love saves us by teaching us how to be a stranger.

You may pass This life as A shadow of Who you Truly are.

Only then Can you do The least harm To yourself,

And more Importantly, others.

The happiest ending may be not getting what you want,

But accepting superior things instead.

It is not an easy truth to accept. This is the stuff of heroes.

That is the gift of love.

---

#Poetry

The conventional wisdom is that any headline in the form of a question can be answered with a “no.” I'm not so sure about this one.

Think of the most important software in the world: Linux, Google, Facebook, JavaScript, PGP, even the World Wide Web itself. How many of these projects began in conference rooms, their success assured by the work of middle managers in business-casual attire obsessing over metrics, OKRs, and feature lists? Linux was a university project, but it now powers much of the world. Google began in a garage. Facebook was launched in a dorm room. JavaScript, PGP, and the Web were experiments with no obvious payoff, whose impact could not have been predicted. Sure, Google and Facebook are now steaming piles of shit, but who ruined them? Who made the decisions that destroyed these paragons of technological achievement? Was it the former chess team captains, crafting software they were proud of, drinking Mountain Dew and watching episodes of Cowboy Bebop between merges? I don't think so.

“But wait,” I hear you saying, “Alphabet and Meta make tons of money!” Sure, they do, but it won't last. Even with their monopolistic power, or perhaps because of it, Facebook and Google Search are worsening every day, and their parent companies are just begging to “disrupted” out of business. Besides, at what cost are they earning their money? Is the destruction of society not a sufficiently meaningful externality? Phillip Morris makes tons of money, too. They just have to kill millions of unwilling addicts in the process. As harmful as they are now, and as flawed as they were from the beginning, Facebook and Google were better off before “engagement” and “monetization” were ends unto themselves.

Building software is nothing like building furniture, building cars, or even building aircraft. To build those things it to repeat projects that have been completed thousands or even millions of times before. Software, on the other hand, is always bespoke. It's always unique. It's always being created for the first time. After all, if someone needed a software application that already existed, they would just obtain a copy. As someone once wrote, “Software development is one of the only professions where we are asked to accurately state how long it will take us to do something that has never been done before in the history of the universe.”

There is a profound difference between people who get this and people who don't. Spend enough time in a corporate feature factory, and you'll see it firsthand: your boss needs to know when the feature will be done, and they need to know now! Mountains of technical debt slow teams to a halt because management can just “hire someone to fix it later.” Moreover, good work doesn't matter; looking good (to management) is everything.

Working in the software industry for fifteen years has felt, at times, like watching outsiders and know-nothings slowly infect and destroy the craft I love, all so that they could ruin the software that gave them their jobs with poor decisions and short-sightedness. It's like watching a bully force a talented artist to set their painting aside so that they can instead sell Bored Ape stickers. No love. No care. No foresight. Just a quick buck.

Does all of this sound too harsh? Read Craig Cook's blog post on his decision to leave the software industry, where he bemoans “Silicon Valley MBA pricks” and says that “the whole tech industry is nothing but scumbag billionaires and smarmy marketing and unbridled enshittification and oppressive management and AI psychosis and alpha-bro startup-hustle grind-culture bullshit.” I worked with Craig at Mozilla, and I admire him, but even I didn't realize he could be so brutally honest! I mean, some of that might be going to far, but I agree with the general sentiment. I guess you can say what you really think when your paycheck isn't on the line.

Am I suggesting we let software developers run the show? No, not quite. If it were up to me, I'd probably still be refactoring some software I wrote ten years ago. Others would chase new, shiny objects—new JavaScript frameworks, to be sure—until their companies ran out of money. Software developers sometimes need their passion to be pointed in the right direction. That guidance, however, needs to come from respectable people with real wisdom and experience to draw from, not just professional fast-talkers who, as one colleague put it, “have 'KPI' tattooed inside their eyelids.”

I've worked with some incredible people who had degrees in business administration, but I'm sorry to say it's been the exception rather than the rule. Most management types don't get it, and when they don't get it, they really don't get it. For that reason, I've decided I'll never again work as a software developer for someone who has not been a software developer themselves—for more than five minutes—and a good one, at that! Does that limit my opportunities? It sure does. It excludes all the people who think intense pressure gets cognitive work done faster. It excludes all the people who ruined Google and Facebook and Amazon. It excludes all the people who are making money off of software they didn't create, that their entire approach to software would likely never create.

