D-Day. I Resigned.
Feb. 20th, 2026 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerToday is "D-Day", the date I picked a few months ago for when I'd tender notice of resignation from my job unless things improved markedly. Not only did things not improve markedly, conditions deteriorated in a multiple key respects (pay, management changes, being passed over for promotion yet-again). I sent my letter of notice to my manager this morning.
Faking a VPN
Feb. 20th, 2026 03:43 pmelisheva_m posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
little_detailsWhat would be involved in setting up a fake VPN service to gather intelligence on a criminal organisation?
Would this essentially be a VPN where the relay saves a copy of the traffic? Everything I've found to read on the internet assumes more knowledge of tech and jargon than I have. Could a choice of servers in different countries be faked? A UI seems easy enough, but what about the ISP it connects to? If it was simply a gateway to a real VPN, would the real VPN notice? Could it at some point send a second copy elsewhere without being noticed?
This could be a scheme the character is pondering near the end, so it doesn't have to work - it could simply be trying to find solutions to some of the concerns. He has a habit of staring out the window late at night mulling over such things. He really wants to be able to build a phone case with a rechargeable listening device but we've gotten lost on the physics of discretely charging it from the phone.
There's the social infrastructure to make it appear legit, website & fake reviews and social engineering to get them to bite. I've already written this for a different operation, not in great detail but enough for my purposes. If faking a VPN is feasible, I'd probably replace the existing scheme in those scenes with this one. But the marketing email may be more along the lines of "Police and governments can't subpoena a service they don't know exists" with a link to the dark web.
Please be careful with how much detail and tech-speak you throw at me, my health is poor and I am easily overwhelmed. If this is a rubbish idea, please be kind in putting it down.
Thank you for any help.
Would this essentially be a VPN where the relay saves a copy of the traffic? Everything I've found to read on the internet assumes more knowledge of tech and jargon than I have. Could a choice of servers in different countries be faked? A UI seems easy enough, but what about the ISP it connects to? If it was simply a gateway to a real VPN, would the real VPN notice? Could it at some point send a second copy elsewhere without being noticed?
This could be a scheme the character is pondering near the end, so it doesn't have to work - it could simply be trying to find solutions to some of the concerns. He has a habit of staring out the window late at night mulling over such things. He really wants to be able to build a phone case with a rechargeable listening device but we've gotten lost on the physics of discretely charging it from the phone.
There's the social infrastructure to make it appear legit, website & fake reviews and social engineering to get them to bite. I've already written this for a different operation, not in great detail but enough for my purposes. If faking a VPN is feasible, I'd probably replace the existing scheme in those scenes with this one. But the marketing email may be more along the lines of "Police and governments can't subpoena a service they don't know exists" with a link to the dark web.
Please be careful with how much detail and tech-speak you throw at me, my health is poor and I am easily overwhelmed. If this is a rubbish idea, please be kind in putting it down.
Thank you for any help.
'The present generation is doing mating habits all wrong!!!'
Feb. 20th, 2026 04:04 pmoursin(Okay, I have an essay-review coming out on several works which deal with moral panics around coffeebars and jazz clubs and so forth in the 1960s - 'the monkey walk was good enough for us'....)
But on the one hand wo wo the yoof of today are not even getting into leg-over situations, though the evidence for this as far as the UK goes dates to the NATSAL 2019 report based on survey undertaken 2012.
And if they do, The death of the post-shag sleepover: Why is no one staying over after sex anymore?
Okay, very likely - I dunno, is the '6 people I spoke to in a winebar last week' cliche still valid or has this migrated to some corner of social media, but amounting to pretty much the same thing as far as statistical sociological validity goes?
But while it may be all about anxieties around sleep hygiene rituals, or looks-maxxing practices, which will not sit happily alongside unrestrained PASSION and bonkery -
- there is also mention that, individuals in question are living with room-mates and one does wonder whether they actually have RULES about overnight guests who might hog the bathroom wherein they perform their wellness things (apart from any other objections such as noise....)
