:
- The “go to” library for Arduino is the Adafruit_SSD1306 library, which assumes the use of the Adafruit_GFX library too.
- But there are lots of alternative libraries too, for example u8glib.
- Well supported in Circuitpython or Micropython.
- More here: Arduino Nano Every I2C and SPI Displays.
Typical Connections:
- VCC/GND (see note below re VCC vs logic levels).
- SCL/SDA – I2C pins on the MCU.
Known “gotchas”:
- Requires a chunk of memory allocated on start-up on Arduino, which can fail if there isn’t enough dynamic memory left and make a sketch hang.
- Can’t be written to from an interrupt routine (e.g. a timer).
- Low-level I2C Wire library on Arduino is blocking.
- Can sometimes be a little slow compared to alternatives.
- Limited I2C address options, so multiple display use is limited (and also increase the memory issues).
- As already mentioned, any I2C pull-ups may be pulled up to the VCC level or might be level shifted, so it is always worth checking if planning to use with a 3V3 microcontroller.
Summary:
- Cheap, pretty easy to use, and fairly universal if you want a single, small, monochrome display for simple outputs.
Other I2C Variants
There are some variants of the SSD1306 that sometimes pops up too for slightly larger displays:
- SSD1315 – apparently can simply be treated as a SSD1306 and mostly it works ok.
- SH1106 – very similar niche to SSD1306 but requires it owns driver support.
SPI ST7735/89/96 TFT
Whereas the SSD1306 I2C is pretty ubiquitous for monochrome displays, I’ve tended to find that SPI ST77xx displays fill a similar niche for small, full colour, non-touch, TFT displays. And there are loads of variations on the theme when it comes to these displays.
The 7735 supports lower resolution, smaller displays, typically up to 170×320, with the 7789 for those of 240×240 or 240×320 and similar. There is also a ST7796 which I believe uses the same driver libraries for a higher 320×480 display.
Two 7735 Displays:
These two ST7735 displays that I have are labelled:
- TFT 0.96″ 80×160 SPI ST7735
- TFT 1.8″ 128×160 SPI ST7735
These ST7789 display I have is labelled:
- TFT 1.3″ 240×240 SPI ST7789
I also have a display that was bought as a ST7789 labelled “TFT 2.8″ 240×320 SPI” which comes with a touch screen, but I can’t get this to work.
Common properties:
- SPI interface: data (SDA/MOSI/COPI), clock (SCK/SCLK), chip select (CS), data/command (SR/DC), possibly a reset.
- Typically 65536 colours, usually encoded as 5-6-5 bit RGB patterns.
- Have to check for 3V3 or 5V operation depending on the datasheet of the driver chip and design of the module.
Software support:
- Adafruit SST77x Library supports ST7735 and ST7789, once again also requiring Adafruit_GFX.
- Arduino_GFX Library supports a whole range of displays and microcontrollers, including the ST77xx devices.
- TFT_eSPI for Raspberry Pi Pico, ESP32 and others.
- MCUFRIEND_kbv for Arduino and “MCUFRIEND” type displays. Wide range of TFT display drivers supported.
- Tiny TFT Library for ATTiny85 and Compact TFT Library for a range of MCUs by David Johnson-Davies (technoblogy)
- https://github.com/bitbank2/bb_spi_lcd. Standalone library for ST7735, ST7789 and others, with a set of pre-configured “named” displays.
- More here: Arduino and a Cheap TFT Display.
Typical Connections:
- VCC/GND
- CLK/SDA – SPI Clock and Data (Data OUT from MCU – i.e. MOSI/COPI)
- RES – Reset
- DC, RS – Data/Command Register Select
- CS – Chip Select
Known Gotchas:
- Working out if RS means reset of the data/command pin; and not mixing up SCL/SDA with I2C!
- Some might include a backlight control pin too for dimming or turning it off. With this not connected the display was a maximum brightness.
- I’ve also seen talk that many of these modules themselves run at 3V3, so whilst they may include a regulator for 5V to 3V3 for power, they don’t always include level shifting for the signal pins. It seems unclear (to me at least at the moment) if it is ok to use these with a 5V microcontroller (although I have done…).
- Some of these displays are “inverted” colour wise. The use 16-bit 5-6-5 format colours, but some are RGB, some are BGR and there might be other variants too.
- Sometimes the initialiser for the library requires a SPI_MODE setting. My ST7789 240×240 required the Adafruit ST7789 initialisation as follows:
```
#include <Adafruit_GFX.h>
#include <Adafruit_ST7789.h>
#include <SPI.h>

#define TFT_CS  10  // (not used)
#define TFT_RST 9
#define TFT_DC  8

Adafruit_ST7789 tft = Adafruit_ST7789(TFT_CS, TFT_DC, TFT_RST);

void setup() {
  tft.init(240, 240, SPI_MODE2);
}
```
Note, unlike the monochrome displays, these have their own pixel framebuffer so memory use is much more efficient, even when used as a full colour display.
Summary:
- Cheap, pretty easy to use once the voltage levels and the pin labelling are worked out. Well supported by a number of libraries; but does require more pins for 4-wire SPI. Might need some messing around to get the right colour definitions. Otherwise a good choice if you just want a cheap, colour display with no touch.
OLED SH1122 SPI
There are actually both I2C and SPI versions of SH1122 displays, but I’m considering the SPI version here. The display I have is a 256×64, monochrome OLED display.
Software Support:
- U8G2 library:https://github.com/olikraus/u8g2
- Use the SH1122 constructors: https://github.com/olikraus/u8g2/wiki/u8g2setupcpp#sh1122-256×64
Example:
```
U8G2_SH1122_256X64_1_4W_HW_SPI u8g2(U8G2_R0, /* cs=*/ 10, /* dc=*/ 9, /* reset=*/ 8);
```
Typical Connections:
- VCC/GND – mine states it can support either 3V or 5V power
- CLK/SDA – SPI Clock and Data (Data OUT from MCU – i.e. MOSI/COPI)
- RES – Reset
- DC, RS – Data/Command Register Select
- CS – Chip Select
The _F_ constructor requires a full frame-buffer so is unlikely to work on resource constrained devices (e.g. the Arduino Uno/Nano). The _1_ constructor provides a pageable interface which allows for the updating of the display in pages, which takes longer but allows it to be used with more devices.
There are also software SPI versions that allow the use of any GPIO pins.
Summary:
- A pretty neat board if these physical dimensions match what is required.
- There are a whole pile of example sketches in the U8G2/page_buffer directory.
ILI9341/9488 TFT
Cheap larger displays are often driven by one of the ILI9341 or ILI9488 chips. The former supports 240×320 in full (16-bit) colour whereas the 9488 tends to support larger displays of up to 320×480 in full (24-bit) colour. Both support either a parallel (at least 8, 9, 16-bit) or serial (3 or 4 wire SPI) bus interface.
I don’t have a lot of detailed information for this post yet, but instead will refer to:
- Cheap ILI9488 TFT LCD Displays
- https://github.com/bitbank2/bb_spi_lcd
The ILI9341 is well supported by the Adafruit graphic libraries, but the ILI9488 is likely to require something else, as described in the above post.
These displays are often used with touch support and will often expect to run at 3V3 logic levels.
LCD 1602 HD44780
This is another very common monochrome, but text only, display. They have a 4 or 8-bit parallel interface, but it is also quite common to use the with an I2C “backpack” based on the PCF8574 I2C IO expander. Boards can be cheaply bought with or without a backpack, and the backpacks are available separately too for retro fitting to displays without them.
They are often called “1602” displays as they are two rows of 16 characters. By using custom blocks it is possible to have some simple graphics. There are LCD2004 modules too with four rows of 20 characters.
They often come with a choice of backlight colours. White or red are particularly striking! There are some variants that come with an additional I2C controller chip built in to control the backlight and some even come with a full RGB backlight capability.
Typical Connections:
- VCC/GND
- Data – either 4 or 8 bit modes support
- E, RW, RS – enable, read/write, register select.
- Backlight V+/GND – level is often fixed using a resistor.
There are core Arduino libraries to support the most basic versions of these displays:
- LiquidCrystal
- LiquidCrystal_I2C
Typical Gotchas:
- The I2C backpacks often include pull-ups to VCC, yet many of these displays require 5V even if used with a 3V3 microcontroller. One option is to remove the pull-ups and add external pull-ups to 3V3.
- If there are only blocks on the display then the communications isn’t working properly – check SDA/SCL or the control lines.
- If there is nothing on the display or the text is obscured by blocks behind it, then the contrast is either too low or too high. I2C backpacks have a potentiometer to adjust the contrast.
- More complex versions require an additional I2C setup phase, e.g. to turn on the backlight, which isn’t supported by the standard libraries.
Summary:
- Very useful if a large, high/adjustable contrast, text-only display is required.
Others
So I don’t forget when considering the above, I also have:
- GC9A01 based 240×240 1.28″ circular SPI display like this one: https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/1.28inch_LCD_Module. Note: cheaper versions of this won’t include level shifting and will expect to run at 3V3.
- ESP32 boards with built-in displays: ESP32-C3 0.42 OLED
- ESP32 “Cheap Yellow Display” boards, details here: https://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display
- Range of small displays from Pimoroni, Waveshare and others for use with the Raspberry Pi Pico.
- Waveshare small HDMI displays for use with a Raspberry Pi.
I’ll add to the list for my own reference as I remember other odds and ends.
Kevin
#hd44780 #ili9341 #ili9488 #include #lcd1602 #oled #ssd1306 #st7735 #st7789 #tft
#hd44780 #ili9341 #ili9488 #lcd1602 #oled #ssd1306
好好引用 @[email protected] · 2023-12-27 · 03:25 UTC

2023: The Year in Pictures
A Weary World
By Marc Lacey
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/world/year-in-pictures.html
#TheYearinPictures #TheNewYorkTimes #2023inPhotos #newyorktimes
This past year saw plenty of suffering before the morning of Oct. 7.
The war in Ukraine continued to rage. A wildfire tore through a historic town in Hawaii, and the earth shook violently in Turkey. Mass shootings took life after life.
Then, on Oct. 7, Hamas gunmen stormed across the border of Gaza into Israel. And Israel struck back with force across Gaza. The suffering across the world seemed as if it would never end.
Every year, our photo editors try to capture the best photojournalism in one intense presentation. The Year in Pictures is a way to commemorate the big news events from January to December: the ones that traumatized us — and there are many of those — mixed in with some moments of bliss.
In that bliss category, take one young girl’s 13th birthday celebration, which featured a squealing, rapturous night of music and dance with Taylor Swift. An image of the girl, Gabbi Jones, decked out as a Swiftie before a big show in Southern California, shows her beaming behind braces, as though all is well in the world.
We, of course, know otherwise. Another young Swiftie was photographed as she sang and danced — while alone at the grave of one of the friends she lost last year in a mass shooting at her elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Years are like that: Awfulness can be jumbled together with ecstasy in impossible-to-reconcile ways. So you’ll find images here — collected by two photo editors, Jeffrey Henson Scales and Tanner Curtis — of war and fashion. A devastating wildfire and a day spent playing in the surf. A plume of smoke from a train accident and an ultrafancy debutante ball. Military standoffs and the tennis champion Coco Gauff, lying on the court after winning the U.S. Open.
So many children, sadly, will not see 2024, never mind the concert of their dreams. Their lives ended when their homes and classrooms turned into battlefields or disaster zones.
There’s a haunting image from Gaza, taken by Samar Abu Elouf, that shows the corpse of a Palestinian baby named Misk wrapped in white cloth outside a morgue. She lies alongside relatives who were killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza. The girl’s bloodied face is visible. Her surviving brother is beside himself, as despondent as a grief-stricken woman in another photograph by Ms. Abu Elouf: That woman is pictured mourning over a relative in a body bag.
The images gathered here, a tribute to the brave photographers who scrambled into harm’s way to capture them, remind us that there were so many tears in 2023.
There’s an unforgettable image of a boy with his tiny hands over his eyes in the basement of his home in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he and his mother sought shelter after an air raid alarm sounded.
Another small hand is pressed up to a window of a school bus in Nashville as a distraught child departs the Covenant School, where a gunman had just mowed down three of her classmates.
Some of what counts for joy this year is rooted in darkness.
There’s a powerful photograph by Tamir Kalifa of an Israeli family clustered together in anguish while awaiting word on the fate of two siblings taken hostage by Hamas on that day in October. The expressions are soul-stirring.
And then there’s a follow-up image toward the end of this package, taken after a brief cease-fire took hold in the region: the young hostages, freed from captivity and on their way home, their lives still ahead of them.