That's fine with me.

#Life #SocialMedia #SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

Click for Bait (No, Really)…

Goat Karahi at Kake Da Dhaba in Artesia.

---

Some places I have my eye on for next time…

Curry Lounge has Chicken 65 & Chicken Manchurian.

Punjabi BBQ & Cafe has Tacos and an Aloo Tikki Burger with Noodles.

Curry on Pie has Achari Chicken Halal Pizza.

Do you want Ice Cream or Paan? (Why not both?)

There is a new Smoking Tiger Coffee Lab (스모킹 타이거 커피랩) going up in Los Alamitos.

If you are looking for Cinco Jotas Jamón Ibérico de Bellota it’s at the new Mitsuwa in Cypress between the Jidori Chicken and the Shirakiku Arabiki Sausages. (シラキク ピリ辛粗挽きポークソーセージ)

If you are on your way to Sunset Beach these guys have got you covered.

This giant fish is at a SECOND location of San Pedro Fish Market in Alamitos Bay Marina, apparently opened in 2020 taking over Joe’s Crab Shack. This chain is no doubt from BigFish Bait & Tackle, but where is the liquor from?

Just passing by Mr. G’s Steak House and Coffee Shop in Lomita, which opened in 1968, I’ll be back.

Today smells like a day I remember. It is still summer here in Alaska, but the air takes me right back to fall in Virginia. It's crazy how a sudden chill can instantly transport me to leaf-filled streets and quiet walks.

It feels so good, so calm, but I don't always know where I am in those memories.

Virginia had a lot of chapters.

Some were full of chaos, some were quiet, and honestly, a lot of them I'm glad are behind me. ​If I had to guess, today feels like being back in First Landing, taking Beans out on a long walk through those quiet, mossy trails while the rest of the world fades into the background.

John Lennon 1971

This song was written and released before I was born.

My father never thought much of the Beetles, so I didn't think much of the Beetles. Even now, I can enjoy their oeuvre, especially lyrically, but there's something about the sound in general that I find offputting.

Maybe that means I'll never be a real musician.

But, Imagine—it's one of those songs no one can deny is a tremendous track.

That line, 'Imagine no religion', I haven't done my Lennon research, so I don't know if it's based on research or just a feeling, but that's in the Bible. Revelation 17:16, 17 says 'Bablyon the Great' will be destroyed. Now, your mileage may vary, but my money is on BtG representing the collective false religions. In the maelstrom of destruction, the true religion will be a target.

So the idea of 'No Religion' is an old one. Way older than Mister Lennon and Oko (if you subscribe to her contribution).

Regardless, it's a great tune.

Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today... Aha-ah...

Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion, too Imagine all the people Living life in peace... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one

work in progress

7:45

Headache wakes the artist at 6am. It is time for him to make the donuts. But exhausted, he tries to sleep more and manages to struggle with the physical battle that every morning brings, the headache, worry, and awe.

Awe because he knows in less than an hour, glory welcomes him and all men in his particular place.

At 7:30, he finally manages to overcome the weight of the sheer cover and stumbles out to marvel through the bleariness of the night.

The headache has not abated.

But it is forgotten for a moment as the artist marvels at the spider web glistening in the growing morning light. Spider webs are a special kind of beauty. Art meets function. Useful, but never permanent. Which is odd when we live in this world of dichotomy: everything made is disposable, but our homes are filled with detritus we call treasure and with which cannot bear to part.

But the spider, she works to spin her glory (and could care less if we marvel or not), knowing that tomorrow, she'll do it all again.

In the background, the bees are already hard at work, zinging SSE to drink and collect and do their work.

And the artist smiles at the dense green forest that's grown between his own porch and the fence, giving him a quiet spot without the nosy neighbors watching him in his own glory soaking up the sun's rays to start his day.

A moment he loves.

The final moment of his reverie finds pleasure in the dense thicket of sunflowers growing behind the yard. He ignored the growth outside the fence all spring, inviting the terrestrial creatures to find solace there, a little too close to home perhaps, but now, eight- and ten-foot-tall sunflowers dance heliocentrically in the morning wind, ignored by the bees who seem to have grown tired of plants.

