Family problems.

For the past months life was not easy for me. Many health issues or concerns, mainly with my father that also affects my mother and us. He had another stroke a month or so ago. Had difficulty talking and moving his fingers. Now he has recovered more or less.

But the entire experience has traumatized us a bit especially since my parents retired and went back to Romania, where the healthcare system is a world apart from Spain, where they worked for the past 2 decades.

In Romania it is a hassle...especially in small towns. Understaffed hospitals, nurses that get their diplomas just by paying some money...very bad. You have to go to the private clinics that want to suck every penny out of you. Call this doctor, call this relative, call more people, make appointments...is a total disaster.

I cannot even start to explain to you.

But basically now my father has a ton of health issues that need to be managed with many pills and he walks a thin line between fainting often and having his kidneys destroyed, or having another stroke or a heart attack. My mother is a 24/7 caretaker for him and is very hard for her.

Anyway, this entire situation has a big impact on me since I feel sorry for my mother mostly. She has to deal with a lot. My father has some brain damage and maybe because of that he does not seem to be that affected by the entire situation.

My health problems.

I also had to deal with health issues. Lower right abdominal pain since June last year. Comes and goes, and feels kinda bad. A combo of someone twisting your right testicle + punching you in the gut + having a mild food poisoning. Not fun.

Luckily I have access to a very good and trade-free healthcare system here in Spain. But my problems seem complicated. They thought it is inguinal hernia. I was sent to the surgeon to be told it is not a hernia. I was sent to the urologist to check my testicles. Not much was found. Maybe is a muscle or bone issue. I will be sent to see a specialist but can take up to a year for that. I have another appointment with the hernia surgeon next month for more checkups...and I can insist to go to a gastroenterologist the following months.

I am fine I think. But all of this time I have also thought about what bad things I may have. What if I have cancer for example? That is a stressful thought. I think it is for sure something to do with a muscle/bone since I can kinda feel that when I do some movement, but it does not explain all of the pain I am having. Of course cancer is rare for my age, but cancer is also a deadly motherfucker. Honestly I do not seem to have any symptoms that point in that direction but I had these thoughts before I went for these checkups. I think it is normal to get worried about these things...

Currently I am not too stressed but it is something I had to deal with and still have to deal with....

Motivational problems.

It is already hard to motivate yourself in this shithole society to do anything good or interesting. I tried and tried and I will try more. I was fantasizing about buying this DJI Pocket 3 camera with a good mic and start to make videos for TROM.

My only camera is my Pixel 6a which is shit in low light and I was planning to film inside the motorhome at night when it is more quiet...

I watched pretty much every review about this little camera. I think because I also liked to be distracted by that to not think about my health issues or my parents.... But it seems like a really great and useful camera, tho I know is not the camera that matters, is to be motivated and do something that matters.

In any case I'd love to be able to transform the drafts I wrote recently into videos. We will see. I may make a donation campaign for that Pocket 3 to buy it second hand.

I did have some sparks of wonder these past days when I felt alive again planning some amazing videos, cool project ideas, etc.. Just like back in the days when I was active. It seems I still have that inside. That is good.

Money problems.

I have around 1.300€. Monthly I barely get around 380€ from donations a month and from Webape.site around 330€. I have to pay for our servers around 100-150€ a month and for Webape around 130€. Maybe I am left with 400 or so euros. Now try to live with that every month....

The savings I have are getting lower each month. I would like to have 1.000€ put aside in case something bad happens with the motorhome and needs fixing, since it is my only home.

The gas is now so expensive that it makes me not want to drive anywhere. Change the oil, filters, do the car inspection twice a year, insurance, etc...add up to quite a bit of money too.

Not fun.

But it is the best alternative for me, so it is what it is.

Luckily I share the costs with Sasha or at times she pays for these big expenses...else idk what I would do.

Future?

These days we will go for a little adventure somewhere in Spain around some mountains and lakes. In 2-3 weeks we will come back to Estartit. I have a doctor appointment and Sasha will go for a big adventure on her on in May and June. I am very happy for her. She is one of the most humans of humans. She loves nature and she goes to meet nature. No matter what :). I wish I had the same drive.