#theyearinpictures #thenewyorktimes #2023inphotos #newyorktimes
好好引用 @[email protected] · 2023-12-27 · 03:25 UTC

2023: The Year in Pictures
A Weary World
By Marc Lacey
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/world/year-in-pictures.html
#TheYearinPictures #TheNewYorkTimes #2023inPhotos #newyorktimes
This past year saw plenty of suffering before the morning of Oct. 7.
The war in Ukraine continued to rage. A wildfire tore through a historic town in Hawaii, and the earth shook violently in Turkey. Mass shootings took life after life.
Then, on Oct. 7, Hamas gunmen stormed across the border of Gaza into Israel. And Israel struck back with force across Gaza. The suffering across the world seemed as if it would never end.
Every year, our photo editors try to capture the best photojournalism in one intense presentation. The Year in Pictures is a way to commemorate the big news events from January to December: the ones that traumatized us — and there are many of those — mixed in with some moments of bliss.
In that bliss category, take one young girl’s 13th birthday celebration, which featured a squealing, rapturous night of music and dance with Taylor Swift. An image of the girl, Gabbi Jones, decked out as a Swiftie before a big show in Southern California, shows her beaming behind braces, as though all is well in the world.
We, of course, know otherwise. Another young Swiftie was photographed as she sang and danced — while alone at the grave of one of the friends she lost last year in a mass shooting at her elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Years are like that: Awfulness can be jumbled together with ecstasy in impossible-to-reconcile ways. So you’ll find images here — collected by two photo editors, Jeffrey Henson Scales and Tanner Curtis — of war and fashion. A devastating wildfire and a day spent playing in the surf. A plume of smoke from a train accident and an ultrafancy debutante ball. Military standoffs and the tennis champion Coco Gauff, lying on the court after winning the U.S. Open.
So many children, sadly, will not see 2024, never mind the concert of their dreams. Their lives ended when their homes and classrooms turned into battlefields or disaster zones.
There’s a haunting image from Gaza, taken by Samar Abu Elouf, that shows the corpse of a Palestinian baby named Misk wrapped in white cloth outside a morgue. She lies alongside relatives who were killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza. The girl’s bloodied face is visible. Her surviving brother is beside himself, as despondent as a grief-stricken woman in another photograph by Ms. Abu Elouf: That woman is pictured mourning over a relative in a body bag.
The images gathered here, a tribute to the brave photographers who scrambled into harm’s way to capture them, remind us that there were so many tears in 2023.
There’s an unforgettable image of a boy with his tiny hands over his eyes in the basement of his home in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he and his mother sought shelter after an air raid alarm sounded.
Another small hand is pressed up to a window of a school bus in Nashville as a distraught child departs the Covenant School, where a gunman had just mowed down three of her classmates.
Some of what counts for joy this year is rooted in darkness.
There’s a powerful photograph by Tamir Kalifa of an Israeli family clustered together in anguish while awaiting word on the fate of two siblings taken hostage by Hamas on that day in October. The expressions are soul-stirring.
And then there’s a follow-up image toward the end of this package, taken after a brief cease-fire took hold in the region: the young hostages, freed from captivity and on their way home, their lives still ahead of them.

#theyearinpictures #thenewyorktimes #2023inphotos #newyorktimes
Birds of Inwood @[email protected] · 2026-05-21 · 15:08 UTC
Birds in the Garden of Eden: A Field Trip to Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York

At Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, NY, on May 18, I didn’t see many birds out of the ordinary. I was so taken in by the dramatic vistas of the park and garden that I may have overlooked them.
Tens of thousands of birds migrate north of New York City each spring and up the Hudson River along the Atlantic Flyway. They fly over the sweeping landscapes, charting their course by the stars and the region’s famous sunsets. This summer I plan to explore some of their Hudson River views and perches through occasional field trips.
View of the Ruin Garden from above. Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York. May 18, 2026
It was my first trip to see the gardens, an ongoing restoration and creative enhancement of the original gardens of Samuel Untermyer, a successful attorney and garden enthusiast. It was his idea to leave his monumental garden, first created with his wife Minnie in 1917, for public access after his death. The Untermyer Gardens Conservancy, established in 2011, works with the Yonkers Parks Department to reestablish and maintain the garden.
Song Sparrow. Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York. May 18, 2026
The 43-acre city park, a wonderland of botanical diversity, echoes various traditions and myths of the ancient past. The Garden of Eden, the founding paradise in Judaism, Christianity, and Islamic traditions, provides a unifying thematic element throughout the gardens. The exquisite Walled Garden at Untermyer evokes the edenic story through Indo-Persian design. The sight of the reflecting Persian Pool with its swirling fish mosaics provides an escape from everything that fell after Eden.
Cedar Waxwings. Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York. May 18, 2026
The birds must feel like they’re in paradise here, or at least I like to think so. I followed a Song Sparrow flying from a formal garden area below to a bare branch high over the slope down to the Hudson. It perched and sang there for a long while.
In addition to Song Sparrows, I spotted a tiny female Northern Yellow Warbler in the woodlands. I was not at all surprised to see a flock of Cedar Waxwings in such a well-kept paradise. Baltimore Orioles here can find the most exquisite perches in these gardens.
The Vista. Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York. May 18, 2026
The restored gardens include many species of plants. Cryptomeria, large Japanese Cedar trees, line the dramatic Vista, a long descending path that leads to an observation area. The Vista provides a sensational view of the Hudson River and the Palisades beyond. The Untermyer Gardens Conservancy has rebuilt a garden of rhododendrons, a favorite of the original owner.
Temple of Love. Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York. May 18, 2026
I highly recommend accessing a map of the gardens. I picked up a Visitor’s Map at a kiosk near the Ruin Garden near the Old Croton Aqueduct gate down the hill. Still, one of the intriguing and rather mysterious aspects of Untermyer Gardens is that some of the passageways are intentionally discrete. You have to figure out on your own how to navigate this paradise.
Baltimore Oriole. Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York. May 18, 2026
Public transportation: The Inwood neighborhood at the top of Manhattan enjoys easy access to the river towns of Westchester County and beyond. I recommend taking the Metro-North Hudson line to Yonkers and then switching to the 6 bus on the Bee Line.
The gardens (945 N Broadway, Yonkers, NY 10701) are free to visit and open every day during spring from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Official website of Untermyer Gardens Conservancy: https://www.untermyergardens.org/
Related: See a previous field trip on fall migration at the West Point Foundry Preserve in Cold Spring, New York.
Cover: A view of the Walled Garden, Persian Pool and Temple of the Sky at Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York. May 18, 2026
Spring Migration Sightings Report
Back in Inwood, I haven’t seen all of the spectacular warblers migrating through, but I have seen some of them. A Black-and-white Warbler and a Black-throated Green Warbler showed up at the natural springs on a recent hot day. A Northern Yellow Warbler has been flitting and singing around the Salt Marsh, along with one of two Eastern Kingbirds. I observed one kingbird picking up nesting material, so it may want to stay around for the summer. See the May 2026 Sightings page for more.
Subscribe

Previous posts
#travel #UntermyerParkAndGardens #Yonkers
#travel #untermyerparkandgardens #yonkers
The Generation X Files @thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com@thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com · 2026-05-17 · 17:31 UTC
Creep
6–9 minutes
Picture a sticky dancefloor in a dim, indie club in Scotland, circa 1993…
The air smells of cheap cider and smoke mixed with a dry ice machine that hasn’t been cleaned since 1982… and just the slightest hint of vomit and pee…
Suddenly… those two explosive, distorted guitar crunches hit the speakers. The entire room (a sea of oversized cardigans and scuffed Doc Martens) surges forward. We are all screaming at the top of our lungs: “I wish I was special… but I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo”. 🎶
Here is the beautiful paradox of that memory: we were shouting about not belonging but, we were doing it together. It was a glorious, sweaty collective of self-proclaimed misfits finding absolute community in our imperfections. If you felt like you didn’t quite fit into the world, you belonged there. Packed shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of other people who felt the same way…
Fast forward to Sunday, May 17, 2026. Today is the final day of Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK and we are right in the thick of Mental Health Awareness Month across the pond.
But, let’s look at the reality behind the pastel-coloured awareness slogans.
The Syndicate has taken our raw, human vulnerability (the genuine, heart-pounding reality of social anxiety) and turned it into a multi-billion-pound tech commodity. They have isolated the misfits and made us fearful to leave our homes and interact with each other. And I bet it won’t be long till they’re charging us a monthly subscription fee just to look out the window!
I wasn’t the quiet kid hiding in the shadows at parties; I’ve always been a confident extrovert. But, you don’t need to be diagnosed with clinical social anxiety to understand the massive psychological manipulation happening around us. The system is actively engineering a world that makes the real one feel too overwhelming to step into…
I. The Atrophy of the Social Muscle 🚫👋
Social anxiety isn’t just “feeling a bit shy”. According to the Mind Mental Health Charity, it is a deeply distressing experience that can cause intense physical symptoms, from a racing pulse to cognitive overload. It is a heavy, exhausting burden.
And yet, the Syndicate’s grandest business strategy of the 2020’s has been the weaponisation of this fear, through a concept they call “Frictionless Living“. A modern lifestyle engineered around maximum convenience, where algorithms, apps and automation eliminate everyday “hassles” and manual labour.
While it promises to make our lives easier, a completely frictionless existence can actually lead to feelings of listlessness and disconnection.
They have systematically stripped away the small, low-stakes “social training grounds” of human society. Think about it: whether you are 22 or 92, you are now forced to interact with Chatbot “assistants”, fast-food touchscreens and barcode scanners… instead of actual humans.
They tell us they are saving us time. What they are actually doing is eliminating the clumsy, necessary practice of casual human exposure.
By removing the tiny, everyday “awkwardness” of talking to a stranger, our collective social muscles have atrophied. We are out of practice. The real world now feels terrifyingly unpredictable… because we’ve been conditioned to live in a sterile, predictable, digital simulation (where nobody ever accidentally mispronounces “croissant” at a bakery counter!).
II. Muted and Alone: The Lucrative Business of Social Anxiety 🔇💰
Thom Yorke sang about the crushing weight of looking at an impossible standard – someone who “floats like a feather in a beautiful world”. In 2026, the Syndicate packages that impossible grace on a loop, serving up a corporate simulation of peace you can buy by the month…
They have brilliantly commodified the isolation that so many of us feel. When social anxiety leaves you feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to face a local community group, the Syndicate steps in – not to offer genuine, human healing of course, but to sell you a corporate placeholder instead. They want you to invest in their artificial safety nets:
- The AI Companion App: Premium subscriptions to digital coaches that allow you to “practice” social skills with a computer chip (because nothing says “healing your social anxiety” quite like having a heartfelt conversation with a motherboard that requires a firmware update!).
- The Wearable Shield: Active noise-cancelling headphones that automatically drown out the ambient chatter of the public street, wrapping you in an algorithmic bubble so you never have to accidentally hear a neighbour’s friendly chatter.
An anxious, isolated population is the ultimate goldmine. When we are conditioned to feel entirely disconnected, inadequate, or just plain out of practice, we constantly spend money. We’re trying to purchase peace of mind instead of finding genuine human connection.
III. The Outcast Manifesto: Just Do It! 🔗👥
The Syndicate is terrified of people who are entirely comfortable with their own rough edges. They want us predictable, vacuum-sealed and uniform.
True confidence isn’t the absence of anxiety; it’s the willingness to let your hands shake a little and stand in the room anyway. Your quirks, your stumbles, your beautifully un-scripted human reactions… that is not a bug in your programming. That is your humanity… fighting its way out of the matrix.
The Mental Health Foundation emphasises that real peer support and community connection are the truest pillars of long-term well-being. We don’t need to be “special” or polished by the corporate definition. We just need to show up, exactly as we are (even if we are standing in the corner chewing on a fingernail!).
The Citizen Jane Field Guide™️ (The “I Belong Here” Rebellion) ✊🔥
1. The Analogue Noticeboard Hunt: Find a local, physical noticeboard – the kind made of actual cork in a community library, a scruffy independent cafe, or a post office. (Don’t search for local groups on an app!) Pick one real-world group, talk, or workshop listed on that board and write the details down on a scrap of paper (bonus points if the poster has those little tear-off phone number strips. Double bonus points if you actually attend!). 📌📋
2. The “Lofi” Acoustic Stroll: The next time you walk to the local shops, leave your headphones at home. Force your brain to digest the ambient, chaotic soundtrack of your neighbourhood – the passing traffic, a snippet of a stranger’s conversation about their cat, the wind through the trees. Step out of the corporate “audio bubble”. 🎧❌
3. The “Come As You Are” Protocol: Organise a get-together with a friend or family member where the explicit rule is Zero Presentation. No tidying the house, no dressing up, no fancy biscuits. Meet in your worst loungewear and don’t worry about any unwashed dishes. If your house looks like a small explosion happened in a laundry basket, leave it. Eliminate the aesthetic pressure entirely. ☕😎
4. The Intergenerational Handshake: The Syndicate wants the younger generation locked away, too terrified to speak to a stranger. But, the older generations grew up in a world where you had to talk to people just to find out what time the bus arrived! Older rebels: we don’t suffer from this tech-induced social awkwardness, so use your superpower. Break the simulation for a younger person by starting a completely spontaneous, low-stakes chat. Younger rebels: drop the phone and ask an elder a practical question (like how on earth to bleed a radiator or make a proper gravy from scratch!). Let’s trade algorithmic data for actual human wisdom. 🚫📱
Join the Rebellion: Take Up Space 🎸💪
The machine wants us quiet, scrolling and convinced that we aren’t quite polished enough to step out into the light. But, it will never be able to replace the electricity of a room full of people sharing a genuine, human experience.
On this final day of Mental Health Awareness Week, let’s refuse to hide in the shadows for a second longer. Step forward, dig out your Doc Marten’s and take up space. You do belong here!
Your Mission: In the comments below, tell me about a time you completely messed up a social cue, tripped over your words, or had a beautifully awkward real-world interaction – and survived it. Let’s celebrate our collective “glitches” and show the Syndicate that together, we are reaching full un-optimisability! 👇
Citizen Jane x ✌️

If you’re struggling right now, please reach out to someone:📱📞 💬
UK: Call Samaritans for free at 116 123 anytime.
US: Access the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline through local crisis services.
Global: Find a local helpline via Befrienders Worldwide or IASP.