But this artist never will.

---

8:24

I'm hydrated, showered and ready for work. 3 hours to get 4 hours done.

Let's see if I can concentrate when all i want to do is write and draw.

Alas! Life requires these dull moments so that we may exist for the real spectacle to have its place.

---

11:00a

First client show in 30. ONLY I am not nearly where I want be. Sigh. Story of the production artist's life: Never enough time. NEver.

A glass of water and a cookie is my reward.

realzing now I had a dreamless sleep. Strange. Lately my dreams have been very vivid and interesting. No doubt it's the lack of sleep that's screwing things up.

---

---

#deardiary

I haven’t wrote in a day or two i dont know, im starting to get so exhausting bored these days i stoped even writing how silly is that? not that i had anything important going on, i had absolutely nothing that was worth writing anyway. my sarcasm might be very low on this and my writing will be messy, im exhausted and i dont really care. i got back from work and therapy and these two mixed are such a headache, enough of human interaction and a person who acts like they know me better than i do and on the edge of quitting, but anyway, in the matter of how yesterday went, it haven’t been much of a jolly wolly experience. I went to the mall to buy a nice perfume, i didnt need it. but i bought it anyway, i cant discribe fairly how frustrating it is to be surrounded by sweaty disgusting humans. in a place thats meant to be for them only to spend their day there “shopping” , i went there on monday expecting few people to be there, but No. humans do their best to shock me with how they just appear everywhere and out of nowhere, annoying creatures with their huge eyes staring at you to force an uncomfortably eye contact like its a personal help call. i wouldnt help either way.

i cannot fathom how i despise these creatures if anything they are insufferable to be around and i would rather spend billion more hours with the noises in my head then waste my time intract with another human being even if it was for a minute.

Sincerely,

somnolent

The Question Before the Answer

The controversy surrounding the sale of Israel Government bonds in Ireland has generated more heat than light. Yet beneath the legal arguments and political slogans lies a question that is both older and larger than this particular dispute.

The question is not simply whether a bond should or should not be sold. The question is how a democratic state navigates the space between three different forms of authority: legal authority, democratic authority and moral authority.

The Israel bonds issue merely makes that tension visible. Ireland's Constitution is unusual in that it does not speak only in the language of institutions and procedures. Article 29 affirms devotion to peace, international justice and morality, commitment to the peaceful settlement of disputes, and acceptance of the generally recognised principles of international law as a rule of conduct between states.

Yet Ireland is also a member of the European Union, a community of states that frequently acts collectively in foreign affairs and where major sanctions decisions generally require unanimity among member states.

Meanwhile, institutions such as the Central Bank of Ireland are deliberately designed to operate independently of day-to-day political pressures. Their purpose is not to make moral judgements about the conduct of foreign governments but to administer the law and regulatory framework established by the State and the European Union.

Each of these arrangements makes sense in isolation. Taken together, however, they create a productive tension. A citizen may look at events in the world and conclude that Ireland's constitutional commitment to international justice points in a particular direction. The Government may respond that its room for manoeuvre is constrained by EU obligations. The Central Bank may reply that it has neither the mandate nor the discretion to make such judgments at all. At that point many people become frustrated.

Responsibility appears to disappear into a maze of institutions.

But perhaps this is exactly the moment where democracy begins rather than ends. A healthy constitutional order is not one in which moral questions never arise. It is one in which citizens can identify tensions and subject them to scrutiny. Laws are tested. Powers are examined. Assumptions are challenged. Institutions are asked to explain themselves.

The alternative is ossification. If no one ever asks whether current legal arrangements adequately reflect constitutional values, then constitutional values slowly become decorative. They remain on paper while losing their influence on public life. The important distinction is that testing a tension is not the same thing as rejecting the rule of law. A democracy needs mechanisms through which citizens, campaigners, politicians and governments can ask whether existing structures remain fit for purpose.

This brings us to the Restrictive Financial Measures (State of Israel) Bill 2025, introduced by Sinn Féin. The Bill sought to give the Minister for Finance power to prevent the Central Bank of Ireland from facilitating the sale of Israeli government bonds within the European Union. Supporters argued that Ireland should not facilitate the raising of funds by a state whose actions in Gaza had drawn widespread international criticism. Opponents argued that the proposal conflicted with the legal independence of the Central Bank and would be ineffective in practice.