Yes, my dearios, I am already doing the hedjog all-more-complicated flamenco about this, and thinking about a narrative theme of the 1960s of young women rising from beds of enseamed lust in order to go home to the parental roof and sleep in their own chaste bed so that they can be plausibly awakened therein. (And is there not a current wo wo narrative about young people still living with PARENTS???)
Fragments 2026
Feb. 20th, 2026 08:12 amscott_sanfordVarious tidbits too small to stand on their own. The completely arbitrary cutoff is 500 words; longer than that and stories get their own files.( Read more... )
2026.02.20
Feb. 20th, 2026 10:07 amlsandersonICE
Minnesota attorney general’s evidence portal draws nearly 1,500 submissions in first month
The portal launched Jan. 15 to gather evidence that could be used to hold federal immigration agents accountable for constitutional violations during Operation Metro Surge.
by Cleo Krejci
https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2026/02/minnesota-attorney-generals-evidence-portal-draws-nearly-1500-submissions-in-first-month/
What’s it like to be trapped inside, hiding from ICE? “MPR News collected stories from several people under those circumstances across the state. They recorded voice memos or spoke to a reporter over three days between Jan. 24 and Feb. 4, sharing what their day was like.” As one person put it, “The most difficult part of this whole situation; it’s feeling like we’re nothing. It’s feeling like we’re unwanted.” Via MinnPost
https://www.minnpost.com/glean/2026/02/minnesota-prosecutors-worry-they-could-lack-the-staff-to-charge-serious-offenders/
Two polls conducted by NBC News Decision Desk are showing how immigration operations in Minnesota have led to a more polarized population. “After federal officers killed two U.S. citizens last month, self-identified Republicans in the state expressed stronger support for Trump’s immigration agenda than Republicans nationwide, while Minnesota Democrats and independents pulled more strongly the other way than their national counterparts.” Via MinnPost
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/poll-immigration-operations-minnesota-leave-polarized-populace-rcna258341 ( Read more... )
Minnesota attorney general’s evidence portal draws nearly 1,500 submissions in first month
The portal launched Jan. 15 to gather evidence that could be used to hold federal immigration agents accountable for constitutional violations during Operation Metro Surge.
by Cleo Krejci
https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2026/02/minnesota-attorney-generals-evidence-portal-draws-nearly-1500-submissions-in-first-month/
What’s it like to be trapped inside, hiding from ICE? “MPR News collected stories from several people under those circumstances across the state. They recorded voice memos or spoke to a reporter over three days between Jan. 24 and Feb. 4, sharing what their day was like.” As one person put it, “The most difficult part of this whole situation; it’s feeling like we’re nothing. It’s feeling like we’re unwanted.” Via MinnPost
https://www.minnpost.com/glean/2026/02/minnesota-prosecutors-worry-they-could-lack-the-staff-to-charge-serious-offenders/
Two polls conducted by NBC News Decision Desk are showing how immigration operations in Minnesota have led to a more polarized population. “After federal officers killed two U.S. citizens last month, self-identified Republicans in the state expressed stronger support for Trump’s immigration agenda than Republicans nationwide, while Minnesota Democrats and independents pulled more strongly the other way than their national counterparts.” Via MinnPost
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/poll-immigration-operations-minnesota-leave-polarized-populace-rcna258341 ( Read more... )
The Doctor does Oscar Wilde
Feb. 20th, 2026 02:23 pmvivdunstan“The Importance of Being Earnest” with Ncuti Gatwa is going up free on YouTube for a limited period in March. I definitely intend to watch this, though more likely at the weekend than on first broadcast.
George R.R. Martin: Tuf Voyaging (2026-13)
Feb. 20th, 2026 03:16 pmsturgeonslawyerI have been meaning to read this book for years, since it was recommended to me by one of my oldest friends. It was well worth the recommendation and the wait. Indeed, though, as I grow older, I reread fewer and fewer books, this one may get a reread or two in the future. It is, quite simply, a masterpiece of the science fiction fix-up (a series of stories repackaged to look like a novel).
In a future distant enough that humans generally do not have names that we would recognize, though recently-colonized planets do, our hero is Haviland Tuf, who begins as a small interstellar trader and ends as ... but that would be telling.
