Hello everybody! Today I would like to promote another underrated artists that was suggested by my friend ChronoNG: Slushie Sweetheart

If I had to sum up her style in one sentence it would be: neon colour happiness.

And this is clearly noticeable since her first works such as:

A characteristics element that I've noticed looking at her gallery was the use of thick lineart around the character and this is well balanced with linearts of different thickness within the character itself and the bright colours like it's well shown here in these two pieces:

I seriously love how vivid the colours are but other elements that make her art truly enjoyable are the different angles from which the characters are depicted, because it creates a nice deconstruction of the overall composition. This other piece is amazing:

Explosion of vivid colours, dynamic pose and quite tasty visually speaking (the background helps to enhance this feeling).

In these two pieces another element I love, asides from the bright colours and fun design, are the strokes that combine with shading and lighting creating a cool and different way of building a three-dimensional effect. Her art is really enjoyable to look at and I personally think that reflects her personality too: fun, bright and lively. So why not giving her some support and hit that follow button? I would love to see more people discovering her. See you next time!

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing great! It's been 5 days since I reached 200 fans but I didn't want to celebrate it at first simply because I had put this post up and wanted to leave it for at least a week (feel free to drop your best work for a review if you want). But now I take the opportunity to say thank you for the 200 people who decided to follow this crazy bird person who likes to share stuff, fun facts and a bit of support to the fantastic and talented people who enrich this website:

An extremely simple draw not that different, from a textual point of view, from the drawing I did for the 69 fans where some of my OCs were featured. Here I wanted to show them more in detail or at least in full body. Yes, the "F" and "N" are not random in their font.

Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for deciding to follow me^^ it means a lot, it's really nice being appreciated I will be honest and I will do my best to keep being the person I am. I am also happy to see I am gradually reaching 100 reviews, because, even if I haven't stated it explicitly in my resolutions of the new year for NG, it's one of my goals for this 2025. I hope to surpass it and write even more reviews to help, support, share my thought and in general have fun with the community.

I am also participating some new cool and fun collabs like the Crazy Clown collab and the Tarot Card collab, while preparing at the same time for Russian oral exam I have this month since I passed the written exam in January with a very good result since I studied all A2 level in just two months.

I also started drawing the 6 fanart challenge I started last year, first two characters have been drawn. I can't wait to finish it and post it. In the meantime see you soon!

Heavily inspired by this blog I discovered while scrolling the artists news: https://variablegr.newgrounds.com/news/post/1515041

I would like to do the same but with the following things to keep in mind:

1. I will review only things posted on Newgrounds
2. I will review art, music, videogames and movies
3. It will take some time to review stuff since I like to take time to fully experience the work I am interacting with

So without any further ado, link in the comment section your best work, I will review it, give feedback/constructive criticism to it and rate it. I like the idea of giving a bit of support to artists. So now, let's have fun!

While I was scrolling down the artists news I stumbled across this journal and I thought to share it despite not being able to directly help the person who experienced this nasty incident, if you can spread her journal is fine too so more people can reach her and eventually directly help her:

https://artistiacons.newgrounds.com/news/post/1514530

I know the person in question may not want to talk about details of how it happened but I want to take opportunity to mention possible causes of this event by using this website that shows some interesting causes of it:

Physical credit card theft still happens. If you forget your wallet somewhere or your wallet is stolen, a criminal can snatch your card and use it right away. A stolen or lost credit card has the unique advantage that it’s ready to use without requiring any extra steps.

Your mail can be an easy source for credit card fraud. If you throw away a pre-approved card, accidentally toss a replacement card, or forget to shred your statements, anyone can take them out of the trash and use them.

Perhaps surprisingly, family members are often the perpetrators of credit card fraud. A family member or friend you trust could have access to your cards and use them without permission. Or, a member of your family could open a credit card in your name.

These small devices collect credit card data from the card’s magnetic strips, which criminals then use to create a cloned card. Thieves install skimmers on ATMs, gas pumps, and other publicly available card readers.

Shimmers are the natural evolution of card skimmers. But instead of stealing data from your card’s magnetic strip, they go inside the reader and steal your chip information. 

Open wireless connections at places like coffee shops and airports are notoriously unsafe. Hackers can use what’s called a “man-in-the-middle” (MiTM) attack to intercept your connection and collect any data you share, including credit card information.

Many modern cards use radio-frequency identification (RFID) for contactless payment. A thief close enough to you with the right device can use this technology to “scrape” your credit card information. There are very few reports of this scam, but it could grow as RFID becomes more common.

Phishing is a type of social engineering attack designed to scam you online and give up your sensitive information. A phishing message pretends to be from an organization you trust like your bank or the IRS. But if you share information by clicking on the link or responding to the email/text, the data goes directly to a hacker.

Phishing attacks can also try to get you to download attachments that include malware. This harmful software can steal sensitive data from your devices and share it with hackers. One common type of criminal software — called a keylogger — records everything you type. This includes credit card numbers, passwords, emails, and more, and sends them to the hacker.

Phishing attacks can also take place over the phone. A scammer will call posing as an authority figure who needs to confirm your credit card information. Often the scammer will use serious threats — like jail time for unpaid taxes or criminal activity on your card — to get you to act.

A rogue restaurant employee can copy your card data when you’re not looking (this scam is called shoulder surfing). Or, a call center worker can write down your information when you pay via credit card over the phone. I remember something like that happened in Japan where a man, with a strong eidetic memory, stole credit/debit card info from customers and drained their accounts.

Hackers use different types of cyber attacks to inject malicious software onto website forms. When you enter your info — including credit card numbers — they get access to them. 

Researchers found “formjacking” code on major sites like Ticketmaster, Newegg, and British Airways. In 2022, security experts detected the code on over 100 real estate websites.

A thief with login information for your credit card company can use your credit as if it were their own. This form of identity theft is particularly dangerous as a fraudster can use account information to apply for new credit, take out fraudulent loans, and collect personal data.

Research shows that data breaches increased by 15% from Q2 to Q3 of 2022. Billions of account details have been leaked from Facebook, T-Mobile, Experian, LinkedIn, and more. A single data breach can expose tens of millions of credit card numbers to hackers on the Dark Web. 

https://www.idtheftcenter.org/post/q3-2022-data-breach-report-compromises-victims-up-record-high-year-unlikely/

Many websites where you shop or pay for services offer to keep your card on file. While this can be convenient, it also means that if a hacker later accesses the company databases, they can steal that saved data(1).

https://privacy.com/blog/how-can-someone-use-my-credit-card-without-having-it

References and footnotes:

(1) https://www.aura.com/learn/how-do-people-steal-credit-card-numbers

While I was searching for some old draw made when I was teen/late teen for this thread, I also found some drawings I made during my first years of University:

Yes those are first drawings of Russel and Jake my corvids OCs. The peregrine falcon is Jake's arch enemy XD Since their start as OCs, I always imagined the relationship between him and Russel similar to that of boke and tsukkomi of manzai comedy, but with ages I also got inspired to make them evolve into a bromance similar to the one you see in Book IX (lines 225 to 241) of Iliad between Achilles and Patroclus. This draw sums it up:

(it will be digitalized in future)

Silly drawing of Near trying to build his card castle. The pose was referenced from Death Note manga, one of my favourite Japanese works. In the next drawing (not posted here) Near asks Anthony Rester to bring the cat out of the SPK headquarter. I always loved Death Note style, it's one of my favourite and I try to emulate it as much as possible because it's visually very pleasant to look at.