On 28 May 2025, the Bill was defeated in the Dáil by 87 votes to 75 at Second Stage.

For many observers, the significance of that vote lay not in the result itself but in what the debate revealed. The controversy exposed an uncertainty about where authority ultimately resides when constitutional values, democratic sentiment, administrative independence and European obligations pull in different directions.

One response is to accept the constraint as the final answer. Another is to ask whether the constraint itself should be examined.

That examination need not be hostile to either the Central Bank or the European Union. On the contrary, it may be an affirmation of both. Constitutional democracies evolve through moments where established legal arrangements are tested against changing public understandings of justice. Viewed in this light, revisiting the 2025 legislation is not primarily about Israel. It is about understanding whether Ireland possesses sufficient democratic machinery to reconcile constitutional values with the realities of EU membership and independent regulatory institutions.

The question is not whether the law should simply yield to moral sentiment. The rule of law remains essential. The question is whether there exists a visible pathway through which a democratically expressed moral concern can be translated into lawful state action when citizens believe an important constitutional principle is engaged.

If such a pathway exists, the controversy may help reveal it. If it does not, then perhaps that absence is itself worthy of democratic attention.

There may even be a broader European value in such an exercise. One member state, acting openly and in good faith, can sometimes illuminate questions that all member states share. The purpose of such an inquiry would not be to weaken European cooperation but to understand how constitutional conscience, democratic choice and collective decision-making can coexist within it.

After all, many constitutional advances begin exactly this way. A tension that had previously been hidden becomes impossible to ignore. Institutions are required to explain where authority lies and why. Boundaries that appeared fixed are sometimes confirmed and sometimes redrawn.

Seen from this perspective, the Israel bonds dispute is not merely an argument about finance, foreign policy or administrative procedure. It is a reminder that democratic societies are not built upon the elimination of tension. They are built upon the capacity to live with tension, to examine it, and occasionally to test it.

The challenge is not to make legal authority, democratic authority and moral authority perfectly coincide. That has never been possible. The challenge is to ensure that when they diverge, citizens retain some visible pathway through which the conversation can continue. The real contribution Ireland could make in this instance may not be the achievement of a particular outcome.

It may be the willingness to ask the question.

An apparently too complex situation needs clarification with some simple statments

1: Article 29 states that: – Ireland is devoted to peace and friendly cooperation among nations founded on “international justice and morality”. – Ireland adheres to the peaceful settlement of international disputes. – Ireland accepts the generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in relations with other states. Moral imperative : Aricle 29 creates a strong constitutional commitment to peace and international law, but it does not automatically dictate a specific government response in every international conflict.

2: The Position of the Central Bank. The Central Bank is designed to operate independently and to apply laws and regulatory rules rather than make foreign-policy judgments. – Whether the Bank may refuse a particular bond-related service depends on the governing legislation and sanctions regime, not on the Bank's independent view of the conduct of a foreign state. – It must apply the relevant legal framework consistently and cannot invent new political criteria of its own.

3: The postion of the government is where the first tension lives. The Government's argument is generally not that it has no freedom of action, but that significant aspects of foreign policy towards third countries are exercised within the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy framework. EU member states coordinate foreign policy through the CFSP and seek common positions rather than unilateral measures.

So in an article it might be best to phrase it as: The Government argues that Ireland's capacity to impose major measures against another state is constrained by EU treaty commitments and by the EU's common foreign-policy structures.

4: The second tension is at the level of the EU: This is probably the sharpest point in the whole debate. – Many CFSP sanctions regimes require unanimous agreement in the Council. In practice, a single member state can prevent EU-wide sanctions from being adopted. So the statement could be simplified as: Even if Ireland favours stronger action against Israel, EU-wide sanctions generally require unanimity among member states, making collective action difficult where governments disagree.

That captures the institutional problem quite well.that requires a unanimous vote by member states in order to apply a sanction to Israel

Summary rewrite – The underlying structure

If I were reducing the entire controversy to four plain statements, I might write:

1: Ireland's Constitution commits the State to peace, international justice and respect for international law.

2: The Central Bank is legally structured to apply financial law and regulation, not to make independent foreign-policy or moral judgments about states.