Tuf is an extremely tall, rather fat, man with no hair anywhere on his body, given to a kind of laconic and verbose way of speaking which amuses the reader and tends to drive other characters slightly mad. He keeps cats.
There is a brief Prolog, in which Tuf does not appear for the good and sufficient reason that he has not yet been born.
In the first story . . . H'mmm. I am going to commit a sort of sidewise spoiler here: I will tell you the end of the story, without telling you anything about how it gets there, because if I don't tell you this, I can't really say anything about the rest of the book at all.
So, at the end of the first story Tuf finds himself in possession of a huge, ancient ship capable of engineering ecologies, for good or for ill.
There.
In the remaining stories, he ... well, that's what he does. He engineers planets' ecologies, at the request of their governments or other leaders, and generally in ways that those leaders do not expect but must admit fulfill the letter of their request.
Martin's imagination here is at wilder play more than in any other book of his than I have read; this is the Martin who wrote the short pieces "Sandkings" and "A Song for Lya," working at full strength.
(And if you don't know those short pieces, shame on you. They are both to be found in his collection of short stories, Dreamsongs, which no home should be without, and which is easily available at the Usual Suspects. Go forth and do likewise. Or something.)
There is a sort of through plot, involving a planet to which he must return at certain intervals for reasons of integrity, honor, and economics.
And that's really all I'm going to say about the book except, really, you should read it. Honest.
Ten out of ten exploding tyranosaurs
In a future distant enough that humans generally do not have names that we would recognize, though recently-colonized planets do, our hero is Haviland Tuf, who begins as a small interstellar trader and ends as ... but that would be telling.
Tuf is an extremely tall, rather fat, man with no hair anywhere on his body, given to a kind of laconic and verbose way of speaking which amuses the reader and tends to drive other characters slightly mad. He keeps cats.
There is a brief Prolog, in which Tuf does not appear for the good and sufficient reason that he has not yet been born.
In the first story . . . H'mmm. I am going to commit a sort of sidewise spoiler here: I will tell you the end of the story, without telling you anything about how it gets there, because if I don't tell you this, I can't really say anything about the rest of the book at all.
So, at the end of the first story Tuf finds himself in possession of a huge, ancient ship capable of engineering ecologies, for good or for ill.
There.
In the remaining stories, he ... well, that's what he does. He engineers planets' ecologies, at the request of their governments or other leaders, and generally in ways that those leaders do not expect but must admit fulfill the letter of their request.
Martin's imagination here is at wilder play more than in any other book of his than I have read; this is the Martin who wrote the short pieces "Sandkings" and "A Song for Lya," working at full strength.
(And if you don't know those short pieces, shame on you. They are both to be found in his collection of short stories, Dreamsongs, which no home should be without, and which is easily available at the Usual Suspects. Go forth and do likewise. Or something.)
There is a sort of through plot, involving a planet to which he must return at certain intervals for reasons of integrity, honor, and economics.
And that's really all I'm going to say about the book except, really, you should read it. Honest.
Ten out of ten exploding tyranosaurs
John Scalzi: Questions for a Soldier (2026-12)
Feb. 20th, 2026 03:12 pmsturgeonslawyerA short story, if it's even a story, because not much really happens in the way of "plot," published as an independent whateveritis, set in the Old Man's War 'verse.
The conceit is that Captain John Perry of the Colonial Defense Forces has been sent / invited to the village of New Goa on the Huckleberry Colony, on a goodwill tour. After dinner, rather than give a canned speech, he goes straight to Q&A.
What makes it work as well as it does is that Perry willingly engages with a questioner who could be perceived as a heckler, takes her questions seriously, and answers them honestly, admitting to his own doubts as to the validity of what he does to protect colonies like Huckleberry from alien races, and giving only weak defense to the CDF's policy of recruiting only from Earth, not accepting recruits from colony worlds.
It is, however, a story (or whatever) that will most be appreciated by those who enjoy the rather bluff sort of humor that tends to crop up in military science fiction.
Six out of ten giant scary worms.
