Wishing the best of luck to the Islamic Republic of Spain in the World Cup Final

"Who is sovereign when it comes to negotiating the question of technology? Who is in charge? Who calls the shots? Who makes the decisions? Muslim responses should not recycle or regurgitate broken and tired cliches from has-been perennialists or reactionary Dawah Inc types about "the excesses of technology/modernity" as they have no understanding of the contours and constructs of a world that is in a state of constant hyperwar over extrastatecraft boundaries." View quoted note →

If you work in education or have kids in the system then I would strongly encourage you to plan for what is coming in the next few years.

tl;dr: England peaked a century ago. View quoted note → so my fam has had a few unplanned layovers in the UK now. London is probably going to be a transit city i avoid in bookings now cause less than a 20% success rate there now this decade and the experience just sucks. i'm obviously american bias and not personally explored much beyond hotel zone around Heathrow. the people are mostly polite which i do greatly appreciate but having to explain english grammar over legal liability to an airport manager the other day was just silly. as for the other stuff, the city itself is just trashy. i know folks there like the classic look but most of the buildings don't seem to have had any repairs/updates in a few decades. every business looked like it cut landscaping from their budget this year. roads mid and cover with legal warnings everywhere. honestly, London feels like it could just be Detroit or Cleveland. as an American muslim i always hear about how big the muslim population is in the UK. in reality i'm goong to go out on a limb and say this is mostly media hype. every other major EU city has 10+ times the demographic density. i wore a thobe this week and got more stares than i do in red states. and (here's the worse part) the rummors about sexual preditors is sadly true as my wife had to deal with that from locals! 😡 and i actually want to lean into that last part becuase that sort of stuff only happens when normalized in a culture. guess what, front display at the tech store i stopped in was all dildos (this was in the airport itself - first time i've very seen sex toys marketed front and center like that in an airport). my observation is the UK has a higher degree of this hypersexual normalization than in the USA. idk if this is true. clearly this is a biased and limited experience i've had but i can't say it makes me all that interested in taking my family back for holiday. i do wish the muslim community there the best. you clearly have at least nearly as much running against you as we do across the pond. however, i am inclined to believe that muslims there are exagerating your degree of influence and the anti-islam crowds there probably do have something worth listening to that needs to be addressed.

honestly if you can't learn keypairs you have no business being online in post-AI cyberspace. just drink government coolaid and be a robot in a digital penal colony. View quoted note →

More "stranded in London" layover musing coming soon... 🛩️ View quoted note →

Family first impressions of the UK: "Heathrow smells like ass"