Ok these two drawings are based on the dialogues and interaction between Michaela Dietz (Amethyst's voice actress) and Jesse Zuke (former storyboard artist and storyboard revisionist for Steven Universe). Jesse Zuke has always been my favoruite storyboard artist in the Crewniverse, I love their personality, I love their style (my favourite along with Rebecca Sugar's one). It's a deep shame they had to delete their Twitter accounts and other social medias because of harassment (I suspect transphobia) and to all who harassed them: fuck you!

This is a golden-shouldered parrot (Psephotellus chrysopterygius) a rare bird of southern Cape York Peninsula, in Queensland, Australia, classified as Endangered due mostly to an increase in mid-story vegetation, which increases predation. A major conservation project is underway on Artemis Station to save the species from extinction. I discovered this species thanks to a former friend who had a scientist OC based on this species. I really love the colour pattern.

Some stupid silliness with the "gem shaming" trend that happened on Tumblr some years ago XD

This was more of a venting drawing I did 9 years ago. The night sky and stars were made with watercolours while the rest with coloured pencils.

This was made during 2016 Losar, the year of Male Fire Monkey. The Tibetan macaque was not a coincidence since the importance of Losar in Tibetan tradition. I am unsure if celebrating it or not this year.

A crossover between an Anime character (Shamshel from NGE) and a cartoon character (Amethyst from SU). I found the sue of whip attacks and colour scheme fitting for their interactions. I know Shamshel is a lot bigger than Amethyst, in this drawing he has the same size of Amethyst's. I don't do often crossovers, but this was particularly fun to do.

Just a hooded crow drawing. I liked shading the head to give those particular light features of the bird.

Like in the thread I linked above, this is one of late teen drawings I did. It was a study to memorize head scales in order to learn snake identification since they be quite challenging especially if colubrid. I love snakes to death.

That's all for now people and friends, see you next time!

ERRATA CORRIGE: I had to correct the name of the parrot species because after looking closely the dark salmon pink lower belly, I remembered it was an other parrot species that is a sister taxon to the hooded parrot (Psephotellus dissimilis). Sorry again for the confusion and wrong information.

The interesting discussion of the thread Online Safety Updates and a very unsettling comment that you can agree with though, made me want to discuss about neurotechnology and the emergence of neurorights and mental privacy. It's a thread that I am still reading and keeping an eye since I like reading all opinions shared there, they are all interesting and I agree with the majority of them concerning privacy rights and how governments don't give a damn about kids or the safety of their citizens (see the many data breaches that occurred over the years), they just care about their own power and the next election for the most part. Not to mention many of them are run by old people who know jack shit about internet, new technology and younger generations, and it's also funny how they want to teach internet safety when they are the first to use and overuse shit like FB, Meta etc. where they post their personal info.... I warn you this will be another of mine looooong blogs, so take your time to read it all if you truly wish to read a bit about it.

Neurotechnologies

Anyway let's dive into this fascinating but extremely unsettling world of neurotechnologies and neurorights. What is a neurotechnology? Well, it's any method or electronic device which interfaces with the nervous system to monitor or modulate neural activity. Common design goals for neurotechnologies include using neural activity readings to control external devices such as neuroprosthetics, altering neural activity via neuromodulation to repair or normalize function affected by neurological disorders, or augmenting cognitive abilities(1).

I leave here this interesting video about them, you can watch other videos of this channel to discover more about them from a scientific point of view:

Examples of neurotechnologies:

Deep brain stimulation, photostimulation based on optogenetics and photopharmacology, transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial electric stimulation and brain–computer interfaces, such as cochlear implants and retinal implants. 

This field has been around for nearly half a century but has only reached maturity in the last twenty years. Decoding basic procedures and interactions within the brain's neuronal activity is essential to integrate machines with the nervous system.

I admit this is a fascinating world that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres and integrating an electronic device with the nervous system enables monitoring and modulating neural activity as well as managing implemented machines by mental activity. Advances in these efforts are associated with developing models based on knowledge about natural processes in bio-systems that monitor and/or modulate neural activity. One promising direction evolves through studying the mother-fetus neurocognitive model(2):

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-75329-9_24

According to this model, the innate natural mechanism ensures the embryonic nervous system's correct (balanced) development(3). Because the mother-fetus interaction enables the child's nervous system to evolve with adequate biological sentience, similar environmental conditions can treat the injured nervous system. This means that the physiological processes of this natural neurostimulation during gestation underlie any noninvasive artificial neuromodulation technique and this knowledge paves the way for designing and precise tuning noninvasive brain stimulation devices in treating different nervous system diseases within the scope of modulating neural activity(4).

There are also more specialized sectors of neurotechnology that introduced concepts such as neuron-like electrodes, hybrid biotic–abiotic electrodes, planar complementary metal-oxide semiconductor systems, injectable bioconjugate nanomaterials, implantable optoelectronic microchips (I admit these sounds like names coming out straight a sci-fi series XD).

The very positive aspects of these technologies are that they can help control depression, over-activation, sleep deprivation, and many other conditions. Therapeutically they can also help improve stroke patients' motor coordination, improve brain function, reduce epileptic episodes, improve patients with degenerative motor diseases (Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, ALS), and can even help alleviate phantom pain perception. These are things I highly support for neurotechnologies or NT because when technologies is used to help others and improve the lives of those who had difficult conditions I am for it all the way, I can also understand and don't oppose its use as mere entertainment such as to control video games via brain activation.

BUT

But since those technologies are manufactured and distributed as consumer-grade devices that can be bought and used by laypersons on an everyday basis with barely or even no supervision, numerous threats arise. The use and processing of personal data of such devices raises several concerns and entails a multitude of open questions on possible moral and psychological implications, safety hazards, and data security. However not all NT work superficially some need to be surgically implanted on or within the brain and this raises deep concerns about mental privacy, neurorights, invasiveness, risks, complications, side-effects, and degree of commitment to the product required by invasive and non-invasive NT. These are all things which are still not very clear to the public. Types of NT include:

• Deep brain stimulation
• Transcrancial ultrasound stimulation (TUS)
• Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
• Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS)
• Electroencephalography (EEG)
• Electrocorticography (ECoG), it relies on similar principles of EEG but it's more invasive since it's implanted on the brain's surface unlike EEG which placed around the head and scalp
• Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
• Neurotechnological implants
• Neuropsychopharmacology (i.e. sertraline, methylphenidate, and zolpidem)

The real and main concern about and around them is the object they work on: the brain. Interventions and manipulations on the brain harbour immense disruptive potential insofar as they influence the autonomous actions and self-perception of the individual. And this brings us to the concept of neurorights.

Neurorights

They are neurological rights that is to say a set of rights to freedom from abuses of neurotechnology, both for humans and for any transhumans as may eventually exist. Examples of neurorights: right not to have one's thoughts detected by others' mindreading against one's will, the right not to have one's personality altered against one's will, and others, the right not to have to work against one's will due to mental hacking by a potential employer, the right not to have to do something against one's will.

I leave here the website of the nonprofit organization that works to protect the human rights of people from the potential misuse or abuse of neurotechnology: The Neurorights Foundation.