3: The Irish Government may believe stronger action is justified, but argues that EU treaty arrangements limit how far a single member state can act alone.

4: EU sanctions policy generally depends on unanimity, so one state's position can be blocked by disagreement among the others.

The interesting philosophical tension, as I read it, is that Article 29 appears to express a constitutional aspiration toward international justice, while the practical machinery through which Ireland now acts internationally is increasingly embedded in EU institutions whose decision-making requires consensus.

That leaves the question: How far can a constitutional commitment create a duty to act when the mechanisms of action are shared with others? That is where the real argument seems to lie.

Parece que hay un resurgimiento de la política industrial. Iniciativas como el CHIPS and Science Act en Estados Unidos; la estrategia tecnológica de China, que va anunciando en sus planes quinquenales y las subvenciones más o menos encubiertas de la Comisión Europea a distintas industrias (como el reciente fondo Scaleup), han reabierto un debate que parecía clausurado desde los años noventa.

Como plantea Beata Javorcik, “hoy todos hacen más política industrial” (Fleming, 2024), sin embargo este interés general no se traduce en iguales resultados para todos. Basta con ver el éxito de los países del Este Asiático en comparación a los flojos resultados, mucho más ambiguos, de América Latina.

Entonces, ¿Qué es lo que diferencia a una buena y una mala política industrial?

Comprender estas divergencias exige examinar las políticas aplicadas, entornos institucionales, sociales y geopolíticos que las sostuvieron. Algo así es muy ambicioso para el ámbito que aquí, humildemente, puedo abarcar. Sin embargo, he tratado de comparar dos casos que me parecen muy ilustrativos. El caso de Corea del Sur y el de Brasil.

Con estos casos se puede observar que el desempeño de la política industrial depende de una combinación entre el apoyo estatal decidido, una disciplina competitiva creíble y una capacidad institucional capaz de prevenir la captura por intereses creados. El contraste entre el modelo de crecimiento liderado por exportaciones (export-led growth) y la estrategia de sustitución de importaciones ilustra de forma clara esta divergencia estructural.

Lo que marca la diferencia fundamental entre ambos países, Corea del Sur y Brasil, es la orientación estratégica de sus modelos de industrialización. En Corea, desde la década de 1960, se adoptó un enfoque de crecimiento orientado a las exportaciones. El Estado desplegó instrumentos verticales, a saber: crédito dirigido, subsidios selectivos, tipos de cambio preferenciales y apoyo tecnológico. Todos estos recursos destinados a conglomerados como Hyundai, Samsung y LG. Sin embargo, dicho apoyo estaba condicionado al cumplimiento de metas estrictas de exportación, productividad y calidad. Este mecanismo obligaba a las empresas a enfrentar la competencia internacional desde etapas tempranas, generando una “competencia administrada” que presionó a las firmas a innovar, reducir costos y escalar tecnológicamente. En su libro, Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization, Alice H. Amsden lo sintentiza explicando como el Estado desarrollista Coreano se produjo bajo el principio de equivocar los precios a propósito: “A lo largo de la mayor parte de los veinticinco años de expansión industrial coreana, el crédito a largo plazo ha sido asignado por el gobierno a empresas seleccionadas a tasas de interés real negativas con el fin de estimular industrias específicas.”

Es decir, Corea combinó barreras temporales con disciplina de desempeño: las industrias estaban parcialmente resguardadas del mercado doméstico, pero sometidas a una exposición externa creciente y evaluadas continuamente. Este diseño, articulado a reformas agrarias previas, fuertes inversiones en educación y cooperación tecnológica con Japón y Estados Unidos, posibilitó un proceso de upgrading que avanzó desde textiles y manufacturas ligeras hacia petroquímica, automoción, electrónica y semiconductores.

El contraste con Brasil es claro a cualquier nivel de análisis. Brasil implementó una estrategia de sustitución de importaciones durante gran parte del siglo XX. La protección arancelaria y las barreras no arancelarias buscaban desarrollar una base manufacturera autosuficiente y orientada al mercado interno. Esta estrategia produjo un período prolongado de industrialización acelerada entre las décadas de 1930 y 1970. Sin embargo, el aislamiento respecto de la competencia internacional redujo los incentivos para la eficiencia y la innovación. La rentabilidad dependió crecientemente del acceso a subsidios y a la protección estatal más que de la competitividad.