https://youtu.be/XFkzRNyygfk?si=CeYml2FUboDjMnUJ

Rate This
#ai #blog #citizenjane #creep #frictionlessliving #health
The Generation X Files @thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com@thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com · 2026-05-17 · 17:31 UTC
Creep
6–9 minutes
Picture a sticky dancefloor in a dim, indie club in Scotland, circa 1993…
The air smells of cheap cider and smoke mixed with a dry ice machine that hasn’t been cleaned since 1982… and just the slightest hint of vomit and pee…
Suddenly… those two explosive, distorted guitar crunches hit the speakers. The entire room (a sea of oversized cardigans and scuffed Doc Martens) surges forward. We are all screaming at the top of our lungs: “I wish I was special… but I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo”. 🎶
Here is the beautiful paradox of that memory: we were shouting about not belonging but, we were doing it together. It was a glorious, sweaty collective of self-proclaimed misfits finding absolute community in our imperfections. If you felt like you didn’t quite fit into the world, you belonged there. Packed shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of other people who felt the same way…
Fast forward to Sunday, May 17, 2026. Today is the final day of Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK and we are right in the thick of Mental Health Awareness Month across the pond.
But, let’s look at the reality behind the pastel-coloured awareness slogans.
The Syndicate has taken our raw, human vulnerability (the genuine, heart-pounding reality of social anxiety) and turned it into a multi-billion-pound tech commodity. They have isolated the misfits and made us fearful to leave our homes and interact with each other. And I bet it won’t be long till they’re charging us a monthly subscription fee just to look out the window!
I wasn’t the quiet kid hiding in the shadows at parties; I’ve always been a confident extrovert. But, you don’t need to be diagnosed with clinical social anxiety to understand the massive psychological manipulation happening around us. The system is actively engineering a world that makes the real one feel too overwhelming to step into…
I. The Atrophy of the Social Muscle 🚫👋
Social anxiety isn’t just “feeling a bit shy”. According to the Mind Mental Health Charity, it is a deeply distressing experience that can cause intense physical symptoms, from a racing pulse to cognitive overload. It is a heavy, exhausting burden.
And yet, the Syndicate’s grandest business strategy of the 2020’s has been the weaponisation of this fear, through a concept they call “Frictionless Living“. A modern lifestyle engineered around maximum convenience, where algorithms, apps and automation eliminate everyday “hassles” and manual labour.
While it promises to make our lives easier, a completely frictionless existence can actually lead to feelings of listlessness and disconnection.
They have systematically stripped away the small, low-stakes “social training grounds” of human society. Think about it: whether you are 22 or 92, you are now forced to interact with Chatbot “assistants”, fast-food touchscreens and barcode scanners… instead of actual humans.
They tell us they are saving us time. What they are actually doing is eliminating the clumsy, necessary practice of casual human exposure.
By removing the tiny, everyday “awkwardness” of talking to a stranger, our collective social muscles have atrophied. We are out of practice. The real world now feels terrifyingly unpredictable… because we’ve been conditioned to live in a sterile, predictable, digital simulation (where nobody ever accidentally mispronounces “croissant” at a bakery counter!).
II. Muted and Alone: The Lucrative Business of Social Anxiety 🔇💰
Thom Yorke sang about the crushing weight of looking at an impossible standard – someone who “floats like a feather in a beautiful world”. In 2026, the Syndicate packages that impossible grace on a loop, serving up a corporate simulation of peace you can buy by the month…
They have brilliantly commodified the isolation that so many of us feel. When social anxiety leaves you feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to face a local community group, the Syndicate steps in – not to offer genuine, human healing of course, but to sell you a corporate placeholder instead. They want you to invest in their artificial safety nets:
- The AI Companion App: Premium subscriptions to digital coaches that allow you to “practice” social skills with a computer chip (because nothing says “healing your social anxiety” quite like having a heartfelt conversation with a motherboard that requires a firmware update!).
- The Wearable Shield: Active noise-cancelling headphones that automatically drown out the ambient chatter of the public street, wrapping you in an algorithmic bubble so you never have to accidentally hear a neighbour’s friendly chatter.
An anxious, isolated population is the ultimate goldmine. When we are conditioned to feel entirely disconnected, inadequate, or just plain out of practice, we constantly spend money. We’re trying to purchase peace of mind instead of finding genuine human connection.
III. The Outcast Manifesto: Just Do It! 🔗👥
The Syndicate is terrified of people who are entirely comfortable with their own rough edges. They want us predictable, vacuum-sealed and uniform.
True confidence isn’t the absence of anxiety; it’s the willingness to let your hands shake a little and stand in the room anyway. Your quirks, your stumbles, your beautifully un-scripted human reactions… that is not a bug in your programming. That is your humanity… fighting its way out of the matrix.
The Mental Health Foundation emphasises that real peer support and community connection are the truest pillars of long-term well-being. We don’t need to be “special” or polished by the corporate definition. We just need to show up, exactly as we are (even if we are standing in the corner chewing on a fingernail!).
The Citizen Jane Field Guide™️ (The “I Belong Here” Rebellion) ✊🔥
1. The Analogue Noticeboard Hunt: Find a local, physical noticeboard – the kind made of actual cork in a community library, a scruffy independent cafe, or a post office. (Don’t search for local groups on an app!) Pick one real-world group, talk, or workshop listed on that board and write the details down on a scrap of paper (bonus points if the poster has those little tear-off phone number strips. Double bonus points if you actually attend!). 📌📋
2. The “Lofi” Acoustic Stroll: The next time you walk to the local shops, leave your headphones at home. Force your brain to digest the ambient, chaotic soundtrack of your neighbourhood – the passing traffic, a snippet of a stranger’s conversation about their cat, the wind through the trees. Step out of the corporate “audio bubble”. 🎧❌
3. The “Come As You Are” Protocol: Organise a get-together with a friend or family member where the explicit rule is Zero Presentation. No tidying the house, no dressing up, no fancy biscuits. Meet in your worst loungewear and don’t worry about any unwashed dishes. If your house looks like a small explosion happened in a laundry basket, leave it. Eliminate the aesthetic pressure entirely. ☕😎
4. The Intergenerational Handshake: The Syndicate wants the younger generation locked away, too terrified to speak to a stranger. But, the older generations grew up in a world where you had to talk to people just to find out what time the bus arrived! Older rebels: we don’t suffer from this tech-induced social awkwardness, so use your superpower. Break the simulation for a younger person by starting a completely spontaneous, low-stakes chat. Younger rebels: drop the phone and ask an elder a practical question (like how on earth to bleed a radiator or make a proper gravy from scratch!). Let’s trade algorithmic data for actual human wisdom. 🚫📱
Join the Rebellion: Take Up Space 🎸💪
The machine wants us quiet, scrolling and convinced that we aren’t quite polished enough to step out into the light. But, it will never be able to replace the electricity of a room full of people sharing a genuine, human experience.
On this final day of Mental Health Awareness Week, let’s refuse to hide in the shadows for a second longer. Step forward, dig out your Doc Marten’s and take up space. You do belong here!
Your Mission: In the comments below, tell me about a time you completely messed up a social cue, tripped over your words, or had a beautifully awkward real-world interaction – and survived it. Let’s celebrate our collective “glitches” and show the Syndicate that together, we are reaching full un-optimisability! 👇
Citizen Jane x ✌️

If you’re struggling right now, please reach out to someone:📱📞 💬
UK: Call Samaritans for free at 116 123 anytime.
US: Access the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline through local crisis services.
Global: Find a local helpline via Befrienders Worldwide or IASP.

https://youtu.be/XFkzRNyygfk?si=CeYml2FUboDjMnUJ

Rate This
#ai #blog #citizenjane #creep #frictionlessliving #health
The Generation X Files @thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com@thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com · 2026-05-17 · 17:31 UTC
Creep
6–9 minutes
Picture a sticky dancefloor in a dim, indie club in Scotland, circa 1993…
The air smells of cheap cider and smoke mixed with a dry ice machine that hasn’t been cleaned since 1982… and just the slightest hint of vomit and pee…
Suddenly… those two explosive, distorted guitar crunches hit the speakers. The entire room (a sea of oversized cardigans and scuffed Doc Martens) surges forward. We are all screaming at the top of our lungs: “I wish I was special… but I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo”. 🎶
Here is the beautiful paradox of that memory: we were shouting about not belonging but, we were doing it together. It was a glorious, sweaty collective of self-proclaimed misfits finding absolute community in our imperfections. If you felt like you didn’t quite fit into the world, you belonged there. Packed shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of other people who felt the same way…
Fast forward to Sunday, May 17, 2026. Today is the final day of Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK and we are right in the thick of Mental Health Awareness Month across the pond.
But, let’s look at the reality behind the pastel-coloured awareness slogans.
The Syndicate has taken our raw, human vulnerability (the genuine, heart-pounding reality of social anxiety) and turned it into a multi-billion-pound tech commodity. They have isolated the misfits and made us fearful to leave our homes and interact with each other. And I bet it won’t be long till they’re charging us a monthly subscription fee just to look out the window!
I wasn’t the quiet kid hiding in the shadows at parties; I’ve always been a confident extrovert. But, you don’t need to be diagnosed with clinical social anxiety to understand the massive psychological manipulation happening around us. The system is actively engineering a world that makes the real one feel too overwhelming to step into…
I. The Atrophy of the Social Muscle 🚫👋
Social anxiety isn’t just “feeling a bit shy”. According to the Mind Mental Health Charity, it is a deeply distressing experience that can cause intense physical symptoms, from a racing pulse to cognitive overload. It is a heavy, exhausting burden.
And yet, the Syndicate’s grandest business strategy of the 2020’s has been the weaponisation of this fear, through a concept they call “Frictionless Living“. A modern lifestyle engineered around maximum convenience, where algorithms, apps and automation eliminate everyday “hassles” and manual labour.
While it promises to make our lives easier, a completely frictionless existence can actually lead to feelings of listlessness and disconnection.
They have systematically stripped away the small, low-stakes “social training grounds” of human society. Think about it: whether you are 22 or 92, you are now forced to interact with Chatbot “assistants”, fast-food touchscreens and barcode scanners… instead of actual humans.
They tell us they are saving us time. What they are actually doing is eliminating the clumsy, necessary practice of casual human exposure.
By removing the tiny, everyday “awkwardness” of talking to a stranger, our collective social muscles have atrophied. We are out of practice. The real world now feels terrifyingly unpredictable… because we’ve been conditioned to live in a sterile, predictable, digital simulation (where nobody ever accidentally mispronounces “croissant” at a bakery counter!).
II. Muted and Alone: The Lucrative Business of Social Anxiety 🔇💰
Thom Yorke sang about the crushing weight of looking at an impossible standard – someone who “floats like a feather in a beautiful world”. In 2026, the Syndicate packages that impossible grace on a loop, serving up a corporate simulation of peace you can buy by the month…
They have brilliantly commodified the isolation that so many of us feel. When social anxiety leaves you feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to face a local community group, the Syndicate steps in – not to offer genuine, human healing of course, but to sell you a corporate placeholder instead. They want you to invest in their artificial safety nets:
- The AI Companion App: Premium subscriptions to digital coaches that allow you to “practice” social skills with a computer chip (because nothing says “healing your social anxiety” quite like having a heartfelt conversation with a motherboard that requires a firmware update!).
- The Wearable Shield: Active noise-cancelling headphones that automatically drown out the ambient chatter of the public street, wrapping you in an algorithmic bubble so you never have to accidentally hear a neighbour’s friendly chatter.
An anxious, isolated population is the ultimate goldmine. When we are conditioned to feel entirely disconnected, inadequate, or just plain out of practice, we constantly spend money. We’re trying to purchase peace of mind instead of finding genuine human connection.
III. The Outcast Manifesto: Just Do It! 🔗👥
The Syndicate is terrified of people who are entirely comfortable with their own rough edges. They want us predictable, vacuum-sealed and uniform.
True confidence isn’t the absence of anxiety; it’s the willingness to let your hands shake a little and stand in the room anyway. Your quirks, your stumbles, your beautifully un-scripted human reactions… that is not a bug in your programming. That is your humanity… fighting its way out of the matrix.
The Mental Health Foundation emphasises that real peer support and community connection are the truest pillars of long-term well-being. We don’t need to be “special” or polished by the corporate definition. We just need to show up, exactly as we are (even if we are standing in the corner chewing on a fingernail!).
The Citizen Jane Field Guide™️ (The “I Belong Here” Rebellion) ✊🔥
1. The Analogue Noticeboard Hunt: Find a local, physical noticeboard – the kind made of actual cork in a community library, a scruffy independent cafe, or a post office. (Don’t search for local groups on an app!) Pick one real-world group, talk, or workshop listed on that board and write the details down on a scrap of paper (bonus points if the poster has those little tear-off phone number strips. Double bonus points if you actually attend!). 📌📋
2. The “Lofi” Acoustic Stroll: The next time you walk to the local shops, leave your headphones at home. Force your brain to digest the ambient, chaotic soundtrack of your neighbourhood – the passing traffic, a snippet of a stranger’s conversation about their cat, the wind through the trees. Step out of the corporate “audio bubble”. 🎧❌
3. The “Come As You Are” Protocol: Organise a get-together with a friend or family member where the explicit rule is Zero Presentation. No tidying the house, no dressing up, no fancy biscuits. Meet in your worst loungewear and don’t worry about any unwashed dishes. If your house looks like a small explosion happened in a laundry basket, leave it. Eliminate the aesthetic pressure entirely. ☕😎
4. The Intergenerational Handshake: The Syndicate wants the younger generation locked away, too terrified to speak to a stranger. But, the older generations grew up in a world where you had to talk to people just to find out what time the bus arrived! Older rebels: we don’t suffer from this tech-induced social awkwardness, so use your superpower. Break the simulation for a younger person by starting a completely spontaneous, low-stakes chat. Younger rebels: drop the phone and ask an elder a practical question (like how on earth to bleed a radiator or make a proper gravy from scratch!). Let’s trade algorithmic data for actual human wisdom. 🚫📱
Join the Rebellion: Take Up Space 🎸💪
The machine wants us quiet, scrolling and convinced that we aren’t quite polished enough to step out into the light. But, it will never be able to replace the electricity of a room full of people sharing a genuine, human experience.
On this final day of Mental Health Awareness Week, let’s refuse to hide in the shadows for a second longer. Step forward, dig out your Doc Marten’s and take up space. You do belong here!
Your Mission: In the comments below, tell me about a time you completely messed up a social cue, tripped over your words, or had a beautifully awkward real-world interaction – and survived it. Let’s celebrate our collective “glitches” and show the Syndicate that together, we are reaching full un-optimisability! 👇
Citizen Jane x ✌️

