🧵THREAD🧵
White Hat/Black Hat - The @Snowden Mystery

...but if Snowden is a white hat, he certainly deserves a red carpet roll out for his 2020 homecoming

I'm doing a @threadapalooza on:

✨🌿ayahuasca🍃✨️
☕ 🧙‍♂️🎶😳😖🤢🤮🤪🤯🤩😭🥰😌

100 tweets' worth of unpopular opinions, personal experiences, and unusual facts about this psychedelic Amazonian plant brew.

In no particular order, except the first one

1. I've participated in over 70 ayahuasca ceremonies.

I'll be drawing from experiences in Peru, where ayahuasca is legal.

Wikipedia has some general background on what it is, and I'll sprinkle more info throughout:

2. BUCKETS!

Your bucket is your friend. Everyone needs a vomit bucket.

If bringing your own:
- 5 gal bucket is TOO BIG
- A utility bucket or trick-or-treat bucket is good
- A plastic yogurt quart is TOO SMALL - risk of tipping over!! (personal experience 😣)

3. To clarify:

*I* overprepared and brought a 5-gallon bucket, the first time

I was given a yogurt quart, a different time, and... that rug will never be the same

4. Potentially unpopular opinion: I loathe agua florida, soplaying, and being soplayed.

The only thing worse than being "cleansed" with a mix of cheap perfume and spit, is having to put that nasty stuff into your own mouth.

Information Security Framework, Pt I: the Basics:

Let's start with the simple things.

1. Keeping up-to-date on all things software-related on the machine should be paramount.

Not just operating system updates though.

Software updates for things like word processing programs, music players, email clients, etc.

Kernel and BIOS updates for the machine itself.

If you want to check for the newest BIOS update, look at your computer hardware, visit the vendor's site, and they will have BIOS downloads available, as well as the date they became available.

Keep in mind, some updates on the BIOS itself aren't always necessary.

If the vendor recommends "Not updating if stability isn't a problem, then don't do it"

2. Next, let's talk about things that may communicate over the local network or within a short proximity, such as Bluetooth, airdrop, etc.

If you're not using them, turn them off.

Airdrop is especially troublesome because often I'll be at an airport and see dozens of individuals who have airdrop enabled. I recommend setting it to 'Contacts only' unless you're intending to pass a file to someone close to you.

#Thread I had asked people to share 3 good things that they did/happened to them in #2020 on @Facebook @Twitter and @instagram. Totally more than a 1000 people replied, of different ages, different professions, different regions. The comments were full of insights for me.

Lesson 1. The responses were very diverse, but some common things stood out. Most people mentioned ‘spending time with the family’ as one of the top positives of this year. And indeed, #WFH as well as the forced lockdown has made us all look at family togetherness in a new light.

Lesson 2. Most respondents also mentioned focus on wellness and health as a key area saw improvement. Many people shared inspiring stories of weight loss, of starting an exercise regimen, yoga, meditation, practices that helped improve both physical as well as mental health.

Lesson 3. A strong desire to go back to the roots. This virus helped people to slow down and focus on what is really important. Many respondents talked about reading our scriptures, praying mindfully, learning Sanskrit, reading/watching Ramayan/Mahabharat, learning Vedic chanting

Lesson 4. Almost everyone confessed to catching up on reading, improving culinary skills and coming to the realisation that it is not that difficult to manage without eating out/visiting malls/watching movies in cinema halls. Also, a lot of people stressed on mindful eating.

1) A thread on social, economic, and technological change:

2) As modern westerners, we grossly underestimate the profound and sometimes brutal sociological and psychological effects of continual, relentless, and massive social, economic, and technological change. We are too close to it. It's all we know. We are fish who can't feel wet.

3) The technological changes enable and facilitate massive social and economic changes, which, in turn, create demand for yet more technological changes to help people adjust to the social and economic changes. Rinse and repeat (in a smart washing machine).

4) There is nothing novel about this observation. Far smarter people have written and spoken eloquently about this dynamic over the past several centuries.

5) But we are not forgiving enough (of others and of ourselves) and we are not understanding enough about the significant harm that this continual and relentless cycle of change and disruption does to our mental and spiritual health. We think all of this is normal.