El resultado fue lo que se ha venido a denominar “industrialización trunca”: se formó una base manufacturera relativamente amplia, pero sin avanzar hacia sectores tecnológicamente complejos o encadenados a mercados globales. La completa ausencia de presión exportadora impidió consolidar ventajas competitivas dinámicas y dejó a las industrias en una posición de fragilidad frente a choques externos, especialmente en lo relativo a la restricción externa y la disponibilidad de divisas.

Las diferencias de diseño estratégico se amplificaron por las capacidades estatales de cada país. Corea del Sur desarrolló lo se ha conceptualizado como un Estado desarrollista con “autonomía incrustada”, es decir, con una burocracia meritocrática, cohesionada y relativamente inmune a presiones clientelares, pero al mismo tiempo integrada en redes densa y estratégicas de interacción con el sector privado. Agencias como el Economic Planning Board y el Ministerio de Comercio e Industria operaban con horizontes de planificación largos, mecanismos de evaluación rigurosos y facultades para retirar apoyo en caso de incumplimiento.

Brasil, en cambio, exhibió un Estado intervencionista significativamente más vulnerable a la captura distributiva. El federalismo fiscal, la fragmentación política, la histórica desigualdad y el peso de élites económicas organizadas dificultaron la formulación coherente de políticas. La protección y los subsidios —frecuentemente canalizados a través del BNDES y otros organismos— tendían a perpetuarse; los “perdedores” no competitivos disponían de poder para impedir la retirada de apoyos, lo que erosionaba la credibilidad de los incentivos. Como señala Javorcik, el desafío central no es seleccionar ganadores, sino “saber dejar ir a los perdedores” mediante cláusulas de extinción monitoreo efectivo (Fleming, 2024).

Así, mientras Corea del Sur contó con mecanismos de coordinación estatal-empresarial y sanción creíble, Brasil enfrentó instituciones menos capaces de generar disciplina ni de gestionar conflictos distributivos asociados al cambio estructural.

Todas estas diferencias estructurales no son solo teoricas. Se vieron claramente reflejadas en los datos de comercio exterior. Corea del Sur experimentó una transformación estructural profunda: las exportaciones de bienes y servicios crecieron del 2,6 % del PIB en 1960 a niveles superiores al 30 % desde finales de los años ochenta. Paralelamente, la composición exportadora se desplazó desde productos primarios y manufacturas simples hacia sectores intensivos en tecnología, configurando un patrón de especialización de alta complejidad económica.

Exportaciones de bienes y servicios (% del PIB)

Brasil, por su parte, mostró una inserción internacional mucho más limitada. Durante las décadas de 1970 y 1980, las exportaciones se mantuvieron entre el 7 % y 9 % del PIB, sin alcanzar una expansión sostenida del sector manufacturero orientado al exterior. Incluso cuando se produjo un incremento exportador en los años 2000, este estuvo dominado por lo que se conoce como commodities (soja, mineral de hierro, petróleo) y no por manufacturas de mayor valor agregado. La persistencia de esta estructura limitó las ganancias de productividad agregada y reforzó los problemas recurrentes de balanza de pagos que condicionaron la política macroeconómica brasileña.

Exportaciones de bienes y servicios (% del PIB)

Exportaciones de productos manufacturados (% de las exportaciones de mercaderías) – Brazil

La experiencia de Corea del Sur nos parece indicar que si es útil la política industrial y que esta puede llegar a impulsar el desarrollo. Sin embargo, Brasil nos recuerda que no todo vale, que es necesario un enfoque largoplacista, que prepare a tu mercado interno para abrirse a la competencia y que no trate de sustituir ese estimulo de la competitividad.

Corea triunfó porque combinó un apoyo estatal masivo con una disciplina de mercado inflexible. El gobierno otorgó créditos y subsidios a conglomerados como Samsung, pero a cambio exigió resultados concretos en los mercados internacionales. Este modelo de “competencia administrada” forzó a las empresas a innovar y escalar tecnológicamente para sobrevivir, guiando una transición desde la industria textil hasta la electrónica y los semiconductores.