If you’re struggling right now, please reach out to someone:📱📞 💬
UK: Call Samaritans for free at 116 123 anytime.
US: Access the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline through local crisis services.
Global: Find a local helpline via Befrienders Worldwide or IASP.

https://youtu.be/XFkzRNyygfk?si=CeYml2FUboDjMnUJ

Rate This
#ai #blog #citizenjane #creep #frictionlessliving #health
The Generation X Files @thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com@thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com · 2026-05-17 · 17:31 UTC
Creep
6–9 minutes
Picture a sticky dancefloor in a dim, indie club in Scotland, circa 1993…
The air smells of cheap cider and smoke mixed with a dry ice machine that hasn’t been cleaned since 1982… and just the slightest hint of vomit and pee…
Suddenly… those two explosive, distorted guitar crunches hit the speakers. The entire room (a sea of oversized cardigans and scuffed Doc Martens) surges forward. We are all screaming at the top of our lungs: “I wish I was special… but I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo”. 🎶
Here is the beautiful paradox of that memory: we were shouting about not belonging but, we were doing it together. It was a glorious, sweaty collective of self-proclaimed misfits finding absolute community in our imperfections. If you felt like you didn’t quite fit into the world, you belonged there. Packed shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of other people who felt the same way…
Fast forward to Sunday, May 17, 2026. Today is the final day of Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK and we are right in the thick of Mental Health Awareness Month across the pond.
But, let’s look at the reality behind the pastel-coloured awareness slogans.
The Syndicate has taken our raw, human vulnerability (the genuine, heart-pounding reality of social anxiety) and turned it into a multi-billion-pound tech commodity. They have isolated the misfits and made us fearful to leave our homes and interact with each other. And I bet it won’t be long till they’re charging us a monthly subscription fee just to look out the window!
I wasn’t the quiet kid hiding in the shadows at parties; I’ve always been a confident extrovert. But, you don’t need to be diagnosed with clinical social anxiety to understand the massive psychological manipulation happening around us. The system is actively engineering a world that makes the real one feel too overwhelming to step into…
I. The Atrophy of the Social Muscle 🚫👋
Social anxiety isn’t just “feeling a bit shy”. According to the Mind Mental Health Charity, it is a deeply distressing experience that can cause intense physical symptoms, from a racing pulse to cognitive overload. It is a heavy, exhausting burden.
And yet, the Syndicate’s grandest business strategy of the 2020’s has been the weaponisation of this fear, through a concept they call “Frictionless Living“. A modern lifestyle engineered around maximum convenience, where algorithms, apps and automation eliminate everyday “hassles” and manual labour.
While it promises to make our lives easier, a completely frictionless existence can actually lead to feelings of listlessness and disconnection.
They have systematically stripped away the small, low-stakes “social training grounds” of human society. Think about it: whether you are 22 or 92, you are now forced to interact with Chatbot “assistants”, fast-food touchscreens and barcode scanners… instead of actual humans.
They tell us they are saving us time. What they are actually doing is eliminating the clumsy, necessary practice of casual human exposure.
By removing the tiny, everyday “awkwardness” of talking to a stranger, our collective social muscles have atrophied. We are out of practice. The real world now feels terrifyingly unpredictable… because we’ve been conditioned to live in a sterile, predictable, digital simulation (where nobody ever accidentally mispronounces “croissant” at a bakery counter!).
II. Muted and Alone: The Lucrative Business of Social Anxiety 🔇💰
Thom Yorke sang about the crushing weight of looking at an impossible standard – someone who “floats like a feather in a beautiful world”. In 2026, the Syndicate packages that impossible grace on a loop, serving up a corporate simulation of peace you can buy by the month…
They have brilliantly commodified the isolation that so many of us feel. When social anxiety leaves you feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to face a local community group, the Syndicate steps in – not to offer genuine, human healing of course, but to sell you a corporate placeholder instead. They want you to invest in their artificial safety nets:
- The AI Companion App: Premium subscriptions to digital coaches that allow you to “practice” social skills with a computer chip (because nothing says “healing your social anxiety” quite like having a heartfelt conversation with a motherboard that requires a firmware update!).
- The Wearable Shield: Active noise-cancelling headphones that automatically drown out the ambient chatter of the public street, wrapping you in an algorithmic bubble so you never have to accidentally hear a neighbour’s friendly chatter.
An anxious, isolated population is the ultimate goldmine. When we are conditioned to feel entirely disconnected, inadequate, or just plain out of practice, we constantly spend money. We’re trying to purchase peace of mind instead of finding genuine human connection.
III. The Outcast Manifesto: Just Do It! 🔗👥
The Syndicate is terrified of people who are entirely comfortable with their own rough edges. They want us predictable, vacuum-sealed and uniform.
True confidence isn’t the absence of anxiety; it’s the willingness to let your hands shake a little and stand in the room anyway. Your quirks, your stumbles, your beautifully un-scripted human reactions… that is not a bug in your programming. That is your humanity… fighting its way out of the matrix.
The Mental Health Foundation emphasises that real peer support and community connection are the truest pillars of long-term well-being. We don’t need to be “special” or polished by the corporate definition. We just need to show up, exactly as we are (even if we are standing in the corner chewing on a fingernail!).
The Citizen Jane Field Guide™️ (The “I Belong Here” Rebellion) ✊🔥
1. The Analogue Noticeboard Hunt: Find a local, physical noticeboard – the kind made of actual cork in a community library, a scruffy independent cafe, or a post office. (Don’t search for local groups on an app!) Pick one real-world group, talk, or workshop listed on that board and write the details down on a scrap of paper (bonus points if the poster has those little tear-off phone number strips. Double bonus points if you actually attend!). 📌📋
2. The “Lofi” Acoustic Stroll: The next time you walk to the local shops, leave your headphones at home. Force your brain to digest the ambient, chaotic soundtrack of your neighbourhood – the passing traffic, a snippet of a stranger’s conversation about their cat, the wind through the trees. Step out of the corporate “audio bubble”. 🎧❌
3. The “Come As You Are” Protocol: Organise a get-together with a friend or family member where the explicit rule is Zero Presentation. No tidying the house, no dressing up, no fancy biscuits. Meet in your worst loungewear and don’t worry about any unwashed dishes. If your house looks like a small explosion happened in a laundry basket, leave it. Eliminate the aesthetic pressure entirely. ☕😎
4. The Intergenerational Handshake: The Syndicate wants the younger generation locked away, too terrified to speak to a stranger. But, the older generations grew up in a world where you had to talk to people just to find out what time the bus arrived! Older rebels: we don’t suffer from this tech-induced social awkwardness, so use your superpower. Break the simulation for a younger person by starting a completely spontaneous, low-stakes chat. Younger rebels: drop the phone and ask an elder a practical question (like how on earth to bleed a radiator or make a proper gravy from scratch!). Let’s trade algorithmic data for actual human wisdom. 🚫📱
Join the Rebellion: Take Up Space 🎸💪
The machine wants us quiet, scrolling and convinced that we aren’t quite polished enough to step out into the light. But, it will never be able to replace the electricity of a room full of people sharing a genuine, human experience.
On this final day of Mental Health Awareness Week, let’s refuse to hide in the shadows for a second longer. Step forward, dig out your Doc Marten’s and take up space. You do belong here!
Your Mission: In the comments below, tell me about a time you completely messed up a social cue, tripped over your words, or had a beautifully awkward real-world interaction – and survived it. Let’s celebrate our collective “glitches” and show the Syndicate that together, we are reaching full un-optimisability! 👇
Citizen Jane x ✌️

If you’re struggling right now, please reach out to someone:📱📞 💬
UK: Call Samaritans for free at 116 123 anytime.
US: Access the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline through local crisis services.
Global: Find a local helpline via Befrienders Worldwide or IASP.

https://youtu.be/XFkzRNyygfk?si=CeYml2FUboDjMnUJ

Rate This
#writing #thegenerationxfiles #socialanxiety #resilience #rebellion #mentalhealth
The Generation X Files @thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com@thegenerationxfiles.wordpress.com · 2026-05-17 · 17:31 UTC
Creep
6–9 minutes
Picture a sticky dancefloor in a dim, indie club in Scotland, circa 1993…
The air smells of cheap cider and smoke mixed with a dry ice machine that hasn’t been cleaned since 1982… and just the slightest hint of vomit and pee…
Suddenly… those two explosive, distorted guitar crunches hit the speakers. The entire room (a sea of oversized cardigans and scuffed Doc Martens) surges forward. We are all screaming at the top of our lungs: “I wish I was special… but I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo”. 🎶
Here is the beautiful paradox of that memory: we were shouting about not belonging but, we were doing it together. It was a glorious, sweaty collective of self-proclaimed misfits finding absolute community in our imperfections. If you felt like you didn’t quite fit into the world, you belonged there. Packed shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of other people who felt the same way…
Fast forward to Sunday, May 17, 2026. Today is the final day of Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK and we are right in the thick of Mental Health Awareness Month across the pond.
But, let’s look at the reality behind the pastel-coloured awareness slogans.
The Syndicate has taken our raw, human vulnerability (the genuine, heart-pounding reality of social anxiety) and turned it into a multi-billion-pound tech commodity. They have isolated the misfits and made us fearful to leave our homes and interact with each other. And I bet it won’t be long till they’re charging us a monthly subscription fee just to look out the window!
I wasn’t the quiet kid hiding in the shadows at parties; I’ve always been a confident extrovert. But, you don’t need to be diagnosed with clinical social anxiety to understand the massive psychological manipulation happening around us. The system is actively engineering a world that makes the real one feel too overwhelming to step into…
I. The Atrophy of the Social Muscle 🚫👋
Social anxiety isn’t just “feeling a bit shy”. According to the Mind Mental Health Charity, it is a deeply distressing experience that can cause intense physical symptoms, from a racing pulse to cognitive overload. It is a heavy, exhausting burden.
And yet, the Syndicate’s grandest business strategy of the 2020’s has been the weaponisation of this fear, through a concept they call “Frictionless Living“. A modern lifestyle engineered around maximum convenience, where algorithms, apps and automation eliminate everyday “hassles” and manual labour.
While it promises to make our lives easier, a completely frictionless existence can actually lead to feelings of listlessness and disconnection.
They have systematically stripped away the small, low-stakes “social training grounds” of human society. Think about it: whether you are 22 or 92, you are now forced to interact with Chatbot “assistants”, fast-food touchscreens and barcode scanners… instead of actual humans.
They tell us they are saving us time. What they are actually doing is eliminating the clumsy, necessary practice of casual human exposure.
By removing the tiny, everyday “awkwardness” of talking to a stranger, our collective social muscles have atrophied. We are out of practice. The real world now feels terrifyingly unpredictable… because we’ve been conditioned to live in a sterile, predictable, digital simulation (where nobody ever accidentally mispronounces “croissant” at a bakery counter!).
II. Muted and Alone: The Lucrative Business of Social Anxiety 🔇💰
Thom Yorke sang about the crushing weight of looking at an impossible standard – someone who “floats like a feather in a beautiful world”. In 2026, the Syndicate packages that impossible grace on a loop, serving up a corporate simulation of peace you can buy by the month…
They have brilliantly commodified the isolation that so many of us feel. When social anxiety leaves you feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to face a local community group, the Syndicate steps in – not to offer genuine, human healing of course, but to sell you a corporate placeholder instead. They want you to invest in their artificial safety nets:
- The AI Companion App: Premium subscriptions to digital coaches that allow you to “practice” social skills with a computer chip (because nothing says “healing your social anxiety” quite like having a heartfelt conversation with a motherboard that requires a firmware update!).
- The Wearable Shield: Active noise-cancelling headphones that automatically drown out the ambient chatter of the public street, wrapping you in an algorithmic bubble so you never have to accidentally hear a neighbour’s friendly chatter.
An anxious, isolated population is the ultimate goldmine. When we are conditioned to feel entirely disconnected, inadequate, or just plain out of practice, we constantly spend money. We’re trying to purchase peace of mind instead of finding genuine human connection.
III. The Outcast Manifesto: Just Do It! 🔗👥
The Syndicate is terrified of people who are entirely comfortable with their own rough edges. They want us predictable, vacuum-sealed and uniform.
True confidence isn’t the absence of anxiety; it’s the willingness to let your hands shake a little and stand in the room anyway. Your quirks, your stumbles, your beautifully un-scripted human reactions… that is not a bug in your programming. That is your humanity… fighting its way out of the matrix.
The Mental Health Foundation emphasises that real peer support and community connection are the truest pillars of long-term well-being. We don’t need to be “special” or polished by the corporate definition. We just need to show up, exactly as we are (even if we are standing in the corner chewing on a fingernail!).
The Citizen Jane Field Guide™️ (The “I Belong Here” Rebellion) ✊🔥
1. The Analogue Noticeboard Hunt: Find a local, physical noticeboard – the kind made of actual cork in a community library, a scruffy independent cafe, or a post office. (Don’t search for local groups on an app!) Pick one real-world group, talk, or workshop listed on that board and write the details down on a scrap of paper (bonus points if the poster has those little tear-off phone number strips. Double bonus points if you actually attend!). 📌📋
2. The “Lofi” Acoustic Stroll: The next time you walk to the local shops, leave your headphones at home. Force your brain to digest the ambient, chaotic soundtrack of your neighbourhood – the passing traffic, a snippet of a stranger’s conversation about their cat, the wind through the trees. Step out of the corporate “audio bubble”. 🎧❌
3. The “Come As You Are” Protocol: Organise a get-together with a friend or family member where the explicit rule is Zero Presentation. No tidying the house, no dressing up, no fancy biscuits. Meet in your worst loungewear and don’t worry about any unwashed dishes. If your house looks like a small explosion happened in a laundry basket, leave it. Eliminate the aesthetic pressure entirely. ☕😎
4. The Intergenerational Handshake: The Syndicate wants the younger generation locked away, too terrified to speak to a stranger. But, the older generations grew up in a world where you had to talk to people just to find out what time the bus arrived! Older rebels: we don’t suffer from this tech-induced social awkwardness, so use your superpower. Break the simulation for a younger person by starting a completely spontaneous, low-stakes chat. Younger rebels: drop the phone and ask an elder a practical question (like how on earth to bleed a radiator or make a proper gravy from scratch!). Let’s trade algorithmic data for actual human wisdom. 🚫📱
Join the Rebellion: Take Up Space 🎸💪
The machine wants us quiet, scrolling and convinced that we aren’t quite polished enough to step out into the light. But, it will never be able to replace the electricity of a room full of people sharing a genuine, human experience.
On this final day of Mental Health Awareness Week, let’s refuse to hide in the shadows for a second longer. Step forward, dig out your Doc Marten’s and take up space. You do belong here!
Your Mission: In the comments below, tell me about a time you completely messed up a social cue, tripped over your words, or had a beautifully awkward real-world interaction – and survived it. Let’s celebrate our collective “glitches” and show the Syndicate that together, we are reaching full un-optimisability! 👇
Citizen Jane x ✌️