The conceit is that Captain John Perry of the Colonial Defense Forces has been sent / invited to the village of New Goa on the Huckleberry Colony, on a goodwill tour. After dinner, rather than give a canned speech, he goes straight to Q&A.
What makes it work as well as it does is that Perry willingly engages with a questioner who could be perceived as a heckler, takes her questions seriously, and answers them honestly, admitting to his own doubts as to the validity of what he does to protect colonies like Huckleberry from alien races, and giving only weak defense to the CDF's policy of recruiting only from Earth, not accepting recruits from colony worlds.
It is, however, a story (or whatever) that will most be appreciated by those who enjoy the rather bluff sort of humor that tends to crop up in military science fiction.
Six out of ten giant scary worms.
JRR Tolkien, translated by Daniel Lauzon: Le Hobbit (2026-11)
Feb. 20th, 2026 03:05 pmsturgeonslawyerOf course, I don't have to tell you about the book. I have to tell you about the translation: but my French isn't really up to telling you how good a translation it is. Indeed, improving my French is the main reason I picked this up.
Still, I can judge a few things about a translation even without expertise in the language. For example: how does the translator handle the names of characters and places?
I'm happy to say that M. Lauzon mostly maintains the names as Tolkien had them in the English original. Bilbo's last name is changed to Bessac, and his home to Cul de Sac. I suppose the former is to keep the "bag" (sac) in, so that the later boasts to Smaug will make sense; and then "Cul de Sac" makes perfect sense. The other characters' names are, by and large, kept as is, as are those of places: the biggest changes are to Mirkwood, which becomes Forêt de Grand Peur (forest of great fear); the Misty Mountains become les Montaignes de Brûme (mountains of haze); and Wilderland la Sauvagerie, which I can't imagine needs explaining.
Oh, one other detail. The names of the various races. Lauzon does not follow Tolkien's standard of capitalizing the names of the various races, so it's:
Hobbits ==> hobbits
Wizard ==> magicien
Dwarves == nains
Elves ==> elfes
Trolls ==> trolls
Goblins ==> gobelins
Wargs (wolves) ==> wargs (loups)
Eagles ==> aigles
Orcs ==> orcs
Spiders ==> araignées
The other place a non-skilled French-speaker might make a few judgements is on the translation of poetry. I'll keep myself to one sample, Bilbo's song on sighting the Hill near the end of his journey ("The Road goes ever on and on"). In M Lauzon's rendition, the first verse comes out as follows:
La route se poursuit toujours,
Sous l'arbre vert et sur la pierre,
Dans l'antre où jamais ne fait jour,
Par les cours d'eau cherchant la mer;
Sur la neige à l'hiver semée,
Parmi les jolies fleurs de juin,
Sur l'herbe et les chemins pavés,
Et sous les montagnes d'airain.
In terms of prosody, the verse rhymes passably well in an ABABCDCD pattern. The rhythm is not strict, but -- as near as I can tell: my French pronunciation is fairly good, but I don't trust it here -- it keeps to three stressed syllables per line. So at that level, it sounds reasonably like an improvised song.
But it's notoriously hard to keep both sound and sense when translating poetry.
Mechanically translated, this comes out:
The road goes on forever,/Under the green tree and on the stone/In the den where it never comes light,/By the streams seeking the sea;/On the snow in winter sown,/Among the pretty flowers of June,/On the grass and the paved paths,/And under the mountains of brass.
I think it's pretty clear that this is not in any sense a literal translation of JRRT's words. But ... would it be better if the words had been translated literally, and there were no song?
I have no answer to that.
Ten out of thirteen dwarves.
Still, I can judge a few things about a translation even without expertise in the language. For example: how does the translator handle the names of characters and places?
I'm happy to say that M. Lauzon mostly maintains the names as Tolkien had them in the English original. Bilbo's last name is changed to Bessac, and his home to Cul de Sac. I suppose the former is to keep the "bag" (sac) in, so that the later boasts to Smaug will make sense; and then "Cul de Sac" makes perfect sense. The other characters' names are, by and large, kept as is, as are those of places: the biggest changes are to Mirkwood, which becomes Forêt de Grand Peur (forest of great fear); the Misty Mountains become les Montaignes de Brûme (mountains of haze); and Wilderland la Sauvagerie, which I can't imagine needs explaining.