I totally agree with Rafael Yuste, a Spanish–American neurobiologist and one of the initiators of the BRAIN Initiative announced in 2013, who wants a new international treaty on neurorights and a new international agency to make sure countries comply with it similar to what is now the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the use of nuclear energy. With the speed at which these technologies go and the goal some companies held by billionaires such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg who are working on brain-computer interfaces that could pick up thoughts directly from your neurons and translate them into words in real time, new strong and highly strict laws and regulations must be made and enacted in order to protect what I consider one of the most important and vital rights of all: privacy and more specifically mental privacy.

What Musk and Zuckerberg are doing could one day allow you to control your phone, computer or any other futuristic tool with just your thoughts, here the announcement by Meta: https://tech.facebook.com/reality-labs/2020/3/imagining-a-new-interface-hands-free-communication-without-saying-a-word/

We are working on a system that will let people type with their brains. Specifically, we have a goal of creating a silent speech system capable of typing 100 words per minute straight from your brain – that’s five times faster than you can type on a smartphone today. This isn’t about decoding your random thoughts. Think of it like this: You take many photos and choose to share only some of them. Similarly, you have many thoughts and choose to share only some of them. This is about decoding those words you’ve already decided to share by sending them to the speech center of your brain. It’s a way to communicate with the speed and flexibility of your voice and the privacy of text. We want to do this with non-invasive, wearable sensors that can be manufactured at scale.

We also have a project directed at allowing people to hear with their skin. We are building the hardware and software necessary to deliver language through the skin.

I admit reading this passage (the piece I quoted was made in 2017) made me have goosebumps both positively (science and technology always intrigue me) and negatively (my love for privacy and myself as person makes me be quite aggressive and misoneist towards these stuff)

The short-term goal is to help patients with paralysis, by decoding their brain signals and allowing them to “speak” their thoughts without ever having to move a muscle. That could be a real public good, significantly improving quality of life for millions of people. And I agree with this and support it, BUT once again we know things will become available to the general public eventually and this raises concerns because Facebook’s long-term goal is to reach a much, much wider audience: The aim, it says, is to give all of us the ability to control digital devices from keyboards to augmented reality glasses using the power of thought alone. To do that, the company will need access to our brain data. Which, of course, raises some ethical concerns. The human participants in their study, three volunteers with epilepsy, already had electrodes surgically implanted on the surface of their brains as part of preparation for neurosurgery to treat their seizures. They listened to straightforward questions (like “How is your room currently?”) and spoke their answers out loud. The algorithm, just by reading their brain activity, decoded the answers with accuracy rates as high as 61 percent.

That’s pretty impressive, but so far the algorithm can only recognize words from a small vocabulary (like “cold,” “hot,” and “fine”). The scientists are aiming to grow its lexicon over time.

Elon Musk’s company Neuralink is developing flexible “threads” that can be implanted into a brain and could one day allow you to control your smartphone or computer with just your thoughts. Musk said he hopes to start testing in humans soon. Considering that even in China something like this has already been happening since 2019 since its government is mining data directly from workers’ brains on an industrial scale to detect changes in emotional states in employees on the production line.

For example the production lines at Hangzhou Zhongheng Electric where the workers wear caps to monitor their brainwaves, data that management then uses to adjust the pace of production and redesign workflows, according to the company. The company said it could increase the overall efficiency of the workers by manipulating the frequency and length of break times to reduce mental stress.

Police worldwide have been exploring “brain-fingerprinting” technology, which analyzes automatic responses that occur in our brains when we encounter stimuli we recognize. The claim is that this could enable police to interrogate a suspect’s brain; his brain responses would be more negative for faces or phrases he doesn’t recognize than for faces or phrases he does recognize. The tech is scientifically questionable, yet India’s police have used it since 2003, Singapore’s police bought it in 2013, and the Florida State Police signed a contract to use it in 2014 (5).

Already, there are AI-powered brain decoders that can translate into text the unspoken thoughts swirling through our minds, without the need for surgery although this tech is not yet on the market. In the meantime, you can buy lots of devices off Amazon right now that would record your brain data (like the Muse headband, which uses EEG sensors to read patterns of activity in your brain, then cues you on how to improve your meditation). Since these aren’t marketed as medical devices, they’re not subject to federal regulations; companies can collect and sell your data :)

I want also leave this study about brain-fingerprinting: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344526903_Brain_Fingerprinting_A_Warning_Against_Early_Implementation

Neurotechnologies and AI-supported devices can touch many aspects of lives such as sexual orientation. We know that there are multiple areas of the brain which have been found to display differences based on sexual orientation. Several of these can be found in the hypothalamus, including the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area (SDN-POA) present in several mammalian species. Researchers have shown that the SDN-POA aides in sex-dimorphic mating behavior in some mammals, which is representative of human sexual orientation(6). The human equivalent to the SDN-POA is the interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus, which is also sexually dimorphic and has demonstrated dissimilar sizes between sexualities(7). There are also other POA-like brain structures in the human brain which differ between sexual orientations, such as the suprachiasmatic nucleus and the anterior hypothalamus. Using meta-analysis of neuroimaging, researchers have concluded that these areas are linked to sexual preferences in humans, which would explain why they may differ based on sexual orientation(8).

Another area of the brain which demonstrates sexual orientation differentiation is the thalamus, which is a structure involved in sexual arousal and reward. The thalamus of heterosexual individuals was found to be bigger than that of homosexual individuals: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7930173/

The placement of connections in the amygdala have been demonstrated to differ between heterosexual and homosexual individuals. The posterior cingulate cortex, a part of the occipital lobe, the region of the brain that processes visual information, has also been demonstrated to have differences based on sexual orientation. Research has shown that a couple of the areas of connection between the hemispheres of the brain have differences in their size depending on sexual orientation. The front commission was found to be wider in homosexual men than heterosexual men, and the corpus callosum was found to be larger in homosexual men than heterosexual men. Some areas of the brain which researchers looked at but did not find differences in structure between sexualities are the temporal cortex, hippocampus and putamen(10).

With neurotechnologies it might become a reality to detect a homosexual person from a heterosexual one, now image this applied to those lovely gay-friendly countries and places where they are sent to camps (coughs Chechnya coughs). But we also know AIs can be quite flawed and poisoned by biases like it happened in this study. I do appreciate that the researchers claim has in fact been peer-reviewed and is due to be published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the authors acknowledge the limitations with regard to their sample, but maintain that they "did not build a privacy-invading tool" (here the same study in PDF: https://ai.ethicsworkshop.org/Library/case-face-orientation/wang_kosinski.pdf). This article also points out some of its limitations and potential damages studies like this might harm the LGBTQ+ community due to extreme lack of scientific knowledge from both governments and general public: https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-s-really-going-on-with-that-study-saying-ai-can-detect-your-sexual-orientation

Luckily, the brain is lawyering up. Neuroscientists, lawyers, and lawmakers have been teaming up to pass legislation that would protect our mental privacy. In a first for the US, Colorado passed new legislation this week that amends the state’s privacy law to include the privacy of neural data. Now, just as fingerprints and facial images are protected under the Colorado Privacy Act, the whisperings of the brain are, too. Signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis, the bill had impressive bipartisan support, passing by a 34-to-0 vote in the state Senate and 61-to-1 in the House. I commend you, Colorado, bravo!