If you’re struggling right now, please reach out to someone:📱📞 💬
UK: Call Samaritans for free at 116 123 anytime.
US: Access the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline through local crisis services.
Global: Find a local helpline via Befrienders Worldwide or IASP.

https://youtu.be/XFkzRNyygfk?si=CeYml2FUboDjMnUJ

Rate This
#ai #blog #citizenjane #creep #frictionlessliving #health
pasjrwoctx👽 @[email protected] · 2025-02-11 · 21:28 UTC

My Vision,
When we all live with and show true compassion, respect and love towards one another, we bring dignity to humanity and we as a society can truly prosper.
Creative Visionary Philip A. Swiderski Jr, Is A passionately creative Bi-Polar social outcast, who’s goal in life is to inspire others to overcome what ever is holding them back. My mental issues foster my creativity. They allow me to see the world with an open mind. I have compassion towards others, because I know first hand. How hard life can be.
2nd Shot Photography is about 2nd chances and using my #Passion of photography to #Create a life for myself, while developing a #Vision to #Help others.
2nd Shot Photography is more than #Photography, it is about Focusing on the shot, the name 2nd Shot Photography came to be out of desire to have a second shot, although sometimes we need a 3rd, 4th, 5th, ect, My goal behind this is to provide a moment of rest for those that are broken, suffering, struggling and otherwise displaced in life, Compassion is to actively remove the burdens of another and give them a moment to rest, to provide them with the help they need to get back on their feet, a Second Shot, if you will, so thats the name, the short story behind it, and what I am working on creating with it, you can support at any time, and sharing is caring, stay tuned to see what develops.
Current Needs And Hope To Do: From Hunger to Hope: A Disabled Man’s Plea for Help Imagine the bite of hunger replaced by hope. One click can make it real. As a disabled man living in poverty with bipolar disorder, PTSD, ADD/ADHD, and severe anxiety, I’m no stranger to hunger and hardship. My reality is a constant battle for basic needs, a fight I wage every day. My Story I’m on SSDI, which means I live on a fixed income of $12,000 a year. I don’t have access to healthcare, transportation, or a support system. I struggle to complete daily tasks, and my mental health is declining due to lack of care. I’m constantly worried about what to eat, where to sleep, and how to make ends meet. But There’s Hope Your kindness can rewrite the script. With just a click, you can transform the clatter of an empty cupboard into the melody of hope ringing in my belly. A single donation becomes a shield against hunger, a warm coat against the biting wind, and a bus ticket towards a future brimming with possibilities.
How Your Donation Helps Here’s how your small act of compassion becomes a giant leap towards stability: A Full Plate: Your gift fills my fridge with nourishing food, fueling my body and mind to battle the storm of bipolar disorder. Warmth Against the Chill: Your generosity drapes me in comfort, shielding me from the harshness of the world and allowing me to focus on healing. Mobility, Not Isolation: Your contribution puts me behind the wheel of opportunity, connecting me to crucial appointments and empowering me to manage my health. Stability, Not Despair: Your kindness becomes the cornerstone of a safe haven, a sanctuary where I can dream and rebuild my life, brick by brick. My Vision I want to build a forever home, a place where I can live without worrying about my basic needs. I dream of creating a creative studio, a tranquil RV camping ground, and a community center. I want to restore an old farm house and turn it into a bed and breakfast. I want to create an organic farm, to never go hungry again, I want to be able to set up as many tiny homes as possible on my property, that will be open to those in need of respite and compassion, a place for those that have been battling a losing fight, so that they can rest and find their footing in life, I want to live a life with purpose and dignity.
The Benefits of Supporting Me By donating to my cause, you’ll not only be helping me achieve my vision, but also contributing to a larger impact: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: Your support will help me break free from the cycle of poverty and create a sustainable life. Promoting Mental Health Awareness: By sharing my story, you’ll be helping to raise awareness about mental health and the challenges faced by people with disabilities and living in poverty. Empowering Creativity: Your donation will enable me to pursue my creative passions and bring joy to others through my art. Building a Community: Together, we can create a community that values inclusivity, compassion, and support for people with disabilities, and those living in poverty.
How You Can Help I need your help to make my vision a reality. Here are some ways you can help: Donate: Any amount will help, whether it’s $1.50 or $10,000. Your contribution will go towards food, housing, and hiring a qualified advocate to help me navigate the system. Share: Please share my story with your friends and family. I need to reach as many people as possible to make my vision a reality. Support: If you have any skills or expertise that can help me, please reach out. I need advocates, social workers, and professionals who can guide me through this process.
Let’s Rewrite My Story Together Please, share my story. Spread the ripple of possibility. And when you’re ready, join me in this fight with a donation, no matter how small. Together, we can turn hunger into hope, cold into warmth, and isolation into community. Be a Hero in My Story Thank you for taking the time to read my story. Thank you for considering my plea for help. I know that together, we can make a difference.
A home one can own, is a home in one can grow, Security, Sustainability, and Stability are keys to healing past traumas and having a prosperous future, A home one can own, ends poverty, and always offers refuge and the opportunity to provide self sufficiency, Owning my own forever home, will allow me so much more than struggling just to barley exist.
So you maybe wondering how exactly I would use $5million if I was to receive it all at once and today, well let me break it down a little for you, of course it starts with actually receiving enough to cover taxes on $5million and processing fees, anyways your wanting info,
I have a plan of spending $2million on purchasing property, hopefully it is between 100-200acres and would have an old farm house on it that is actually still liveable, and of course an old barn, along with the purchase I am hoping to stay within this price range as a total where I would also build my forever home, a small but efficient home and I would like to of course fully furnish my forever home,
So now I have $3million left, I plan on spending $1million on refurbishing the old farm house and converting it into an bed and breakfast, and renovating the old barn and turning into a bit of a community center, with full laundry and bath facilities, a semi commercial kitchen with a full time coffee cafe, that will offer soup and sandwiches,
Now I have $2million left, in which $500k to set up my small organic farm, and cover all the odds and ends I have yet to deal with, leaving me with around $1.5million which I will use to live off of for the rest of my life, which roughly works out to $37k a year for the next 40 years, allowing me to cover taxes, utilities and all the other life costs.
My hopes are that the bed and breakfast will generate enough money each season to help supplement property maintenance taxes, the community center I hope to sell enough coffee, soups and salads to help fund the farm until it can somewhat sustain its self, along with providing meals and facilities to those in need.
Now of course I am very aware of market changes, and cost of goods, and labor ect and know that things may all have to happen in a slower and out of order pace to truly do what I want, but eventually I hope to be able to add a campground that too will bring in revenue that will help the day to day costs of everything, nothing is really for profit, but for maintenance and slowly growing, in where I also hope to set up several small tiny homes, to offer to those in need of compassionate respite,
I have spent many years thinking and planing and I am confident had some said right now Philip here $5million, go do what you want with it, I can make it both a blessing to me, and for others for years to come. I have chosen Northern Vermont or Maine as my destination of choice, as 4 seasons really fit into the whole artist approach I plan on employing through out my endeavor, along with hopefully the property I select will have a healthy stand of maple trees on, in which I would love to harvest small batch maple syrup from to add to my supplies, and well there is so much more, but spilling the beans sometimes is both overwhelming and self defeating so exactly how all this will happen and work as far as the public is currently concerned is going to remain a bit of a mystery,
Now all I need your support to get this rolling, and as a disabled man living in poverty, and suffering and struggling every single day, there is a very real sense of urgency for your support begin rolling in right now so please share this with everyone in your circle and please support now,
Thank You
Philip A. Swiderski Jr,
$5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…

#disabled #poverty #cashapp #paypal #bipolar #woctxphotog
pasjrwoctx👽 @[email protected] · 2025-02-11 · 21:28 UTC

