Very.

Shattered by Lisa Morgan.

His name is Arnold Ferolito. He was a friend of my father. How did they meet? I don’t know. But the story starts like this…

Arnie was down on his luck. He had a business model based on some kind of green/environmental concept. But it was the 1960s - and that wouldn’t be a viable thing for 50 years. So my father’s advice was “Stick to your strengths. You’re a brilliant electronic engineer with experience in video. That will be a growth field. Find something there.” Well, the timing was impeccable. Within a few weeks, there was an accident at a studio in Manhattan. Two cabinet-sized muti-million-dollar videotape machines were blown out a window in Manhattan to the street several stories below. Arnie bought them as scrap, rebuilt and resold them. That became the seed money for AF Associates.

During my tweens, we would visit them for a day once a year or so. Swim in his pool. I’d chat with his daughter (close to my age), who was oddly willing to talk with me - introverted and awkward as I was. Turns out, the whole family was badly twisted. The older (middle) son was bright, but impossible to talk to (aka autistic). The younger one was “disturbed”. My sister (about 3 at the time) nearly died in that pool once. I was the only one who saw her fall in and I fished her right out.

I worked for AFA in the summer of 79 before my senior year in HS. AF did my father a favor and hired me for the few weeks. I assembled the on-location truck that went to the keystone of the remote TV studio at the Lake Placid Olympics. AFAssociates was reputable and successful. At least for a few years.

'Round about the 90s, my father volunteered me to help AF with some “tech stuff”. It turned into endless demands on my time. AF had seen my father demo a video camera connected to a TARGA board in a 486 PC. AF decided he wanted multiple cameras connected to a PC in each of his 3 houses (NJ, LI, FL) so he could keep an eye on them. Enter the GEOVISION board. These were first-gen tech at the time. The setup was difficult and finicky. There was no support. And it ran on Windows 95. Then there was the dynamic IP issue for the home DSL services. Plus VNC for remote access through the open router ports. It became a full-time support gig - with SUPER URGENT calls all the damn time when a PC crashed or an IP address changed. Did he pay? He did not.

All this time he’s working on his new business. An offshoot of AFA, it involves satellite signals and offshore content, and complex licensing. None of which I care to listen to. Oh, and he’s suing his son-in-law. And his daughter won’t talk to him. And his brilliant son working at Intel won’t either. And his wife divorced him 10 years ago. But that’s OK, his new wife Olga is young and beautiful and Russian. And he gets more and more insistent with his political opinions. Which are generally disgusting racist, elitist, anti-immigrant, winner-take-all, AnCap, well, you know the type. Except this was still the 1990s when Newt Gingrich was the worst US politics had to offer. He was out there.

Well, It got annoying. No pay, calls all the time, constant blame for issues, noxious opinions. My father had passed away, so I had nothing tying him to me. So I ghosted him.

He called me endlessly and left long voicemails. Some were guilt trips calling out to my dead father. Some were poor-me pity pleas citing his failing health. The calls lasted several YEARS, but finally tapered off. I never looked back.

Except I did. I looked him up. Holy shit, he’s in WIKIPEDIA! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RM_Broadcasting He’s LITERALLY a foreign agent! As declared by the State Department! He is a small part of a root cause of the downfall of this country. And I am sure that he is proud of the way things are headed.

If he (or anyone he knows) reads this, I am doxxed. But I really doubt this has any traction to spread. Please do not repost this.

It looks a little like a Skyfall.

I really like this one. It takes us right up to the threshold of prison time. Icing on the cake would be a courtroom video, but I don’t really need it. We all know how it goes.

In the past I’ve used Spice, RT, Jira at work. Freshdesk free works for home. Also a simple bullet list in Google docs.

Any coating might produce this through reflective destructive interference.

My take:

To demonstrate that there is a more leftist population in the US public than is regularly recognized and shift the entire discussion in that direction.

To create a strong alternative to the major pro-corporate parties that is more in line with the rest of the liberal parties around the world.

To oppose the highly organized far right.

No, I won’t vote for her this year. But I can appreciate the above goals.

1990s Plymouth Caravan

This is a really good video.

I live in a county that is very strongly divided on several issues. Nextdoor has to constantly remove posts for excess intensity. A discord would rapidly devolve into death threats.

This is basic mental illness.

I do believe that there will be violence. Probably some bombs in buildings. Probably some rogue shooters. Disappointed zealots taking revenge. Certainly assassination attempts.

Dhalgren?

Usenet?

Very helpful. Excellent methodology and presentation.

I believe parts of Sicily have those characteristics.

I wonder how that new truck was paid for.

This is the best in a while. So earnest. So perfectly innocently confident in SovCit Truths. And so about to slam into reality in a painful way.

This one seems to exceed some threshold for me. The ones that try to buy cars with nonexistent money are bad, but sort of pass as misguided. But this seems like premeditated theft. He went to a rental agency, intending to keep it.