Brasil, en cambio, encapsuló su industria tras barreras proteccionistas con la estrategia de sustitución de importaciones. Al aislar a las empresas de la rivalidad global, eliminó todo incentivo para la eficiencia. La rentabilidad pasó a depender de los subsidios estatales perpetuos, capturados por intereses políticos, lo que generó una industria grande pero poco competitiva y una economía dependiente de las materias primas.

– Fuentes Citadas

Banco Mundial. (2023). Exportaciones de bienes y servicios (% del PIB) [Conjunto de datos]. DataBank.

Amsden, Alice H. (1989). Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. Oxford University (Trabajo original publicado en 1989, p. 144). Traducción propia.

Prebisch, R., & United Nations. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. (1950).

The economic development of Latin America and its principal problems. United Nations Department of Economic Affairs. Press.

Fleming, S. (2024, 24 de enero). Update from Davos: Can industrial policy really work? With Beata Javorcik [Transcripción de podcast]. Financial Times.

I wrote this out just after I decided to take this journey. It is obviously influenced by misokink, and I am not sure how much I subscribe to that, but writing it down helped to solidify what is driving me:

i am inferior

i am male property

my only purpose is to take cocks

my only value comes from being available for use

my only goal is to be filled with cum

when a man gives me an order, i must obey him

when a man wishes to use my holes, i must let him

i must never presume, anticipate or think on behalf of a man

i must never beg a man for consideration, care or mercy

I am a trans woman in my 50s and I have decided to follow and explore my inner slut, which means that I will be using hookup apps to meet men who can use me for sex.

I have always been submissive, even before I knew the word. As a child, I used to have vivid dreams of being prepared by machines, buffed and made up, then displayed naked in a department store window for everybody to see. My submissive feelings came with a lot of shame because of my religious upbringing, and I spent much of my early life in the closet. I occasionally met men for sex, which really cemented my fascination for cocks and my oral fixation.

I came out as a trans woman in my 40s and started to explore the world of kink with newfound confidence and all of those old feelings of shame banished. My kink was centred on bottoming for impact and service submission much more than sex, and I felt like a complete person for the first time.

But my desire for cock and sexual submission remained. I could not work out if that was bad or not – bad as in behaviour driven by childhood trauma that I was remembering and repeating. If so, it would be better if I left it in the past or, at most, sought out some kind of catharsis. I let it be for a number of years.

But, recently, I started to think about the pull I felt towards sexual submission, men and cocks. I decided to try accepting it for a change and set about exploring it properly, rather than letting it surface occasionally in the dim half-light.

So here I am: a dumb, worthless, fat, submissive slut who craves cock, obedience and validation. I don't want to have to think, do hard calculations about risk or be reasonable or conservative about it.

Of course I will take care of myself. I will get regular STI checks and I am planning to start taking PrEP. I will use safe calls and let trusted friends know where I am going to be and when I expect to return. I am going to journal here and on paper, check in with my feelings, review whether my decisions still make sense and so on.

But, beyond that, I plan to say “yes” to myself and to whatever men ask of me.

A sua identidade não é o seu diploma nem seu cargo profissional. Se você nasceu no Brasil, assim como eu, deve ter crescido acostumado a se apresentar como: oi, eu sou a fulana, jornalista há xx anos…

Até meus 20 poucos anos eu também achava normal que isso acontecesse, até me mudar para Austrália e perceber que aqui a gente nem se quer sabe a profissão dos nossos amigos. Quantas vezes você estava em uma roda e perguntou o que eles fazem? Eu mesma preciso contar nos dedos as vezes que falamos sobre.

Socialmente falando, Brasil e Austrália tem uma diferença imensa, e não é esse ponto que quero chegar. Claro que com salários mais equânimes estamos diante de uma sociedade que tem alto poder de compra (australianos), mas que aparentemente não liga nem se alguém vai de pé descalço no mercado. E isso afeta sim nossa cultura.

No Brasil, precisamos correr muito atrás de uma boa educação caso queiramos ser considerados “alguém” no futuro, pois lá a disputa por posições define a população.

Só quis trazer essa informação pois essa semana passei por uma situação digamos que constrangedora. Estou atrás de um fotógrafo para o aniversário do meu filho que vai acontecer no Brasil e recebi a indicação de uma moça.