But in this time when she will be gone I will try to perhaps make some videos for TROM. Something that seems impossible to reach but at least I will try.

I am deeply concerned about the situation with my parents. Any day can become worse. Today my father fainted in the kitchen and lightly hit his head on the floor. My mother got very scared because she thought could have been another stroke. She lives in a sort of terror all the time. Idk what will happen if my father would have another stroke and won't be able to walk or who knows what....I may have to go there and help them.

That would destroy my soul but I would always help my parents when they need help.

The future for me is unstable. I will try to do my best to stay calm and happy. My health issues may not be too bad, but is indeed uncomfortable to live with that pain. The money situation was always bad for me, so will see how it goes. And if I may not do anything new for TROM, so be it.

But I am not done trying. I will try more. There is a lot of wonder out there to be wondering about. The night sky, the other worlds, the amazing creatures here, the atoms and cells. Life is finite anyway, it only matters how you live it. You may die in your 90s or 30s...you never know. All you can do is make the best out of now. And that is hard, but keep trying.

I took this photo the other day:

Maybe you can start it first per tribe, then expand globally.

Goal: humans should not have to trade in order to survive in this society. Since this creates a tsunami of problems for people and the rest of this planet. (source)

Plan:

Basic needs trade-free.

Make the most basic needs services trade-free. Healthcare, transportation, shelter, basic food, access to Internet (information and communication). You can do that through taxes, through volunteers, through all sort of means. Many tribes already provide some of these as trade-free, like in Europe a lot of the healthcare systems are like that. Not difficult!

Basic Income.

Since this world still relies on trades (money), and people may have different sort of needs and definitely wants, give everyone a basic income (say 1.000 dollars a month) with no strings attached. You can do it again through taxes, via the removal of so many institutions and resources dedicated to track people and check if they are eligible for benefits, and all of the paperwork nonsense that has been created around this. No more "benefits", no more "pensions". Forget about labeling people as employed or unemployed in regards to who should be helped.

That is it!

Now you will have a bunch of humans who KNOW they are taken care of. They KNOW that if they get sick they should only worry about that health problem and not a financial problem. They KNOW that they wont starve or end up on the street. They know they are SAFE.

On top of this, with the money you give them monthly, they can have some power and focus on doing some useful things in this society. At least some will, if not many.

This can grow up over time into a saner society of humans who can refuse to work for bullshit companies, or do any bullshit jobs. A world in which humans have the time to decide what to focus on, who to "vote" for, stay informed and properly inform others.

A world where scientists or journalists should not worry about their livelihood. So they can do their "jobs" properly.

We deserve and need this world. Else there is no intelligent species on this planet.

#capitalism #TradeRuinsEverything #money #society #ubi #basicincome #world #work #unemployment

We've been living in the motorhome for the past 2 days. We worked so much these past weeks on the motorhome, and moving out of the old house and all that....it was so tiring. But from now on things are all about getting used to this new lifestyle. We will be staying in Spain for a week or so in the motorhome then we have to go to Romania for a month. Only after that we will start the "tromhome" living properly.

There are ups and downs, advantages and disadvantages. On one hand you get amazing views and to be able to go anywhere basically...and still have your home, is amazing. We slept last night in this nature place, so cold outside, stars crisp, quiet, amazing. Inside warm and cozy.

But then we do not have enough solar power and batteries so I can barely use my laptop. The internet is limited too. This is a completely different lifestyle for me.

You have to go to the bathroom, you also have to "manage" the waste. When you park you have to not do it in the shade so you get some solar. Also, make sure you are allowed to park where you want to. You have to fill up your water tank, also empty it. :D

Many things to do. But life is short and I want to try new things ;)

It will take a bit of time to get into some kind of routine with my projects and lifestyle. But I am sure it will work out.

To have this earthship and go places is an amazing thing. A dream I had since I was a kid :D.

Anyway, not much time for TROM for the next 1-2 weeks, but after that the entire December I will focus on it, updates, videos, things, plans.