My Vision,
When we all live with and show true compassion, respect and love towards one another, we bring dignity to humanity and we as a society can truly prosper.
Creative Visionary Philip A. Swiderski Jr, Is A passionately creative Bi-Polar social outcast, who’s goal in life is to inspire others to overcome what ever is holding them back. My mental issues foster my creativity. They allow me to see the world with an open mind. I have compassion towards others, because I know first hand. How hard life can be.
2nd Shot Photography is about 2nd chances and using my #Passion of photography to #Create a life for myself, while developing a #Vision to #Help others.
2nd Shot Photography is more than #Photography, it is about Focusing on the shot, the name 2nd Shot Photography came to be out of desire to have a second shot, although sometimes we need a 3rd, 4th, 5th, ect, My goal behind this is to provide a moment of rest for those that are broken, suffering, struggling and otherwise displaced in life, Compassion is to actively remove the burdens of another and give them a moment to rest, to provide them with the help they need to get back on their feet, a Second Shot, if you will, so thats the name, the short story behind it, and what I am working on creating with it, you can support at any time, and sharing is caring, stay tuned to see what develops.
Current Needs And Hope To Do: From Hunger to Hope: A Disabled Man’s Plea for Help Imagine the bite of hunger replaced by hope. One click can make it real. As a disabled man living in poverty with bipolar disorder, PTSD, ADD/ADHD, and severe anxiety, I’m no stranger to hunger and hardship. My reality is a constant battle for basic needs, a fight I wage every day. My Story I’m on SSDI, which means I live on a fixed income of $12,000 a year. I don’t have access to healthcare, transportation, or a support system. I struggle to complete daily tasks, and my mental health is declining due to lack of care. I’m constantly worried about what to eat, where to sleep, and how to make ends meet. But There’s Hope Your kindness can rewrite the script. With just a click, you can transform the clatter of an empty cupboard into the melody of hope ringing in my belly. A single donation becomes a shield against hunger, a warm coat against the biting wind, and a bus ticket towards a future brimming with possibilities.
How Your Donation Helps Here’s how your small act of compassion becomes a giant leap towards stability: A Full Plate: Your gift fills my fridge with nourishing food, fueling my body and mind to battle the storm of bipolar disorder. Warmth Against the Chill: Your generosity drapes me in comfort, shielding me from the harshness of the world and allowing me to focus on healing. Mobility, Not Isolation: Your contribution puts me behind the wheel of opportunity, connecting me to crucial appointments and empowering me to manage my health. Stability, Not Despair: Your kindness becomes the cornerstone of a safe haven, a sanctuary where I can dream and rebuild my life, brick by brick. My Vision I want to build a forever home, a place where I can live without worrying about my basic needs. I dream of creating a creative studio, a tranquil RV camping ground, and a community center. I want to restore an old farm house and turn it into a bed and breakfast. I want to create an organic farm, to never go hungry again, I want to be able to set up as many tiny homes as possible on my property, that will be open to those in need of respite and compassion, a place for those that have been battling a losing fight, so that they can rest and find their footing in life, I want to live a life with purpose and dignity.
The Benefits of Supporting Me By donating to my cause, you’ll not only be helping me achieve my vision, but also contributing to a larger impact: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: Your support will help me break free from the cycle of poverty and create a sustainable life. Promoting Mental Health Awareness: By sharing my story, you’ll be helping to raise awareness about mental health and the challenges faced by people with disabilities and living in poverty. Empowering Creativity: Your donation will enable me to pursue my creative passions and bring joy to others through my art. Building a Community: Together, we can create a community that values inclusivity, compassion, and support for people with disabilities, and those living in poverty.
How You Can Help I need your help to make my vision a reality. Here are some ways you can help: Donate: Any amount will help, whether it’s $1.50 or $10,000. Your contribution will go towards food, housing, and hiring a qualified advocate to help me navigate the system. Share: Please share my story with your friends and family. I need to reach as many people as possible to make my vision a reality. Support: If you have any skills or expertise that can help me, please reach out. I need advocates, social workers, and professionals who can guide me through this process.
Let’s Rewrite My Story Together Please, share my story. Spread the ripple of possibility. And when you’re ready, join me in this fight with a donation, no matter how small. Together, we can turn hunger into hope, cold into warmth, and isolation into community. Be a Hero in My Story Thank you for taking the time to read my story. Thank you for considering my plea for help. I know that together, we can make a difference.
A home one can own, is a home in one can grow, Security, Sustainability, and Stability are keys to healing past traumas and having a prosperous future, A home one can own, ends poverty, and always offers refuge and the opportunity to provide self sufficiency, Owning my own forever home, will allow me so much more than struggling just to barley exist.
So you maybe wondering how exactly I would use $5million if I was to receive it all at once and today, well let me break it down a little for you, of course it starts with actually receiving enough to cover taxes on $5million and processing fees, anyways your wanting info,
I have a plan of spending $2million on purchasing property, hopefully it is between 100-200acres and would have an old farm house on it that is actually still liveable, and of course an old barn, along with the purchase I am hoping to stay within this price range as a total where I would also build my forever home, a small but efficient home and I would like to of course fully furnish my forever home,
So now I have $3million left, I plan on spending $1million on refurbishing the old farm house and converting it into an bed and breakfast, and renovating the old barn and turning into a bit of a community center, with full laundry and bath facilities, a semi commercial kitchen with a full time coffee cafe, that will offer soup and sandwiches,
Now I have $2million left, in which $500k to set up my small organic farm, and cover all the odds and ends I have yet to deal with, leaving me with around $1.5million which I will use to live off of for the rest of my life, which roughly works out to $37k a year for the next 40 years, allowing me to cover taxes, utilities and all the other life costs.
My hopes are that the bed and breakfast will generate enough money each season to help supplement property maintenance taxes, the community center I hope to sell enough coffee, soups and salads to help fund the farm until it can somewhat sustain its self, along with providing meals and facilities to those in need.
Now of course I am very aware of market changes, and cost of goods, and labor ect and know that things may all have to happen in a slower and out of order pace to truly do what I want, but eventually I hope to be able to add a campground that too will bring in revenue that will help the day to day costs of everything, nothing is really for profit, but for maintenance and slowly growing, in where I also hope to set up several small tiny homes, to offer to those in need of compassionate respite,
I have spent many years thinking and planing and I am confident had some said right now Philip here $5million, go do what you want with it, I can make it both a blessing to me, and for others for years to come. I have chosen Northern Vermont or Maine as my destination of choice, as 4 seasons really fit into the whole artist approach I plan on employing through out my endeavor, along with hopefully the property I select will have a healthy stand of maple trees on, in which I would love to harvest small batch maple syrup from to add to my supplies, and well there is so much more, but spilling the beans sometimes is both overwhelming and self defeating so exactly how all this will happen and work as far as the public is currently concerned is going to remain a bit of a mystery,
Now all I need your support to get this rolling, and as a disabled man living in poverty, and suffering and struggling every single day, there is a very real sense of urgency for your support begin rolling in right now so please share this with everyone in your circle and please support now,
Thank You
Philip A. Swiderski Jr,
$5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…

#disabled #poverty #cashapp #paypal #bipolar #woctxphotog
pasjrwoctx👽 @[email protected] · 2025-02-11 · 21:28 UTC

My Vision,
When we all live with and show true compassion, respect and love towards one another, we bring dignity to humanity and we as a society can truly prosper.
Creative Visionary Philip A. Swiderski Jr, Is A passionately creative Bi-Polar social outcast, who’s goal in life is to inspire others to overcome what ever is holding them back. My mental issues foster my creativity. They allow me to see the world with an open mind. I have compassion towards others, because I know first hand. How hard life can be.
2nd Shot Photography is about 2nd chances and using my #Passion of photography to #Create a life for myself, while developing a #Vision to #Help others.
2nd Shot Photography is more than #Photography, it is about Focusing on the shot, the name 2nd Shot Photography came to be out of desire to have a second shot, although sometimes we need a 3rd, 4th, 5th, ect, My goal behind this is to provide a moment of rest for those that are broken, suffering, struggling and otherwise displaced in life, Compassion is to actively remove the burdens of another and give them a moment to rest, to provide them with the help they need to get back on their feet, a Second Shot, if you will, so thats the name, the short story behind it, and what I am working on creating with it, you can support at any time, and sharing is caring, stay tuned to see what develops.
Current Needs And Hope To Do: From Hunger to Hope: A Disabled Man’s Plea for Help Imagine the bite of hunger replaced by hope. One click can make it real. As a disabled man living in poverty with bipolar disorder, PTSD, ADD/ADHD, and severe anxiety, I’m no stranger to hunger and hardship. My reality is a constant battle for basic needs, a fight I wage every day. My Story I’m on SSDI, which means I live on a fixed income of $12,000 a year. I don’t have access to healthcare, transportation, or a support system. I struggle to complete daily tasks, and my mental health is declining due to lack of care. I’m constantly worried about what to eat, where to sleep, and how to make ends meet. But There’s Hope Your kindness can rewrite the script. With just a click, you can transform the clatter of an empty cupboard into the melody of hope ringing in my belly. A single donation becomes a shield against hunger, a warm coat against the biting wind, and a bus ticket towards a future brimming with possibilities.
How Your Donation Helps Here’s how your small act of compassion becomes a giant leap towards stability: A Full Plate: Your gift fills my fridge with nourishing food, fueling my body and mind to battle the storm of bipolar disorder. Warmth Against the Chill: Your generosity drapes me in comfort, shielding me from the harshness of the world and allowing me to focus on healing. Mobility, Not Isolation: Your contribution puts me behind the wheel of opportunity, connecting me to crucial appointments and empowering me to manage my health. Stability, Not Despair: Your kindness becomes the cornerstone of a safe haven, a sanctuary where I can dream and rebuild my life, brick by brick. My Vision I want to build a forever home, a place where I can live without worrying about my basic needs. I dream of creating a creative studio, a tranquil RV camping ground, and a community center. I want to restore an old farm house and turn it into a bed and breakfast. I want to create an organic farm, to never go hungry again, I want to be able to set up as many tiny homes as possible on my property, that will be open to those in need of respite and compassion, a place for those that have been battling a losing fight, so that they can rest and find their footing in life, I want to live a life with purpose and dignity.
The Benefits of Supporting Me By donating to my cause, you’ll not only be helping me achieve my vision, but also contributing to a larger impact: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: Your support will help me break free from the cycle of poverty and create a sustainable life. Promoting Mental Health Awareness: By sharing my story, you’ll be helping to raise awareness about mental health and the challenges faced by people with disabilities and living in poverty. Empowering Creativity: Your donation will enable me to pursue my creative passions and bring joy to others through my art. Building a Community: Together, we can create a community that values inclusivity, compassion, and support for people with disabilities, and those living in poverty.
How You Can Help I need your help to make my vision a reality. Here are some ways you can help: Donate: Any amount will help, whether it’s $1.50 or $10,000. Your contribution will go towards food, housing, and hiring a qualified advocate to help me navigate the system. Share: Please share my story with your friends and family. I need to reach as many people as possible to make my vision a reality. Support: If you have any skills or expertise that can help me, please reach out. I need advocates, social workers, and professionals who can guide me through this process.
Let’s Rewrite My Story Together Please, share my story. Spread the ripple of possibility. And when you’re ready, join me in this fight with a donation, no matter how small. Together, we can turn hunger into hope, cold into warmth, and isolation into community. Be a Hero in My Story Thank you for taking the time to read my story. Thank you for considering my plea for help. I know that together, we can make a difference.
A home one can own, is a home in one can grow, Security, Sustainability, and Stability are keys to healing past traumas and having a prosperous future, A home one can own, ends poverty, and always offers refuge and the opportunity to provide self sufficiency, Owning my own forever home, will allow me so much more than struggling just to barley exist.
So you maybe wondering how exactly I would use $5million if I was to receive it all at once and today, well let me break it down a little for you, of course it starts with actually receiving enough to cover taxes on $5million and processing fees, anyways your wanting info,
I have a plan of spending $2million on purchasing property, hopefully it is between 100-200acres and would have an old farm house on it that is actually still liveable, and of course an old barn, along with the purchase I am hoping to stay within this price range as a total where I would also build my forever home, a small but efficient home and I would like to of course fully furnish my forever home,
So now I have $3million left, I plan on spending $1million on refurbishing the old farm house and converting it into an bed and breakfast, and renovating the old barn and turning into a bit of a community center, with full laundry and bath facilities, a semi commercial kitchen with a full time coffee cafe, that will offer soup and sandwiches,
Now I have $2million left, in which $500k to set up my small organic farm, and cover all the odds and ends I have yet to deal with, leaving me with around $1.5million which I will use to live off of for the rest of my life, which roughly works out to $37k a year for the next 40 years, allowing me to cover taxes, utilities and all the other life costs.
My hopes are that the bed and breakfast will generate enough money each season to help supplement property maintenance taxes, the community center I hope to sell enough coffee, soups and salads to help fund the farm until it can somewhat sustain its self, along with providing meals and facilities to those in need.
Now of course I am very aware of market changes, and cost of goods, and labor ect and know that things may all have to happen in a slower and out of order pace to truly do what I want, but eventually I hope to be able to add a campground that too will bring in revenue that will help the day to day costs of everything, nothing is really for profit, but for maintenance and slowly growing, in where I also hope to set up several small tiny homes, to offer to those in need of compassionate respite,
I have spent many years thinking and planing and I am confident had some said right now Philip here $5million, go do what you want with it, I can make it both a blessing to me, and for others for years to come. I have chosen Northern Vermont or Maine as my destination of choice, as 4 seasons really fit into the whole artist approach I plan on employing through out my endeavor, along with hopefully the property I select will have a healthy stand of maple trees on, in which I would love to harvest small batch maple syrup from to add to my supplies, and well there is so much more, but spilling the beans sometimes is both overwhelming and self defeating so exactly how all this will happen and work as far as the public is currently concerned is going to remain a bit of a mystery,
Now all I need your support to get this rolling, and as a disabled man living in poverty, and suffering and struggling every single day, there is a very real sense of urgency for your support begin rolling in right now so please share this with everyone in your circle and please support now,
Thank You
Philip A. Swiderski Jr,
$5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…

#mutualaidhelp_ #passion #vision #create #help #photography
Andy Arthur - Threadinburgh @[email protected] · 2023-08-14 · 22:59 UTC

Spaceships over Edinburgh: the thread about the Scottish flying saucer craze of 1950