Here the bill if you are curious: https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024A/bills/2024a_1058_ren.pdf

California is taking a similar approach. The state’s Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill that brings brain data into the category of “sensitive personal information.” Next, the bill heads to the Appropriations Committee for consideration. Here the link: https://sd13.senate.ca.gov/news/press-release/april-16-2024/senate-committee-overwhelmingly-approves-landmark-neurorights-act

Europe is discussing the topic of neurotechnologies too, here the PDF, enjoy: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2024/757807/EPRS_STU(2024)757807_EN.pdf

But laws must be quick because with companies like Meta and Snapchat exploring neurotechnology, and Apple patenting a future version of AirPods that would scan your brain activity through your ears, we could soon live in a world where companies harvest our neural data just as 23andMe harvests our DNA data. These companies could conceivably build databases with tens of millions of brain scans, which can be used to find out if someone has a disease like epilepsy even when they don’t want that information disclosed and could one day be used to identify individuals against their will. 

Thanks to Neurorights Foundation I've also discovered that several consumer neurotech companies are gathering brain data — and perhaps selling it, according to a major report I link here: https://www.perseus-strategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FINAL-Consumer-Neurotechnology-Report-Neurorights-Foundation-March-2024-3.pdf

Analyzing the privacy policies and user agreements of 30 companies, the report found that a majority could share neural data with third parties.

So if you’re worried about what might happen with your neural data and mental privacy, you need to be worried right now about that, Jared Genser, general counsel at the Neurorights Foundation, said. Because people are buying these devices all around the world.

And now we enter in the creepy, unsettling territory of neurotechnologies that touches one of the most important rights that is emerging in these decades: mental privacy or neural privacy.

Mental privacy and new rights

Remember Rafael Yuste? I mentioned him above in this article. He at his lab, employed a method called optogenetics, he found that he could manipulate the visual perception of mice by using a laser to activate specific neurons in the visual cortex of the brain. When he made certain images artificially appear in their brains, the mice behaved as though the images were real. Yuste discovered he could run them like puppets. I will leave you the article:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747687/pdf/nihms-1049885.pdf

In 2017, Yuste gathered around 30 experts to meet at Columbia’s Morningside campus, where they spent days discussing the ethics of neurotech. As Yuste’s mouse experiments showed, it’s not just mental privacy that’s at stake; there’s also the risk of someone using neurotechnology to manipulate our minds. While some brain-computer interfaces only aim to “read” what’s happening in your brain, others also aim to “write” to the brain that is, to directly change what your neurons are up to.

In this article published at Nature, Yuste and his group introduced new human rights that emerged with the development of neurotechnology, here the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/551159a.pdf

But for the sake of brevity I will list them here too:

1. Mental privacy (the right to seclude one's brain data so that it's not stored or sold without your consent)
2. Personal identity (the right to be protected from alterations to one's sense of self and its perception that is not authorized by the person him/her/themselves)
3. Free will (the right to retain the ultimate control over one's decision making, without unknown manipulation from neurotechnologies)
4. Fair access to mental augmentation (the right to enjoy equality of access, so that neurotechnology doesn’t only benefit the rich)
5. Protection from bias (neurotechnology algorithms should be designed in ways that do not perpetuate bias against particular groups)

It's extremely vital to act not only to talk about it and Yuste did what it needs to do. He connected with Jared Genser, an international human rights lawyer who has represented clients like the Nobel Peace Prize laureates Desmond Tutu and Aung San Suu Kyi. Together, Yuste and Genser created the Neurorights Foundation to advocate for the cause.

This led to an immediate victory because in 2021, after Yuste helped craft a constitutional amendment with a close friend who happened to be a Chilean senator, Chile became the first nation to enshrine the right to mental privacy and the right to free will in its national constitution. Mexico, Brazil, and Uruguay are already considering something similar. 

Even the United Nations has started talking about neurotech: Secretary-General António Guterres gave it a shoutout in his 2021 report, “Our Common Agenda,” after meeting with Yuste. Let's see how it will evolve, I wish him all the best!

Now times are still too green especially now with all these shitty governments all around the world, but in future maybe, and I say maybe, a new global treaty might be established. If US federal law were to follow Colorado in recognizing neural data as sensitive health data (I doubt now with the current president and that other guy), that data would fall under the protection of HIPAA, which Yuste said would alleviate much of his concern. Another possibility would be to get all neurotech devices recognized as medical devices so they would have to be approved by the FDA.

I agree when Genser says "It’s about having options", if you give me options and freedom to chose what I want and what not (spoiler: I don't want these technologies in me, on me and around me where by around me I mean my house and my family) then I am more mentally inclined to tolerate them as long as there are strict law that act quickly and limit the misuse power of these technologies. Technology is not bad per se, it's how you use it that makes the difference.

Little gift

And now I want to leave you this useful tool to enhance your privacy online:

https://www.privacytools.io/

See you next time!

References and footnotes:

(1) Cook MJ, O'Brien TJ, Berkovic SF, Murphy M, Morokoff A, Fabinyi G, et al. (June 2013). "Prediction of seizure likelihood with a long-term, implanted seizure advisory system in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy: a first-in-man study". The Lancet. Neurology. 12 (6): 563–71. doi:10.1016/s1474-4422(13)70075-9. PMID 23642342. S2CID 33908839

(2) Val Danilov I (2024). “Child Cognitive Development with the Maternal Heartbeat: A Mother-Fetus Neurocognitive Model and Architecture for Bioengineering Systems.” In International Conference on Digital Age & Technological Advances for Sustainable Development (pp. 216-223). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75329-9_24

(3) Val Danilov I. (2024). “The Origin of Natural Neurostimulation: A Narrative Review of Noninvasive Brain Stimulation Techniques”. OBM Neurobiology 2024; 8(4): 260; doi:10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2404260

(4) Ibidem

(5) https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/3/17/23638325/neurotechnology-ethics-neurofeedback-brain-stimulation-nita-farahany

(6) Bogaert, Anthony F.; Skorska, Malvina N. (March 2020). "A short review of biological research on the development of sexual orientation". Hormones and Behavior. 119: 104659. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2019.104659. PMID 31911036. S2CID 21005529

(7) Lau, Holning (2018-08-01), "Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination", BRILL, pp. 1–52, doi:10.1163/9789004345492_002, ISBN 9789004345492, S2CID 240352057

(8) Ibidem

(9) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7930173/

(10) Frigerio, Alberto; Ballerini, Lucia; Valdés Hernández, Maria (2021-05-06). "Structural, Functional, and Metabolic Brain Differences as a Function of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation: A Systematic Review of the Human Neuroimaging Literature". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 50 (8): 3329–3352. doi:10.1007/s10508-021-02005-9. ISSN 0004-0002. PMC 8604863. PMID 33956296

Hello everyone, here Shang with another artist promotion and this time I would like to promote an artist I met two months ago, I am referring to ChronoNG 

The thing that immediately catches the eye, looking at his works, is the very marked and well-defined outlines of the drawings especially if you take a look at most recent works where the image quality increased a lot compared to the first three drawings.