Entrei em contato com ela, ela me passou valores, etc. Agradeci. No dia seguinte, questionei sobre os filtros das fotos que ela usa, se varia conforme o evento ou se eles tem um padrão de filtro, e a resposta me deu um tapa na cara, ela me disse assim: “A identidade do meu trabalho foi construída ao longo dos mais de 10 anos como fotógrafa, então como expliquei antes, você vai receber as fotos dentro do padrão de cor e luz apresentado em meu portfólio”.

Eu não sei vocês, mas para mim, atendimento ao público é 80% do serviço que contrato. Agradeci e me retirei. Não porque a moça não tem qualificação suficiente – até acredito que tenha. Mas porque aqui, onde moro e com o conhecimento cultural que tenho o privilégio de conhecer hoje, carteiraço nenhum vende serviço.

Para mim, você pode estar começando agora e ter alto potencial, ter visão, ter atendimento e conquistar seu público mesmo sem nem se quer ter portfólio.

Isso foi algo que aprendi com a Austrália, a valorizar a experiência em vez do currículo, por isso que a maioria das empresas pede “trials” antes de contratar e basicamente ignora os grandes resumes.

Não é o que você diz. Mas sim o que você faz e como você age.

Respondendo a minha própria afirmação do início deste texto, posso hoje dizer que a sua identidade não é algo que se constrói aos poucos, tentando descobrir “quem você é” através de conquistas, diplomas ou aprovação, ela já estava firmada antes de você sequer nascer. Isaías 49:1 mostra isso: Deus me chamou pelo nome enquanto eu ainda estava no ventre, antes de eu ter feito qualquer escolha, antes de eu ter qualquer história pra apresentar. Deus já pôs, desde antes de eu nascer.

Então antes de hoje eu te falar prazer, Kyane, jornalista há mais de 10 anos, eu te digo: Kyane, filha do Deus vivo. Posso andar descalça pelas ruas da Austrália, mas tem uma coisa que ninguém vai me tirar. A minha identidade firmada em Cristo e quem ele me chamou pra ser aqui nessa Terra.

“Nada façais por contenda ou por vanglória, mas por humildade; cada um considere os outros superiores a si mesmo.” (Filipenses 2:3).

By the way, eu to nem aí para a sua profissão. Vamos ser amigos?

Hello hello

Please to meet you!

I yesterday I smelt the ground coffee! It is one of the best ones, don’t you agree?

Might bake some rhubarb pie if it’s still in me this smell

With vanilla sauce

And hey, did you see that after this rain, there was a warm sun.

The Apple trees looked as if they really were having a great summer, I picture these roots they’ve got like giant straw hands grabbing for the sustenance down below and sucking it up towards the sky! Relishing both the sun and the rain

I cooked yesterday, just lit the grill up and took whatever I found in the freezer

Some vegetarian food pre processed taste really like bark

I’m trying to be positive, it’s my mortar after all

Great great time for some more work

Hey do you use vim a lot for your daily work?

I see people do

:wq

To quit of course

Or even

:x

But I just go shift+ZZ

Above: Not a fictional character, not from TV or film, but a real live person. Cédric Villani (actual last name), French mathematician and politician, spotted in Standart's Enki Bilal documentary. Love me an eccentric. Also of note: North American graphic novelists are rarely if ever seen conversing with mathematicians/politicians. This, I suppose, is part of what separates the French from Americans.

Below: The road back to Cairo from Suez. The construction goes on forever. Cairo, already an insane megalopolis, continues to balloon.

Finished the final touches on the design for the box that will collect the serialized editions of THE SOLAR GRID. My co-publishers at Radix Co-Op tell me it'll debut at the NY Art Book Fair in September. Cover reveal when I get the green light.

Gearing up for THE SOLAR GRID panel at Petrocultures 2026 in Dresden, which will be held on August 27 from 11:00am-1:00pm. I am told that it'll be held in a conference room with a capacity of up to 400 people.

Today: – Finishing a small illustration for a new Houston-based micro press. – Conference call for a potential podcast graphic. – Early prep work for a potential TSG-related exhibition. – Getting my brand new kitchen faucet replaced. Already. – Podcast episode review for edits.

#journal

No red flags and there are several green flags, and I’m a little bit scared because maybe this could be the one.