Oh, one other detail. The names of the various races. Lauzon does not follow Tolkien's standard of capitalizing the names of the various races, so it's:
Hobbits ==> hobbits
Wizard ==> magicien
Dwarves == nains
Elves ==> elfes
Trolls ==> trolls
Goblins ==> gobelins
Wargs (wolves) ==> wargs (loups)
Eagles ==> aigles
Orcs ==> orcs
Spiders ==> araignées
The other place a non-skilled French-speaker might make a few judgements is on the translation of poetry. I'll keep myself to one sample, Bilbo's song on sighting the Hill near the end of his journey ("The Road goes ever on and on"). In M Lauzon's rendition, the first verse comes out as follows:
La route se poursuit toujours,
Sous l'arbre vert et sur la pierre,
Dans l'antre où jamais ne fait jour,
Par les cours d'eau cherchant la mer;
Sur la neige à l'hiver semée,
Parmi les jolies fleurs de juin,
Sur l'herbe et les chemins pavés,
Et sous les montagnes d'airain.
In terms of prosody, the verse rhymes passably well in an ABABCDCD pattern. The rhythm is not strict, but -- as near as I can tell: my French pronunciation is fairly good, but I don't trust it here -- it keeps to three stressed syllables per line. So at that level, it sounds reasonably like an improvised song.
But it's notoriously hard to keep both sound and sense when translating poetry.
Mechanically translated, this comes out:
The road goes on forever,/Under the green tree and on the stone/In the den where it never comes light,/By the streams seeking the sea;/On the snow in winter sown,/Among the pretty flowers of June,/On the grass and the paved paths,/And under the mountains of brass.
I think it's pretty clear that this is not in any sense a literal translation of JRRT's words. But ... would it be better if the words had been translated literally, and there were no song?
I have no answer to that.
Ten out of thirteen dwarves.
Neal Stephenson: Polostan (2026-10)
Feb. 20th, 2026 12:45 pmsturgeonslawyerA rather peculiar historical novel. Our heroine's name is variable: her first name is either Dawn or Aurora. In the Prolog, she informs an engineer (in San Francisco) that "Dawn is dead;" it is not until very late in the book that we find out how and why Dawn has died.
Aurora, as I suppose we should call her then, spends her childhood shuffled back and forth between the United States and the newborn Soviet Union. The first proper chapter sees her arrive from the US, in 1933, at Magnitogorsk, on the Eastern side of the Ural Mountains, a city being built at the command of Stalin to house the largest blast furnaces in the world.
The next chapter flashes back to her childhood in Petrograd (formerly St Petersburg; soon to be Leningrad) in 1920, with her mother and father. They stay in a kommunalka, a sort of commune, with a large number of other men and women; young Aurora seems to be the only child there. She is befriended by Veronika, a veteran of the Red Women's Death Battalion, and has sundry adventures illustrating the changes happening in Mother Russia, including an encounter with the Cheka.
The chapters go on alternating like that, illustrating the years before her arrival in Magnitogorsk, and what happens after she arrives. Both threads are tense, fascinating, historically fraught, and sometimes funny.
Beginning in 1920, she experiences the USSR's new, informal method of divorce -- her father simply takes off his wedding ring, and her mother returns to her family ranch in Montana. After a few years, Papa is sent to the United States as a recruiting agent. He takes Aurora (now to be called Dawn again) with him, and dumps him at Mama's ranch, until he needs her as cover when he joins the Bonus Army and its March on Washington, and ... well, no spoilers here.
Again, starting in 1933, Aurora acts as a translator for an American engineer helping to build Magnitogorsk. Then she is summoned to a hospital for "routine" examinations, which lead her to questioning by an agent of the NKVD, and ... no spoilers.
Along the way she meets a number of historical figures, from a young George Patton to a chilling Lavrentiy Beria, and learns from each of them.
Seven out of ten polo ponies.