The artwork that made me fell in love with the style and made me understand the person has a lot of artistic potential is his first drawing:

I discovered this artwork in a forum thread about reviews requests, he asked some critique on poses. I took a look and I immediately liked it, I have yet to review it because I would like to give him some tips about more dynamic poses. A thing that I like a lot about his works is the accuracy with which he mimic the style of the character, for example works like these well show what I mean:

In the last one I particularly like how homogeneous the black colour is on antennae, there are no smears and I like how the right hand is coloured differently with a lighter pressure so that one can appreciate the volumetric shapes between the right hand and the left antenna. I also like the perspective between the two.

His works are mostly black and white but there are coloured works too such as:

I like the grainy effect of the coloured works and nice touch in the background of Charlotte (Original Character) with those alternations between yellow, blue, purple and pink because it gives a nice iridescent effect. His style is very reminiscent of chibi style and if on one hand he knows how to imitate the original style of the character he represents, on the other hand he also knows how to add a personalized touch in his other works such as:

He is a very fun person to hang around too, I admit I like when he comments my stuff even though no one is obliged to always comment my stuff (I had a nasty experience with a person on DA who demanded my friends and me to always comment her stuff whether it was blogs or artworks, and this mentally drained me on the long term), but it's nice to see your works are appreciated.

I think he deserves a much larger following base because of the adorable chibi-style and nice personality he has, so if you want to check him out, go and hit that button!

See you next time, bye!

Hello everyone! I hope you had an amazing Pixel Day, I definitely had a lot of fun making and posting those pixel art pieces I made for the collabs I participated and the fanart for the Pixel Day itself, I still need to post one last pixel artwork I made for the Wanted collab and maybe another piece since that day inspired me to make another artwork. But enough talking about me, I want to start this series about promoting artists I find across this website and this time I want to promote a very talented yet underrated and pretty much under the radar artist I discovered thanks to Buup's journal:

Enchiladas9473

He is the artist in question, he joined the site on July, 2024 but posted his first artwork on January 24th, 2025 so his artistic career started only today and I got immediately struck by the personal style with which he designed Pico and friends. This is the artwork I am talking about:

I plan to properly review his work, just know now that I love how bright colours are and the thickness of the lineart which gives compactness to the colour enclosed within it, enhancing it even more. The second element that made me fall in love with this artwork is the personal style he put on each of them. Characters retain their unique traits that make easy to distinguish them, but at the same time the way hair are drawn, the hairstyle itself and some unique gadget they wear make them stand out very nicely among other depictions of the trio.

Considering the talent he has I image other future cool artworks and I hope to see more of his works.

This is why I would like to promote him and hope more people start following him, he deserves support and if you like his style why not hitting that "follow" button? ;)

I wish you all a great and serene day! Bye and see you next time!

Ok, this is first time I decided to write about something related to politics but what's happening in these days is really making me want to get off my chest the frustration and disgust I feel not only for the new US president's decisions but also implications and impacts his actions have on us Europeans. This blog is meant as both a way to sublime all negative emotions I am bottling up during these days and to give an outsider perspective on US people who might stumble across this blog. I know that a good chunk of US population think only about their inner garden and don't think about consequences of their actions (voting for Trump, and despite I may respect your decision I still think that a better Republican could have been chosen instead of a criminal like him), I would still like to show a perspective from the outside, from someone who is not US. So I do apologize in advance if this post will be long, full of pessimism and negativity, but I really need to get this off my chest.

The blog will have both personal opinions and reported facts, it's a mix because my feelings are a mix and I need to sublime in a more ordered way.

The average US citizen thinks about benefits in their own country and it's not a bad thing per se but it's important to know that a country like US can have a huge impact and influence since we sadly live in a US-ruled world when it comes to "Western" sphere, and the world doesn't revolve around them. We are interconnected and the action of an influencing country impacts the world, and the first thing that will be definitely impacted will be the environment and climate.

You already know that President Trump signed an executive order Monday directing the United States to again withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement, dealing a blow to worldwide efforts to combat global warming and once again distancing the U.S. from its closest allies. The pact is aimed at limiting long-term global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels or, failing that, keeping temperatures at least well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. also signed a letter to the United Nations indicating his intention to withdraw from the 2015 agreement, which allows nations to provide targets to cut their own emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Those targets are supposed to become more stringent over time, with countries facing a February 2025 deadline for new individual plans.

I think it's quite clear how the impacts of the climate crisis are worsening. The terrible wildfires in Los Angeles are the clear reminder that US people, like everyone else, are affected by worsening climate change and the will to withdraw from Paris climate agreement and the will to go back to oil, and drills will only worsen this tragic situation. Right now the world is now long-term 1.3°C above mid-1800s temperatures. Although in the scientific literature there is overwhelming scientific consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases, neither Trump nor any of the department heads he has appointed believe that global warming is human-related.

20201211 Billion dollar events related to climate change - U.S. -en.svg by RCraig09, 12 December 2020 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

This graph of number billion-dollar climate-related events in the United States, and annual costs of those events, based on NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. You can clearly see the growing numbers of weather and climate-related events costing at least a billion dollars which exceed the 1980–2019 inflation-adjusted average of 6.6 such events(1). Following Trump's first election large amounts of climate information from the EPA website was altered or removed. There was widespread concern among environmentalists and scientists and a coalition of scientific and academic groups began to make copies of the EPA web pages before they were deleted. According to the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative which tracks changes to government websites under the Trump administration, over 200 web pages providing climate information were omitted during Trump's first year in office. Other pages were altered to remove mentions of climate and climate change(2). This is unacceptable and concerning to say the least and now that he has Musk and other big tech companies COEs on his side, science and correct information will suffer deep blows in showing how the world will only accelerate its worsening.

And remember what he said during the 2020 California wildfires on September 13th, 2020:

It'll start getting cooler. You just watch. ... I don't think science knows, actually.

And speaking on the scientific front, another one was hit by Trump's decisions: US withdrawal from the World Health Organization.

here the official statement: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/withdrawing-the-united-states-from-the-worldhealth-organization/

The United States is by far the WHO's biggest financial backer, contributing around 18% of its overall funding. WHO's most recent two-year budget, for 2024-2025, was $6.8 billion.

The U.S. departure will likely put at risk programs across the organization, according to several experts both inside and outside the WHO, notably those tackling tuberculosis, the world’s biggest infectious disease killer, as well as HIV/AIDS and other health emergencies. Under U.S. law, leaving the WHO requires a one-year notice period, and the payment of any outstanding fees.

Aaaaannnd this decision has already convincing an Italian politician, the Northern League party politician, Claudio Borghi to suggest the same for Italy: withdrawing from WHO. This is the Italian article:

https://www.huffingtonpost.it/politica/2025/01/21/news/claudio_borghi_oms-18231318/

I will translate some points:

"The Lega MP comments on the news with a post on X. On the same social network he had listed a series of criticisms of the organization: the very high costs, the ties with Bill Gates, the uselessness. Claudio Borghi is rooting for Donald Trump and his decision to sign an executive order that will allow the United States to leave the World Health Organization. The Lega Nord member hopes that the president's choice will lead the way, dragging Italy towards the same fate. "We must do it right away," he writes on X, in a message accompanied by the news of the US-WHO divorce.

