Un-Presidented

The news today is of the unprecedented action of a sitting president and nominee standing aside and nominating his vice president and running mate. President Joe Biden has been struggling with COVID for the last two weeks, further complicating his ability to run a campaign. Perhaps feeling that the strain on his cognitive processes is too much, he is gracefully relinquishing the reins. As much as he wanted to continue the fight to protect and restore our hard-won liberties, it is a sacrifice he felt he must make to protect democracy itself. Contrary to what the checkout clerk at the grocery store feels, I feel that we can’t risk someone who is inherently divisive and glorifies dictatorship to be our president. Vice President Kamala Harris is currently the top pick, and the only major nominee in the race so far. As long as the ultimate nominee pledges to support our democracy and our civil rights, I will vote for who the Democratic Party chooses to replace President Biden at the top of the ticket. The alternative is far worse.

I had a delay getting home on Friday from ÜberConf due to the global outage of Microsoft-based servers running Crowdstrike, an application that scans the servers for security vulnerabilities. Airlines and hospitals suddenly found themselves without access to the information they needed to respond to customers and patients. The outage put a lot of people at risk as a result. What’s worse is that it was glaringly obvious to me that the patch was not tested by Microsoft before pushing it out to the world. The reputation that Microsoft had to build up over the last twenty years is shattered. I expect this to impact the bottom line, and I wouldn’t be surprised if legislation surrounding software malpractice winds up being introduced as a result.

Also in the news this week was the attempted assassination attempt of Donald Trump. I am not a fan of political violence, and am aware of what dictators tend to due after an attempt is made on their life—they militarize the police forces and use them to suppress dissent, usually very violently., and imprisoning many.

The courts are ruling against transgender rights in the intermediate courts. One court ruled that a state can ignore the federal guidelines for transgender students, because it had “state sovereignty.” The last time states claimed “sovereignty,” over 800,000 people died in a bloody civil war. We don’t need another civil war, and I fear the current makeup of the US Supreme Court wll uphold sovereignty, erasing the foundation of decades of civil rights. In another case, an appellate court claimed that transgender people do not have a right to have the correct marker on their birth certificate. This violates the equal treatment clause, since someone that is born in a state that does not permit gender marker changes, but resides in one that does permit it, is more at risk of discrimination and harm. Because gender identity and sex are traditionally marginalized groups, this violates the fourteenth amendment to the US Constitution.

Today, I served breakfast at the VOA Youth Center, attended church where we discussed self-care, and met others for our second monthly queer coffee, where we discussed the breaking news. I stopped by the grocery store, where the cashier was hopeful that Trump would win, and I said, “God, I hope not.” Then I returned home to start cooking Easy Hawaiian-Style Pork now that I have the ingredients. I brought tomtato plant back in, because the temperature is expected to get up to 102 degrees fahrenheit in the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading Moon Witch, Spider King, by Marlon James. I’m about 82% of the way through the book. Sogomo finds herself in Lady Komwono’s home. Lady Komwono’s sister brings her nine children with her who cry, shout, yell, laugh, and “ball out.” Lady Komwono, who is grieving the death of her husband, eats nothing. The sister, Lady Mistress Morongo, demands that the husband’s body be moved out of the library because it has a hole in it.

Lady Komwono gives Sogolon to the King, who is dying, but the Princess takes her as one of her serving women. After Sogolon is banished and the King dies, she sits in a palanquin watching the beginning of the coronation ceremony for the son of the King, the ceremony of the leopard skin. Three more ceremonies are to follow. Watching the ceremony of the leopard skin, Sogolon notices it is accompanied by drums and horns.

While grooming horses, when Sogolon asks if she should present herself once again to the King Sister, the horse she is grooming seems to indicate that she should not. Meanwhile, she shares her remembered dreams with the horse Boho, which seems to sense her sadness.

The Aesi captures Sogolon, and imprisons her with the King Sister, staking the impaled headwoman outside her window. The King Sister studies the poor, impaled headwoman, lecturing Sogolon that those who betray others are marked as betrayers who are never to be trusted.

Tuesday, I flew out to Denver for the ÜberConf software conference. I focused on artificial intelligence and archtiecture related topics. The AI topics included vectors, vector databases, using java to call AI cloud services, the pros and cons of GPTs, how to secure machine learning apps, and using AI to enhance big data solutions. Architecture topics included streaming architecture, architectural fitness functions, and data centricity. I also enjoyed a talk on the diffusion of innovation.

I got to meet the keynote speaker, software architect and magician Michael Carducci, at the conference. We also shared a place in line at the airport while we were checking in. While we were treated to a magic show, Michael shared his story with us, and how we need to bring our whole selves to whatever we do. He shared one of his tricks with me, and seemed surprised when I hinted at how he did one of his other tricks. I find that there are two kinds of people in this world when it comes to magic. It seems that there are those that want to be awed and believe in it; and then there are the minority like myself, who delights in figuring out how things are done. Learning to see the mechanism behind the magic is the true magic for me. I find it empowers me to help bring magic to others.