Aurora, as I suppose we should call her then, spends her childhood shuffled back and forth between the United States and the newborn Soviet Union. The first proper chapter sees her arrive from the US, in 1933, at Magnitogorsk, on the Eastern side of the Ural Mountains, a city being built at the command of Stalin to house the largest blast furnaces in the world.
The next chapter flashes back to her childhood in Petrograd (formerly St Petersburg; soon to be Leningrad) in 1920, with her mother and father. They stay in a kommunalka, a sort of commune, with a large number of other men and women; young Aurora seems to be the only child there. She is befriended by Veronika, a veteran of the Red Women's Death Battalion, and has sundry adventures illustrating the changes happening in Mother Russia, including an encounter with the Cheka.
The chapters go on alternating like that, illustrating the years before her arrival in Magnitogorsk, and what happens after she arrives. Both threads are tense, fascinating, historically fraught, and sometimes funny.
Beginning in 1920, she experiences the USSR's new, informal method of divorce -- her father simply takes off his wedding ring, and her mother returns to her family ranch in Montana. After a few years, Papa is sent to the United States as a recruiting agent. He takes Aurora (now to be called Dawn again) with him, and dumps him at Mama's ranch, until he needs her as cover when he joins the Bonus Army and its March on Washington, and ... well, no spoilers here.
Again, starting in 1933, Aurora acts as a translator for an American engineer helping to build Magnitogorsk. Then she is summoned to a hospital for "routine" examinations, which lead her to questioning by an agent of the NKVD, and ... no spoilers.
Along the way she meets a number of historical figures, from a young George Patton to a chilling Lavrentiy Beria, and learns from each of them.
Seven out of ten polo ponies.
Interesting Links for 20-02-2026
Feb. 20th, 2026 12:00 pmandrewducker- 1. Looksmaxxing: Myth Vs. Fact
- (tags:funny trends beauty society bodyimage )
- 2. An excellent break down of the EHRC trangender toilet case, and the High Court findings. It is, as you might expect, a mess.
- (tags:law transgender uk lgbt )
- 3. Sizing chaos - an incredibly visualised look at how and why women's clothes sizing is a mess that lets down half of all women
- (tags:women clothing visualisation OhForFucksSake history society )
- 4. Psychology of Gen X Parents (I feel called out. Or described. Or something)
- (tags:psychology demographics history video )
- 5. What is Going on with Colorectal Cancer in young people?
- (tags:cancer age statistics )
The death of kaitenzushi has been somewhat exaggerated
Feb. 20th, 2026 07:15 pmmindstalkThere was a Kura Sushi near me in Yokohama, so I tried going. And lo, not only did it deliver orders do you, but there were plates circulating to be taken! Almost nothing on the plates... because it was 16:30, with like 3 people in the store, so I guess they weren't going to waste food putting it out. But there were some tuna salad and shrimp mayo rolls still on the belt. (Even if I liked them, I would not have taken those particular items after unknown circulation time.) So I ordered everything anyway. But in theory.
( Read more... )
Drabblethon: Unsettling: The Fantastic Journey
Feb. 20th, 2026 10:24 ambadly_knitted posting in small_fandomsTitle: Unsettling
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Summary: Willaway has a bad feeling about the carnival.
( Unsettling... )
2026/025: The Dispossessed — Ursula Le Guin
Feb. 20th, 2026 08:51 amtamaranth2026/025: The Dispossessed — Ursula Le Guin
... all the operations of capitalism were as meaningless to him as the rites of a primitive religion, as barbaric, as elaborate, and as unnecessary. In a human sacrifice to deity there might be at least a mistaken and terrible beauty; in the rites of the moneychangers, where greed, laziness, and envy were assumed to move all men’s acts, even the terrible became banal. [p. 130]
Technically a reread, but when I read this at the age of 14 or 15, I didn't really understand it: I recalled very little of characters, themes or incidents.
The brilliant physicist Shevek comes to realise that the collectivist society of Annares, a moon colonised by an anarchist movement, is not conducive to his work. He travels to the 'home world', Urras, which is ebulliently capitalist. Eventually he realises that Urras, too, stifles his scientific creativity.
( Read more... )