Sunday 24th September 1950 was a momentous day in Scotland. Just over 3 years after American aviator Kenneth Arnold sent the world flying saucer crazy, the Scottish local papers (the West Lothian Courier to be precise) reported the arrival of the phenomenon in this country, specifically over the Firth of Forth! (Except the paper only published once a week, so this breaking news had to wait until the next Friday…)
West Lothian Courier – Friday 29 September 1950
An Edinburgh Lawyer, Mr A. M. Leggat, and his family were on a Sunday drive to South Queensferry. They had just got out of their car and were watching a train cross the Bridge when they spotted something at a height of about 2,000ft, “a cigar shaped object, moving east to west“. Mr Leggat said that he joked to his wife “it’s probably a flying saucer“, at which point the object turned and climbed higher. “It became a circle, with a quite definite dark outside rim” he told the Courier, “it looked exactly like a perfect smoke-ring. We watched it for about 2 minutes.” He estimated it to be about 50 feet in diameter and that there were others who had seen it too. The Daily Record also joined in the reporting, its columnist The Gangrel scoffing that it caused “no excitement amongst Edinburghers” as “almost anything leaves these chaps cold”. The Linlithgowshire Gazette was dismissive too: it was a well known fact amongst informed locals, it said, that “residents often observe similar phenomena under certain weather conditions, when the smoke from passing trains forms rings and rises up soon to disappear from view“.
The Forth Bridge flying saucer? No, it is one of the piers of the bridge under construction on a mill-pond flat Firth of Forth. National Records of Scotland BR/FOR/4/34/457
In a very strange coincidence, just the week before, another local paper – the Falkirk Herald – announced that the new B-movie The Flying Saucer was going to start running on the Odeon Circuit in the country from 9th October.
The Flying Saucer, 1950, theatrical release poster
Flying saucers of a feather, flock together, and soon there were two: on Sunday 22nd October, Mrs Mary Mulvey, a newspaper seller, spotted three “round dark-coloured objects with small tails” flying over St. Andrew Square in the city. Her husband and a bus driver – Mr Bob Kirkhope of Lauriston Terrace – corroborated; “I saw three disc-like shapes fairly high up and travelling in the Daklkeith direction” said Mr Kirkhope to the Aberdeen Press & Journal. The resident meteorological officers at Turnhouse and Pitreavie airfields were scornful and said they must have been “low cloud formations or weather balloons“. But the folk of Annan and Peterhead begged to differ; they had seen them too!
Sixteen year old twins, Ann and Elizabeth Weightman of Newington Avenue, Annan, told the Sunday Post that they had watched them in the sky at night, approaching from the north and hovering over the town for 10 seconds. And in far off Peterhead, 15 year old schoolboy Ian Cruickshank of Prince Street, reported to the police that he saw a flying saucer “hurtling across the sky“, as reported the Dundee Courier. His mother said “my boy was quite excited about it. It was quite genuine“, her son adamant that “It is no schoolboy joke. I had just come out of the house when a high-pitched whistling sound from the sky attracted my attention“. His friends did not agree and he would tell the Courier that they teased him over the matter.
15 year old Ian Cruikshank’s picture in the Dundee Courier.
On 28th October, an un-named “Glasgow Sunday paper” received a report of a flying saucer over Kirkintilloch. They refused to print the story or be directly identified with it but the Kirkintilloch Herald didn’t! The paper joked that as a dry town (i.e. there was no sale of alcohol on public premises in the town, until 1967) that the only flying saucer was the head of the man who came home late and drunk from the fair. There would be no Spaceships Over Glasgow until Tuesday 5th December when a man came into the office of the Airdrie and Coatbridge Advertiser to report seeing a flying saucer over Raywyards (an area of Airdrie). The paper was able to correlate this with sightings over Glasgow and Loch Long shortly afterwards.
The craze inevitably reached the Kingdom of Fife, and on December 19th the Courier and Advertiser published a remarkable photo of an actual flying saucer over Leven municipal golf course!
Flying saucer over Leven, Dundee Courier – Tuesday 19 December 1950
But don’t dismiss the photo as a hoax, it was a real flying saucer: but just a flying model of one, the work of two young friends – George Russell and Don Beaton of Leven Aeromodellers Club,. The pair had been flying their saucer and shocking (and entertaining locals) over the course at the end of their string since May that year. The two were trying to rekindle interest in their club, which they had been members of when younger in the war years, and had ordered the plans of the Sorcerer model by mail order and built it, complete with tiny 2-stroke engine, themselves.
George Russell of Leven Aeromodellers Club with his model flying saucer.
After this year of Saucery, things quietened down in the new year. They would flare up every once in a while in the next few years as a reported “sighting” would lead to copycats. The Evening News’ resident poet “MacNib” penned a humorous verse in response in July 1954
Saucy Saucers.
Those flying saucer yarns are back
Some say, a prelude to attack
By Martian airmen one foot high
Who guide these saucers as they fly.
These little fellows have been seen.
With big eyes and a nose between.
Clark Gable ears which they can wriggle.
Antennae such as clipshears wiggle.
These flying sorcerors, as they’re called.
Are highbrow and completely bald
And far advanced in many ways,
A friend of mine who knows them says.
I’m scared about these little creatures.
Not just for their revolting features:
The thought that sends me off my rocker
Is – ten to one they’ll take up Soccer.
“MacNib”, Edinburgh Evening News – Wednesday 7th July 1954
In November 1954, publisher Ian Girvan (of that town in Ayrshire) formed Flying Saucer Service Ltd. to act as a receiving and clearing house for information on UFOs. His business partners were Desmond Leslie and George Adamski, authors of the best-selling Flying Saucers Have Landed. As well as being a prominent UFO-ologist, Ian Girvan (also known as Waveney Girvan) was immersed in right wing politics, having been in the British People’s Party, National Front and Independent Nationalists movements. He nonetheless found time to publish the quarterly Flying Saucer Review until his death in October 1964.
Air Marshal Hugh Dowding: from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 4700-27)
In May 1955, Girvan and his partners received the unlikely support of the otherwise sober and unimpeachable figure of Lord Dowding, (Air Chief Marshall High Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding, GCB, GCVO, CMG), the former Commander-in-Chief of the RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. Dowding, a national hero credited with a crucial role in the air defence of the nation, shocked everyone and verified to the Daily Sketch paper that the reports from February 1954 of a flying saucer that had landed at Lossiemouth in Morayshire and where a “Martian” had made contact with the witnesses, who had taken photographs, were all true. Dowding had apparently been won over to the belief of flying saucers by Desmond Leslie, Flying Saucers Have Landed co-author and partner in the Flying Saucer Service, and became a firm UFO believer in later life.
The Lossiemouth Flying Saucer, from “Flying Saucer from Mars” by Cederic Allingham
But Dowding’s bold Lossiemouth claim was actually the result of him being the victim of an elaborate and highly convincing hoax by Cedric Allingham, a fictional figure created by Peter Davies and his friend one Patrick Moore (yes, that Patrick Moore), to take advantage of the gullibility of the British UFO-ologist scene. Cederic Allingham fabricated a photograph of the Lossiemouth UFO and “Martian” and also a corroborating, sworn statement from an entirely fictitious but unimpeachable witness, local fisherman James Duncan. He published these claims and other verifying evidence in apopular 152 page book, Flying Saucer From Mars.
Cover of Flying Saucer from Mars. An Eyewitness Account of the Landing of a Martian, by Cedric Allingham
Allingham’s blury photo of the “Martian” he claimed to have met at Lossiemouth looked remarkably like a photo of Peter Davies with his back to the camera wearing an outfit including suspenders… But somehow Dowding, who had proved a dedicated, single-minded and organisational mastermind at Fighter Command, was taken in by it.
Alligham’s “Martian” photograph taken at Lossiemouth, from Flying Saucer From Mars
It was probably Patrick Moore who wrote the book, and he even acknowledged “meeting” with Allingham to lend credence to his existence. But he and Peter Davies sensibly denied all knowledge of it and made sure that their creation was impossible to pin down for interviews or meetings. But Dowding wouldn’t take no for an answer and used his personal reputation to track down the understandably elusive Cederic Allingham, and to convince him to give a lecture to his local Flying Saucer Club in Tunbridge wells. Moore and Davies were backed into a corner by Dowding and it would prove necessary for Allingham to appear if they were to maintain their illusion. And so appear he did, to deliver the lecture to a triumphant Dowding. Except it was actually Peter Davies in a false moustache
Cederic Allingham (actually Peter Davies), with one of Patrick Moore’s telescopes.
Moore and Davies would keep up their silent pretence for over 30 years, long after Dowding had died, before other authors pieced the rather obvious clues together and identified them. Moore was careful to never completely confirm his part in it, despite convincing proof to the contrary (including the photo of Davies as Allingham, in his garden with his telescope).
Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:
Travelers' Map is loading...
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.
These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

#annan #firthofforth #flyingsaucer #fortean #leven #lossiemouth
Contemporary Classical - Thea Derks @[email protected] · 2017-06-20 · 09:54 UTC

Julia Wolfe: ‘Anthracite Fields is my emotional response to the coal mining history’
Even before I’ve asked one question, Julia Wolfe (1958) blazes away into an enthusiastic account of her multimedia oratorio Anthracite Fields. ‘It took me a year of research, reading, talking to people, visiting museums, going down into mining shafts and what have you. And I tell you, the visuals are a whole different level! Jeff Sugg did the same research and illuminates the story with these very slow, moving projections, incredibly powerful.’
In Anthracite Fields Wolfe zooms in on Pennsylvania coal mining life around the turn of the 20th century. She based her libretto on oral history, interviews, speeches, geographic descriptions, children’s rhymes and coal advertisements. She composed it for the Bang on a Can All Stars and the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. They premiered it in 2014 to rave reviews; a year later it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. On 2 July Anthracite Fields will have its Dutch première in the Dutch Choir Biennale, with Daniel Reuss conducting Bang on a Can, Cappella Amsterdam and Utrechtse Studenten Cantorij in Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ Amsterdam.
First ever commission from home state
It all started when conductor Alan Harler of the Mendelssohn Club asked Wolfe to write a new piece for them. ‘I was quite excited, for it was the first ever commission from my home state: I was born and raised in Montgomeryville Pennsylvania. The choir is based in Philadelphia, but the singers are from across the north-eastern part of the state. Some of them drive all the way down from the coal mining area around Scranton, not so far away from where I grew up. I decided to make our common heritage the subject of an evening long piece, similar to Steel Hammer about the legendary steel driving man John Henry.’
The commissioners gave Wolfe all the support she could wish for. ‘They even teamed me up with a guide to show me the region, Laurie McCants. She’s a theatre person who had made some pieces on subjects pertaining to the region, and had already conducted a lot of research herself. She happened to be a big Bang on a Can fan and we even had some friends in common. Each time I travelled down to Scranton from New York, she’d come and pick me up at the bus station and drive me around.’

Labour history
The idea to look into the life of coal miners came natural to Wolfe, who took classes in social sciences while at college. ‘I’ve always been interested in labour history, and Steel Hammer was the first work of this kind. It was based on the John Henry ballad about a man who dug a tunnel for the railroad but was outdone by a machine. That piece is more mythical, Anthracite Fields is purely based on facts, it’s a form of poetic history. It’s a kind of study and an emotional response to the anthracite coal mining industry in Pennsylvania.’
Wolfe grew up near, not in the coal mining area, which had a mysterious appeal to her as a child. ‘My grandmother was from Scranton, her parents ran a grocery store there. She moved to Philadelphia as soon as she got a chance, from where my parents later moved to Montgomeryville. I spent most of my childhood on a dust road, surrounded by woods. We would regularly drive out to go to concerts or have dinner in a restaurant. Once you got to the 309 you could either turn left to Scranton or right to Philadelphia. We mostly took the right road. I knew the Pocono Mountains were up left, but my parents never explored into that direction.’
Blacker than pitch
During her research Wolfe visited the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum in McDade Park in Scranton: ‘It was amazing! You wind down country roads and then find this tiny little museum in the middle of nowhere. It depicts everything about the industry and what the life was there. Three fantastic historians walked me around, explaining, showing slices of earth, photographs, geographical diagrams and other exhibits. Jeff Sugg went there as well. At first he thought he might not use any photographs, because it would be too direct. But they are so beautiful that he wound up incorporating them, along with maps of the region, advertisements and all kinds of other things. His visuals are stunning.’
Wolfe also descended into several mine shafts: ‘Retired miners take you all the way down to the lower part of the earth in this little cart-train-thing, following the original track they formerly used themselves. Once you get to the bottom the guys will walk you through different tunnels and passageways. For them it used to be their daily life, not a fun thing of course, but it’s very beautiful. The walls are shiny, there are these little medical aid stations in case something happened and they have something setup so you can see the scale and how far in they worked. The shafts are lit, but at one place they turn off the lights to make you experience how dark it gets. It’s pitch black! Darker than anything I know, even being in the country when there’s no city lights or anything.’

Image from Anthracite Fields

Eerie whistling
Finding herself in these under-earthly surroundings, sounds and ideas inevitably popped into her mind. ‘When you’re hunting and gathering, you become hyper aware. Some things wound up in the piece as a response to what I saw visually, others are sounds that actually belong to that place. Different gasses escaping, an alarm going off that set everybody hurrying out of the mines. There were all kinds of dangers, and my music reflects on the experience of the workers.’
At several moments in Anthracite Fields we hear eerie whistling. Wolfe: ‘That’s a poetic response. I imagined a sort of cavernous sound, caused by the wind. In Steel Hammer there’s also some whistling, but there it’s a fragment of a tune. Here it’s odd, because the singers have to make harmonies out of it. They are used to finding the pitches singing, but getting the right pitch whistling is a bit more of a challenge. And these are not regular harmonies, but rather more unusual, dissonant ones. This was a new thing for me, I’d never written that kind of sound before.’
Aural memorial list
The whistling occurs for the first time in ‘Foundation’. While Bang on a Can create an inferno of heavy pounding and drilling, the chorus recites names. ‘I came across this Pennsylvania index of mining accidents. Pages and pages of names – of people who didn’t necessarily die, but were definitely injured. I decided to make an aural equivalent of the many powerful visual memorial lists I’ve seen. But there were so many names! So first I just took the one-syllable ones like John and Frank, but there were still too many, so I focussed on the Johns and also got rid of the two-syllable last names. Sung in hoquet: John Ash, John Ayres, John Cain you get a very strong, rhythmic chant. Towards the end I also use some more colourful names, like Sylvester Sokoski, Lino Tarinella, Premo Tonetti; many of the miners were immigrants.’
Setting their names was a demanding affair. Wolfe: ‘The names belong to people who were someone’s grandfather, father, brother or uncle. It’s important the choir should be aware of this, without over-emotionalizing. The interesting thing is, in every city in the States where we’ve performed Anthracite Fields people are responding. We had a performance in Los Angeles and I was like: there’s no coal mining out there. But afterwards someone came up to me and said: my grandfather is on the list! That was chilling. I asked what’s his name? And she said John Coyne – an unusual spelling indeed. These are such incredible moments, to actually meet the live people. For us it’s music, for them it’s family history!’

2 July, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ Amsterdam 3 pm
Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields

#AnthraciteFields #BangOnACan #CappellaAmsterdam #DanielReuss #JuliaWolfe #Kooribiënnale #MuziekgebouwAanTIJ #SteehHammer

#anthracitefields #bangonacan #cappellaamsterdam #danielreuss #juliawolfe #kooribiennale
Digital Polity @[email protected] · 2024-06-30 · 05:35 UTC
June 24 – 30
These are my “weeknotes” to capture events, thoughts, and other items from the past week, mostly focused on work, but with some personal stuff thrown in.