In another more verbose tweet, dating back to last year, Borghi had explained the reasons why he criticizes the work of the Organization, with a ten-point list, obtaining over 2 and a half million views. "The WHO is useless," we read at the beginning of the list, "It made sense in 1948 when information on epidemics arrived by telegraph. Now we are in an infodemic. During Covid, the WHO did not provide a single piece of useful information. If it is not useful for that, then evidently its real function is another now."

Most of you don't know but this political party is a combination of political federalism, fiscal federalism, regionalism and defense of northern Italian traditions whose historical goal is to transform Italy into a federated state, letting Padania keep more tax revenues collected there under a regime of fiscal federalism, and it's racists against Southern Italy. This shitty party has also anti-vax positions....

I really hope this fascist government ignores this but I am still very worried. Yes, I called the government of the country I currently live in fascist and not as insult but as a fact because the main party that rules this country, Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia), traces its origins in National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale) a national conservative political party in Italy that was the successor of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist party founded in 1946 by former followers of Benito Mussolini. The party had moderated its policies over its last decades and claimed finally to have distanced itself from its former ideology, a move known as post-fascismo, during a convention in Fiuggi by dissolving into the new party in 1995. Honestly looking at their actions and evolution within Brothers of Italy I still see elements of neo-fascism, so fuck you from the bottom of my heart! I have to be honest thought that this party is not direct predecessor. FdI was established by former AN members, who had been part of the PdL (The People of Freedom or Il Popolo delle Libertà) in 2008–2012, and is the current bearer of AN's symbol under the authorization of the National Alliance Foundation.

And speaking of influences done by US to Italy now that Musk and Trump have full power, I can't help but mention the deal with Starlink. Italian government has already made a deal with Musk and his Starlink satellites. Meloni said Italy may ( aka Italy will use it) employ Elon Musk's Starlink service to provide encrypted satellite communications to link its military contingents around the world because there is "no public alternative." Italy is in talks with Starlink, part of Musk's SpaceX aerospace business, to use its 6,700 satellite constellation in a reported five-year, €1.5 billion ($1.55 billion) deal. How lovely that this fascist government doesn't seem to find funds for healthcare, research, environment and youth people but magically can waste them in this shit that I find highly dangerous for our national security. And this deal was done in combination with another fact that touched Italy directly: Sala case. The Italian journalist was released soon after Elon Musk met with an Iranian ambassador:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/world/middleeast/musk-italy-iran-prisoner-exchange.html

So basically Italy sold out its national security to free a journalist, and despite I am happy she could came back, I don't like at all that a greater good (national security) was sacrificed to free a single individual when you could pay high sums of money to free her without putting at risk the country's national security. And I am not the only one who is deeply concerned about this.

So basically Italy is currently in advanced negotiations with Musk's SpaceX company deal to provide encrypted telecommunications services via its Starlink satellite internet provider. Namrata Goswami, an independent space policy scholar, thinks this type of deal will become "the new normal" because Starlink provides fast and reliable satellite internet and secure telecommunications with true global reach.

"So what governments look for, especially in terms of, say, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, communication, those communications are supposedly more encrypted and secure based on what SpaceX is offering," she told.

Yet Elon Musk's courting of Meloni could see him extend his already considerable influence in the sector of what are known as low Earth orbit satellites, which orbit Earth at an altitude of 2,000 km or less. Satellites in that orbit are very useful for telecommunications and internet provision. Much of its internet provision is for businesses and consumers. However, some national governments also use Starlink for their own communications and for military applications. The US Department of Defense avails of a specific service called Starshield, designed for some government and military agencies. Ukraine has also made extensive use of the Starlink service during the war with Russia.

However, a deal for SpaceX to provide a major EU government with communications services would be a new departure. It could also bring Italy into conflict with the EU's own space strategy. The European Commission signed the contract to establish IRIS², a plan to place 260 of its own satellites in both low and medium Earth orbit by 2030. The idea is that those satellites will provide EU member states with secure telecommunications. There are no EU rules prohibiting EU governments from using certain satellite or internet services, including Starlink. The spokesperson for the European Commission made it clear that Italy could proceed with Starlink if it so wished but it emphasized the country's strong role in the establishment of IRIS². "On a purported agreement between Italy and Starlink, the Commission does not comment as a matter of principle on discussions of this kind," the spokesperson said. Italy is a sovereign state taking sovereign decisions. Incidentally, Italy is poised to be hosting one of the three IRIS² control centres."

As for Musk and concerns over how his doing deals with governments such as Italy could impact global geopolitical security, Namrata Goswami says that his growing involvement in politics points to a clear risk. She sees a potential issue in the possibility of him having the power to limit a government or military's use of Starlink, if he disagrees with them politically.

"There has to be some security that they cannot just cut off a particular service just because they do not like a particular nation's policies," she says. "That's my concern, because he's so powerful that he might want to influence his own company's decision of who they support and who they don't."

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/italian-interest-in-starlink-strikes-at-the-heart-of-european-space-solidarity/

Opposition parties, primarily the Democratic Party (PD), have voiced significant apprehension about the deal, arguing that entrusting Italy’s sensitive government and military communications to a foreign private entity like SpaceX raises serious concerns about national security and sovereignty. One PD senator has described this move as an “unacceptable sell-out of national sovereignty”, highlighting the danger of relying on a company owned by Musk, who is known for his controversial political stances and close ties to Right-wing figures internationally. The fear is that sensitive data could potentially be at risk if not strictly managed under Italian or European control. Critics of the deal argue that Italy should foster its own technological capabilities or support the European Union’s satellite programs like Iris, set to launch in 2029, rather than outsourcing to a US-based company.

There’s also concern over the economic implications of the deal. Critics within the PD suggest that this partnership might sideline local and European companies, thereby affecting job opportunities within Italy’s telecom sector. The opposition has pointed out that Starlink’s services directly compete with local telecom operators, potentially leading to market monopolisation by SpaceX. This could have long-term negative effects on Italy’s telecommunications industry, reducing the incentive for local innovation and investment:

We have already seen how Twitter went after Musk bought it, and it seems he wants to own TikTok too (now I start to think why it was unbanned in US after Trump became president....but it's just a personal opinion, nothing more). Never let single, ultra rich billionaire take care of political stuff and stuff in general, it never ends well....

Don't forget that this junkie has shown support for the far-right, disgusting, shitty, revolting part AfD.

He wrote that the nationalist party was "the last spark of hope for the country," which he claimed was teetering on the brink of "economic and cultural collapse," and that only the AfD could revive the German economy and prevent a loss of identity through a "controlled immigration policy."

Since you support this party, you should know it posted one-way plane tickets through the letterbox of immigrants, right? I bet not, considering your abyssal ignorance on how EU works (and the world in general). Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is under investigation by the police after people living in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe found the flyers in the mail. They feature an AfD logo, a QR code linking to the website of the party’s local chapter and the purported destination of a “safe country of origin”, with a tagline below that reads: “Only remigration can still save Germany.” (read remigration as deportation since it's a pathetic euphemistic term to soften the semantic burden "deportation" has).

And this is the shitty fake ticket they sent to these people:

from: https://de.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/01/14/afd-abschiebetickets-bundestagswahl

When yesterday I watched this on television I felt physically and emotionally hurt by seeing this disgusting piece of crap and I thought how this can also damage the psyche of some of these people who struggles to integrate and interact with German social web. Image to be an immigrant who fled the country to change your life for the better, you studied hard to master the language to an intermediate level (to become a German citizen, one of requirements is reaching level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), you also studied to pass the naturalisation test, you lived for at least 5 years, just to find in your letterbox this racist shit, how would you feel? If you know more about German citizenship, here the article: https://www.germany-visa.org/german-citizenship/

But Musk added:

"To those who condemn the AfD as extremist, I say: Don't let the label attached to it put you off," Musk wrote. "The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party's leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!"

LMAO, this last sentence is similar to the same bs I hear from homophobic and racist people to justify their discriminatory views under a sugarcoated sentence" I have lots of [INSERT MINORITY GROUP/SEXUAL ORIENTATION HERE]...."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has expressed concern over Elon Musk's support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, weeks before the nation's snap election next month. Scholz, in an interview with Stern magazine said while he was not fazed by the US tech billionaire's attacks on him and other German politicians, Musk's endorsement of the far-right party was much more worrying. Despite I didn't appreciate Musk attacked and insulted Scholz and the other German politicians (if you try to do the same with Musk on Twitter, let's see how long your account will survive, yes I call it Twitter and not that unholy X, get over it, after all your president has already signed an executive order on Monday requiring the federal government to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America" on official maps so why can't I keep calling Twitter as Twitter), I share Scholz's same worries.

Because of Musk's constant meddling on European affairs the French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has called on the European Commission to take tougher action against US billionaire Elon Musk. According to him, the European Commission should use its current legislation much more strictly.

“Either the European Commission applies with the greatest firmness the laws that exist to protect our unique space or it does not and in that case it should think about giving the capacity to do so back to the member states of the European Union, to France,” he said. I totally support Barrot's stance. I am honestly sick of his constant meddling in European political affairs and now that he is part of the Trumpian establishment, I consider it politically and morally unacceptable and a violation of national sovereignty by the United States. If the European Union did the same to the United States I want to see how they would react...seriously as European I say who the fuck do you think you are to decide to heavily influence the politics of foreign countries?

Some time ago, French President Emmanuel Macron hinted at Musk's interference in European politics. During his speech to French ambassadors, Macron did not directly mention Musk's name but said at the time that nobody could have imagined 10 years ago that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary movement and directly interfere in elections, particularly in Germany. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Har Støre also expressed concern about Musk's interference in politics.

If Musk is attacking (or trying to attack) Germany from a political point of view by supporting (and maybe even funding it secretly) far-right party AfD, on the other hand Trump wants to attack Germany on the economic side. The German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck emphasized that after Trump returns to the US presidency, Germany will be the main target of new trade tariffs due to its trade surplus with the United States. The politician noted that possible restrictions against the entire EU would hit the German economy first. At the same time, Habeck emphasized that the EU is ready to fight back, but Germany must act together with its European partners to strengthen its position.

"You can be pretty sure that the tariffs that he might want to impose will be targeted in such a way that they will particularly hit the German economy... No matter what the next German government wants to do, it must do it in a European way," Habeck said. I totally agree with him. Considering that Italy has ties with Germany too when it comes to car industry, this will hit Italy as well.

It's also funny how Trump issued a mass pardon of approximately 1,500 January 6 rioters, but did you know that on January 21, 2025 Trump granted Ross Ulbricht a full and unconditional pardon? Who is Ross Ulbricht? He is the creator and founder of darknet market website Silk Road the infamous online black market and the first modern darknet market known for its illegal drug marketplace, among other illegal and legal product listings.

As Trump put it in a Truth Social post: "in honor of [his mother Lyn Ulbricht], and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross." He said "the scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern-day weaponization of government against me." (damn, I can hear Trump's voice when citing his words...)

A nice example of love for justice and double standards: if you are a Mexican drug cartel you are a terrorist organization, if you create a darknet market to sell and buy illegal stuff like drugs you get pardoned, it doesn't matter if you sold drug, just like drug cartels, if you support someone like Trump so much you get rewarded. A fine example of moral integrity for a country who wants to think to be the land of freedom, well at least Trump kept his promise I will give him that....

Trump is also known to spew false statements in public remarks, this is a graph showing false or misleading claims(3) made by Donald Trump (we truly live in a post-truth society):

2017- Donald Trump veracity - composite graph.png by RCraig09, 23 February 2020 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Some of Trump's falsehoods were inconsequential, such as his repeated claim of the "biggest inaugural crowd ever"(4). Others had more far-reaching effects, such as his promotion of antimalarial drugs as an unproven treatment for COVID-19, causing a U.S. shortage of these drugs and panic-buying in Africa and South Asia(5).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I personally think that this is all an attack on the liberal democracies of Europe, and the Italian government is used as a Trojan horse to weaken EU. Meloni has the same Trump's forma mentis so it's not surprising the apparent privileged position Italy has towards US, but she didn't understood that Trump is only using her for his personal gain (you fascist dumbfuck!). So this election will affect you US people who didn't want any of this whether you voted Democrat or Republican (if you didn't want someone like Trump) but it will also affect those who passionately wanted it, since one like Trump gives zero fucks to them. But it will affect the world too, Europe being the first unless she really starts to act unitedly as a political European Union. As European I am deeply worried but at the same time I think Trump might be beneficial for us IF and ONLY IF we stay united, sanction figures like Musk and create laws that protect our autonomy as political entity and economy.

If you reached the end of this very long blog, I thank you. I don't think I will write other politcal-themed blogs unless I really want to get something off my chest like in this case or for historical purposes. Thank you for reading, stay safe and to all US citizens who share same worries as mine, be ready to fight for your right, embrace yourselves because winter is coming. See you next time.

References and footnotes

(1) Smith, Adam B.; NOAA National Centers For Environmental Information (December 2020). "Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview / 2020 in Progress". NCDC.NOAA. National Centers for Environmental Information (NCDC, part of NOAA). doi:10.25921/stkw-7w73

(2) "EPA chief Scott Pruitt personally monitored removal of climate info from website". CBS News. February 2, 2018. Archived

(3) Kessler, Glenn; Kelly, Meg; Rizzo, Salvador; Lee, Michelle Ye Hee (January 20, 2021). "In four years, President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims". The Washington Post

(4) Finnegan, Michael (September 25, 2016). "Scope of Trump's falsehoods unprecedented for a modern presidential candidate". Los Angeles Times.

(5) Rowland, Christopher (March 23, 2020). "As Trump touts an unproven coronavirus treatment, supplies evaporate for patients who need those drugs". The Washington Post.

Дорогой русский язык,

Мы давно не разговаривали! Как ты? Надеюсь, все хорошо.

В эти недели я продолжаю изучать азы русской грамматики. Я изучала родительный и винительный падежи множественного числа, но в последнее время я также изучаю глаголы движения. Надеюсь продолжать в том же духе, теперь увидимся в следующий раз.

С наилучшими пожеланиями

Твоя подруга!

Ok this was just a mere exercise with Russian writing and an excuse to practice with what I learnt and I keep learning in this period. And last time we left off with verbs of motion. Verbs of motions are one of the toughest part of Russian language along with plural genitive, that I mentioned in my fictional letter to Russian language, for those not used to such level of specificity that I personally love. In Russia you can't and don't simply "go"!

meme taken from: https://www.reddit.com/r/russian/comments/rk9boe/russian_verbs_of_motion/

I almost memorized all the verbs I've shown in the previous diary, conjugation is not a problem. Under this aspect Russian language has an easy way to conjugate verbs compared to Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian, not to mention that infernal hell that is Romance language conjugation system....