[1] GX+ Season 3 is a wrap

Our teams finished “Season 3” this week, and it was another solid effort from the GX Foundry. What’s a Season? In simple terms it’s an 8-week period where we spend 1 week in prep, 6 weeks delivering work, and 1 week in wrap-up activities. We use the “Seasons” terminology to avoid colliding with terms like “sprints” or other concepts. And to make it a little fun, like we’re show-running a TV series.
I won’t go into a lot of detail (I’ll save it for the GX Foundry site), but in a quick list the team…
- Completed the annual Water Quality Reports for print and online distribution
- Launched a completely revamped recruiting section of the Sheriff’s website, with a ton of new content based on their DEI goals
- Completed a collaborative security isolation project to move the county’s Bid Opportunities website into a hermetically-sealed container (so to speak); this was a lot of deep technical work and required security, networking, server, and developer teams to coordinate a ton of configuration and testing
- Developed and launched a new community-driven referral application (online) for the Sheriff’s office, designed to intercept youth that may be heading down a bad path, redirecting them toward better options with direct community support. (I’m not linking to it for privacy reasons.)
- Launched a “2.0” edition of the Unclaimed Funds application for the Auditor’s office. This revised edition now has a fully-digital workflow, including document upload, signature submissions via DocuSign, and an email-based back-channel between residents and staff running the program. All that is new! This work boosted an already heavily-improved process and application. A year ago that app was a green-screen COBOL application.
- Continued active support and tweaking of the Box Fans 2.0 app for the Office on Aging. As the summer heat has taken hold in Ohio, it’s been vital to keep this effort up.
- Attended the Code for America Summit for the first time (well, 4 of us did), picking up ideas, contacts, and validating we’re headed in the right direction.
- Presented our Unclaimed Funds 1.0 app at the national Quickbase annual user conference called Empower 2024.
- Completed initial home page wireframes and baseline design elements for the new 2.0 public-facing website for the county, due to be launched next year. This includes a draft information architecture / menu structure.
- Completed an intensive Power BI analysis on election data for our elections board, slicing and dicing voter demographic data in excruciating detail.
- Built a collection of 2025 staffing and project recommendations, since we budget sooooo far in advance.
- Absorbed the Delivery Services team under my management. While that’s not a GX Foundry activity, it definitely ate up a lot of my attention. And it will devour more in Season 4, too.
Our next season starts immediately and there’s always more to do. We’re even looking at working on something that could have come right out of the book we read last year…
[2] Recoding America just got real

It hasn’t happened yet, but we might be starting work on a project that could have been taken out of the pages of Recoding America. A handful of agencies with a long list of disparate social services—justice, senior, child, job, and family support—want to assemble under one banner and… create a unified, digital intake form.
This is discussed in the book and the mistake called out is simply cramming all the different forms together and having Residents fill out a “mega form” that’s confusing, too long, and often duplicative. We’re on alert for that.
I just typed up the core idea over the weekend and we’ll start discussions next week, but hopefully we can do a tiny version of what Civilla did in Michigan.
The only problem? No one has UX Researcher skills or capacity today—not our team, not the agencies involved. To get started, we’ll likely have to “wing it” for a while, then push to add UX capacity so we can ensure we’re building better GX, not just more forms.
[3] DS: RESET
Our Delivery Services (project management) team still needs help in getting things “reset” for a new approach.
We’re looking at creating a unique “Reset Week” in late July. We’ll bring everyone in-house for the week, clear our calendars, and spend nearly all day every day working on clarifying our mission, our motivators, our methods, and reviewing / updating all our project statuses and documentation collections. I even have a trip to the local ballpark on the agenda.
It’s sooooo hard to change the wheels on the bus… when it’s driving down the highway… and if you drop below 50 MPH you blow up. But we’re gonna try!
[4] Miscellanea
- I have so much email to catch up on it’s not funny. I have communications to get out to multiple folks across the country and county and will be spending most of the day today trying to catch up just on email.
- I’m hoping I might be able to go see what Washington, DC’s local government team is doing with Quickbase at their annual in-house “appathon,” if they’ll let me and maybe one or two others observe. They really are leaders with that platform and we could learn a ton.
- We’re in preliminary talks with Granicus about possibly making a presentation to NACo in August. Because I need more work! 😦
- My weekly recordings of Columbus Business First for the local visually-impaired nonprofit continue unabated. But I wonder whether I should drop it to focus more on work.
- Have I mentioned I love Stickermule? I get all kinds of stuff from them: stickers, wall graphics, floor graphics, posters, and we’re even getting acrylic signs for our upcoming “mission wall” installations. We just got custom Culture Code posters for the Delivery Services team this week. My latest “creation” is a pack of 50 magnets I can hand out, especially to our project managers and product owners:
[5] Watch This
I watch a lot of YouTube. I mean… A LOT. All kinds of stuff. Stand-up comedy, classical music concerts, animals, “fail” and “win” videos, and sometimes in the evening, just to put something on that’s quiet and relaxing, I check in with a particular barber shop in Sicily…

These “ASMR” videos are awesome. I can’t believe how well done they are. Key elements:
- No spoken words. Not a one. This makes the appeal universal / international and focuses your attention on the visuals and sounds.
- No smiling or mugging at the camera.
- Good audio of scissors, straight razors, shavers, shampoo and water, and the rest.
- Solid camera work (not the greatest, but plenty good, even for a 4K TV), including a handful of “trick” shots that play into the theme of the episode.
- Several of the videos introduce the barber shop client as a “character” of one kind or another, like the “hipster” in the video above.
- The shop appears to be run by a father / daughter team, and both appear in the videos, sometimes tag-teaming for different parts of a client’s service.
There are about a billion ASMR videos out there, and this is definitely not the cream of that particular crop. But these are a delight for lots of other reasons. Recommended.
[6] Internet Funnies

https://digitalpolity.com/2024/06/30/2024-weeknote-26-thats-a-wrap/
#ASMR #BoxFans #cfa #CodeForAmerica #DeliveryServices #Gx #GXFoundry #GX_ #InternetFunnies #projectManagement #recodingAmerica #season #stickermule #UnclaimedFunds #weeknote
#asmr #boxfans #cfa #codeforamerica #deliveryservices #gx
Tiny Spheres of Baasheid @[email protected] · 2026-04-19 · 03:20 UTC

Listening to #OrenAmbarchi Ghosted albums to get me through the last few hours of a 30+ hour bus trip to Portugal.
Edit:
Adding the Hubris album since not all Ghosted songs are available on #bandcamp
Edit2: let's make it a list, since we're not there, yet.
Oren Ambarchi - Ghosted I
Oren Ambarchi - Ghosted II
Oren Ambarchi - Ghosted IIi
Oren Ambarchi - Hubris
All here: https://orenambarchi.bandcamp.com/
fields we found - thoughts persist
Beautiful album, @Fieldswefound ! 👌❤️
Find it here: https://quietdetails.bandcamp.com/album/thoughts-persist
#NowPlaying
#NoFly

#bandcamp #orenambarchi #nowplaying #nofly
Dining and Cooking @[email protected] · 2026-05-28 · 13:40 UTC

Tiny Adelaide Hills pizzeria earns one of Italy’s highest pizza honours
Share Tweet Share Share Email Image Credit: gambero rosso A tiny Adelaide Hills pizzeria has been recognised on the world stage, with That’s Enrico in Lobethal named amon…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Italiancooking #featured #gamberorosso #Italia #Italian #italiancooking #italiano #italy #pizzeria #That'sEnrico
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2661871/tiny-adelaide-hills-pizzeria-earns-one-of-italys-highest-pizza-honours/

#dining #cooking #diet #food #italiancooking #featured
Dining and Cooking @[email protected] · 2026-05-28 · 13:40 UTC

Tiny Adelaide Hills pizzeria earns one of Italy’s highest pizza honours
Share Tweet Share Share Email Image Credit: gambero rosso A tiny Adelaide Hills pizzeria has been recognised on the world stage, with That’s Enrico in Lobethal named amon…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Italiancooking #featured #gamberorosso #Italia #Italian #italiancooking #italiano #italy #pizzeria #That'sEnrico
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2661871/tiny-adelaide-hills-pizzeria-earns-one-of-italys-highest-pizza-honours/

#dining #cooking #diet #food #italiancooking #featured
Dining and Cooking @[email protected] · 2026-05-28 · 13:40 UTC

Tiny Adelaide Hills pizzeria earns one of Italy’s highest pizza honours
Share Tweet Share Share Email Image Credit: gambero rosso A tiny Adelaide Hills pizzeria has been recognised on the world stage, with That’s Enrico in Lobethal named amon…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Italiancooking #featured #gamberorosso #Italia #Italian #italiancooking #italiano #italy #pizzeria #That'sEnrico
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2661871/tiny-adelaide-hills-pizzeria-earns-one-of-italys-highest-pizza-honours/

#that #pizzeria #italy #italiano #italian #italia
Dining and Cooking @[email protected] · 2026-05-28 · 13:40 UTC

Tiny Adelaide Hills pizzeria earns one of Italy’s highest pizza honours
Share Tweet Share Share Email Image Credit: gambero rosso A tiny Adelaide Hills pizzeria has been recognised on the world stage, with That’s Enrico in Lobethal named amon…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Italiancooking #featured #gamberorosso #Italia #Italian #italiancooking #italiano #italy #pizzeria #That'sEnrico
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2661871/tiny-adelaide-hills-pizzeria-earns-one-of-italys-highest-pizza-honours/

#dining #cooking #diet #food #italiancooking #featured
Dining & Cooking @[email protected] · 2026-05-28 · 13:30 UTC

Tiny Adelaide Hills pizzeria earns one of Italy’s highest pizza honours https://www.diningandcooking.com/2661871/tiny-adelaide-hills-pizzeria-earns-one-of-italys-highest-pizza-honours/ #featured #GamberoRosso #Italia #Italian #ItalianCooking #italiano #italy #pizzeria #That'sEnrico

#featured #gamberorosso #italia #italian #italiancooking #italiano
All for Gardening @[email protected] · 2026-05-27 · 22:18 UTC

Tiny bugs on saucers bottom https://www.allforgardening.com/1794604/tiny-bugs-on-saucers-bottom/ #PlantClinic #What'sWrongWithMyPlant?

#plantclinic #what
All for Gardening @[email protected] · 2026-05-27 · 22:18 UTC

Tiny bugs on saucers bottom https://www.allforgardening.com/1794604/tiny-bugs-on-saucers-bottom/ #PlantClinic #What'sWrongWithMyPlant?

#plantclinic #what
Lisa J. Warner / Lisa Luv @[email protected] · 2026-05-26 · 23:32 UTC

🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩💁🏼‍♀️*The Rolling Bear Tiny Homes Koala Bear Tiny House is Ready to Move!👉
*& I think the outside is pretty!🤗👉
#Tiny #Home
Highly Mobile Tiny Homes : Koala Bear tiny house
https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/koala-bear-tiny-house#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17798379435280&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trendhunter.com%2Ftrends%2Fkoala-bear-tiny-house

#tiny #home
Lisa J. Warner / Lisa Luv @[email protected] · 2026-05-26 · 23:32 UTC

🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩💁🏼‍♀️*The Rolling Bear Tiny Homes Koala Bear Tiny House is Ready to Move!👉
*& I think the outside is pretty!🤗👉
#Tiny #Home
Highly Mobile Tiny Homes : Koala Bear tiny house
https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/koala-bear-tiny-house#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17798379435280&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trendhunter.com%2Ftrends%2Fkoala-bear-tiny-house

#tiny #home
Lisa J. Warner / Lisa Luv @[email protected] · 2026-05-26 · 23:23 UTC

🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩💁🏿‍♀️*Teacup Tiny Homes Built the Same Floor Plan Over and Over — Because It’s That Good👉
#Tiny #Home
Teacup Tiny Homes Built the Same Floor Plan Over and Over — Because It’s That Good – Yanko Design
https://www.yankodesign.com/2026/05/20/teacup-tiny-homes-built-the-same-floor-plan-over-and-over-because-its-that-good/#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17798304145249&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yankodesign.com%2F2026%2F05%2F20%2Fteacup-tiny-homes-built-the-same-floor-plan-over-and-over-because-its-that-good%2F

#tiny #home
Lisa J. Warner / Lisa Luv @[email protected] · 2026-05-26 · 23:23 UTC

🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩🏩💁🏿‍♀️*Teacup Tiny Homes Built the Same Floor Plan Over and Over — Because It’s That Good👉
#Tiny #Home
Teacup Tiny Homes Built the Same Floor Plan Over and Over — Because It’s That Good – Yanko Design
https://www.yankodesign.com/2026/05/20/teacup-tiny-homes-built-the-same-floor-plan-over-and-over-because-its-that-good/#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17798304145249&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yankodesign.com%2F2026%2F05%2F20%2Fteacup-tiny-homes-built-the-same-floor-plan-over-and-over-because-its-that-good%2F

#tiny #home
Hackaday [Unofficial] @[email protected] · 2026-05-26 · 18:30 UTC

Tiny C64 PSU Rejects Tradition, Embraces USB

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://hackaday.com/2026/05/26/tiny-c64-psu-rejects-tradition-embraces-usb/

#retrocomputing #commodore64 #diypsu #usbpd
Hackaday [Unofficial] @[email protected] · 2026-05-26 · 18:30 UTC

Tiny C64 PSU Rejects Tradition, Embraces USB

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://hackaday.com/2026/05/26/tiny-c64-psu-rejects-tradition-embraces-usb/

#usbpd #diypsu #commodore64 #retrocomputing
Parsingphase @[email protected] · 2026-05-26 · 16:55 UTC

Tiny, but thinky.
#birds #hummingbird

#birds #hummingbird