But what makes them more difficult to acquire is the way of thinking. Verbs of motions force you to think differently and expand your mind, quite literally in the semantic field since you have to use te right verb of movement to move, lol. And the ones I am studying are just the unprefixed verbs of motion, because there are prefixed verbs of motion which acquire a different meaning.

I have noticed two core elements that make verbs of motions challenging (but also fascinating from an anthropological point of view):

1) different way of seeing, thinking and reasoning behind them (this might have some anthropological roots that I have yet to discover, my research in the academic abstracts and papers still struggles to find an answer)

2) the way they are taught

In the first case we discover that there a languages that specify very much aspects of life, in this case the movement. Both in English and even worse in Italian there are few verbs to show movement. English has mainly "to go" that engulfs what Russian wants to convey with ИДТИ-ХОДИТЬ, ЛЕТЕТЬ-ЛЕТАТЬ, ПЛЫТЬ-ПЛАВАТЬ etc. Italian only has "andare/venire" that convey in a very generic way these semantic nuances.

In the second case the traditional way of conceptualizing and teaching UVoMs (unprefixed verbs of motion) is based on the rather ambiguous category "directionality" (cf. Isačenko, 1960). This traditional approach is deeply rooted in the tenets of European structural linguistics, which a priori considers any grammatical category as a privative opposition. Searching for universal semantic invariants associated with specific morphemes, structuralist linguistics abstracts from contextual factors and fails to provide an easily applicable guide to choosing the correct UVoM. And when you have to teach Russian as second language (L2) this becomes a problem.

We know that the relationship between “linguistic theories” and the way second/foreign language (L2) instruc-tors conceptualize and teach linguistic patterns under the guise of “pedagogical grammar” and “teaching methodology” is a subject of ongoing discussion and questioning. I've attended an entire course last year about Italian as second language and all theories linked to L2 teaching so I feel this ongoing discussion. All influential L2 teaching paradigms (seethe the Direct Method (cf. Besse, 2010, 9-11; Marchand, 1913;1914;1927) and the Neurolinguistics Approach (cf. Germain, 2018) just to cite a few) have been inspired by advances in theoretical and applied linguistics.

On the other hand, L2 pedagogy has always been guided by the grammar-as-a-tool-not-a-goal principle. The search for simple and intuitive tools to teach and process a second language makes L2 pedagogy very cautious regarding linguistic knowledge. I totally agree with the French pedagogue Louis Marchand when he used the metaphor of lever when teaching L2, I quote his sentence:

Like a lever we use to lift a weight should not be heavier than the weight itself, the grammar used as a tool helping L2 learners to cope with difficulties of the target language, should not be more difficult for learners and teachers than the material it helps acquire.”(cited in Puren, 1998, 52).

And it's interesting how this metaphor, manifesting the grammar-as-a-tool-not-a-goal claim, echoes the problem-solving principle known as Occam's razor, which recommends searching for the simplest possible explanations. I personally think that to evaluate whether a given teaching approach is the same awkward-to-use lever referred to by Marchand in 1920 one must take into account these elements:

• empirical research on comparative testing of teaching methods
• epistemological analysis of the linguistic knowledge underlying L2 pedagogical grammar 
• teaching methods

Considering that teachers tend to see teaching strategies they are familiar with as the only possible and correct way of presenting linguistic information to learners, it's quite clear that the current way to teach Russian verbs of motion is inefficient and only complicates things.

In the case of Russian verbs of motion (VoMs) and specifically unprefixed verbs of motion(UVoMs), the traditional way of teaching them is based on on the opposition between unidirectional vs. nondirectional (or multidirectional) motions. Linguistics such as Bernitskaїa, 2017-2019, Paškina, 2007 and Gepner in 2016 have criticized the traditional directionality-based conception of UVoMs, actualizing long-standing controversy surrounding the category of directionality in linguistics.

Russian language has a further layer of difficulty because apart from the four universal characteristics of motion–moving object, goal/location of motion, the path followed, and manner of motion –some (but not all) Russian verbs encoding motion are sensitive to the lexico-grammatical subcategory as part of the general category of verbal aspect.

This subcategory applies to a small group of imperfective verbs that have two distinct imperfective variations, each associated with one of two kinds of basic stems; think about ИДТИ-like and ХОДИТЬ-like stems. The issue is further complicated because the Russian language requires differentiation between motion on foot and by means of transportation (internally screaming). Even though there is no generic verb of motion in Russian, ИДТИ/ХОДИТЬ can be generalized for motion that does not take place on foot if it occurs within a locality or it is a fixed-route traffic and here, ИДТИ is used much more often in a metaphorical sense. I suggest to read works from Nesset, 2010; Raxtina, 2004; Nesset & Janda, 2022; Veličko, 2018, 611, and Nesset & Janda, 2022 to better grasp this.

All these complications lead to the fact that contextual meanings of different UVoMs are deter-mined by a complex combination of grammatical, pragmatic, and situational variables difficult to encapsulate in a one single “rule”. The concept направленностьдвижения (directionality of motion) has earned a reputation for being dominant in linguistics, but there is no universal consensus on the semantics of UVoMs like Paškina in 2007 noticed while analyzing and identifying 11 terminological pairs employed in Russian linguistics for this purpose. Paškina concluded that they are not very helpful in explaining them.

There is another problem to keep in mind: the definition of направленность. We don't have a single definition, for example  the Russian L2 pedagogical grammar Книга о грамматике defines it as spatial characteristic of motion. Some linguistics such as Forsyth, 1970 and Bernitskaїa, 2019 use the concept of пунктназначения/целенаправленность (destination), but again there is no universal consensus. Both Paškina (2007) and Bernitskaїa(2019) demon-strate that the directionality-based conception of UVoMs reduces the variety of factors influencing the natural human perception of motion to a single directionality without taking into account several others, such as space, time, and moving object's vs. observer's points of view.

Even the meaning of unidirectionality has not a clear definition but many researchers argue that unidirectional verbs encode the motion proceeding “in/from a single direction toward a goal”. As for nondirectional ХОДИТЬ-like verbs, their meaning is not easy to define either, so it's not an easy task^^'

Considering that most of what I said here is heavily based on this important study that I discovered these past days, I highly suggest you to give it a read to have a full grasp of what I said and think about the limits of the traditional approach that even my grammar book seems to use: https://dislaw.at/ds/article/view/106/104

Just know that the alternative approaches, such as Semantic Labeling (Bondarenko, 2023) seem to be able to make up for the shortcomings of the traditional approach and offer a more intuitive methodology for teaching UVoMs. They are situation based, item-focused, and experience-driven approaches and they converge with the principles of cognitive linguistics.

As last thing before closing this journal is that two Russia-born linguistics–Sergej (Serge) Karcevskij (1884-1955) and Alexandr Isačenko (1910-1978) –have credits for the concept of privative (asymmetrical) binary opposition (my Linguistics course memory is flooding here XD) which inextricably links to the idea of directionality.

I hope one day to find possible anthropological roots of why Slavic languages heavily rely on verbs of motions to describe space because I would like to talk about, in the meantime I salute you guys, see you next time!