I will probably close the gofundme campaign for TROMhome soon. It was likely not a good idea and we are getting no support anyway. We are going to buy the motorhome ourselves and manage the money situation somehow. Problem is after we buy it we will have around 900 Euros all of our money and at best 400 Euros a month from then on. It is a mystery how we will move forward with that, but we've been in a lot of financial shit over the years so we will find a way. I hope.

The best support is the 200 for TROM tromsite.com/donate/ - just 5 Euros a month max per person, to distribute the financial pressure on people and make this sustainable. It is damn hard to reach any of these goals that are stretched at the extreme low end of the needed support, but at this point I am tired of it all, so I accept whatever it is. If we cannot support ourselves financially I may shut down some of the TROM.tf services and move the project to a cheaper server. Will see...

So I am bouncing around in my head these days between extreme excitement about the motorhome, and terrible concern about what we do after we buy it.

I am also very eager to create more stuff for TROM, content wise, but well these next months I will be busy with the motorhome life.

I am trying to not let these failures with the gofundme campaign or 200 for TROM destroy my thin layer of motivation that has been getting thinner and thinner over the years. In a way I feel like an old man retiring after many years of work. In the sense that TROM had a lot of traction in the beginning, then I pushed a lot with TVP, I made books, articles, videos, managed many "social" networks, whatever, and now for the past few years I got tired of being fucked by these "social" networks who won't even show your posts to your followers, so I retreated myself into the fediverse. Friendica, Peertube, and the like. Losing even further the little reach we had. But I love these places, they are cozy and sane.

However I have no clue if anyone is still interested in TROM or these sort of projects. Even the few people who got to be active and involved and we became good friends because of TROM, got sucked into the system.

I have great friends now, super exciting plans with the motorhome, but I don't have TROM that much. TROM is a side dish, after it was the main meal for many years between me and the people I got to know online.

As you can see, the "old man retiring" blabbing about the past. But the thing is that TROM is as relevant as it was 10 years ago. The "trade as the origin of most problems" I think is one of the most important ideas out there. The content that we've made, the projects that are still alive, are all very relevant. It's just that this society sucks everyone in. Jobs, netflix, wars, elections, money, stress, day to day bullshit, consume, ads....hard to focus on TROM-like things.

But anyway, I will let the TROMhome project become part of my life, or vice-versa, and I am not giving up on TROM anytime soon. I have a lot more to do, but at times it helps me vent, so I let my brain share bits of my frustration into the interweb, almost like a modern prayer :D - maybe someone is listening, or cares, or doesn't. I certainly don't care, it simply helps me to write :D. I used to keep an offline journal years ago for such reasons, and this is similar, but well....public since it has a lot to do with the many public projects I am doing.

Ok.

Two things scare me the most, personally. First is death or health related issues. It is normal, if I die I'm fucked for eternity :). I think this is easy to understand for many people.

Second thing that scares me so much is to slip back into the fantasy world that humans created and forget about the amazing reality discovered for the past hundreds of years. To become too normal, even if that can mean to laugh, have fun, enjoy. I am scared of this. I battled this for all of my life trying to inject myself with reality bits and info (atoms, galaxies, evolution, stars and everything real) in the hope that my brain can understand the value of reality. It is hard. It is so hard and it is something I feel not many, if any, understand. It is also something that you can lose very fast, when you "get it".

I wanted to put a printed Hubble image of the Andromeda galaxy on the ceiling in my room when I was in college so that when I wake up it will remind me of how reality is mind blowing and the human invented one is a simplistic, myopic and colorless at best.

Most humans are today as they were 400, 1.000 , or more years ago. Let's have a beer, a chat, get married, fuck, have kids, gossip, have fun or war. Not saying some of these are not good or reasonable, but isn't it mindblowing that not much has changed in the core of our global society and the day to day life of humans for the past 400 years considering in this time we discovered cells, atoms, galaxies, evolution, and everything in between?

To me, this is so odd it creates a turmoil in my head. I think I have an explanation why this is the case tho: an aggressive trade-based society where everyone is a working ant. No time to even know about reality, let alone absorb it.

Reality is shocking, mind-blowing, fabulous, scary, infinitely complex and amazing.
Day to day life in this society is simplistic and almost parallel to reality.

If you don't fee like losing your mind when you think about this contrast, I don't think you understand.

#society #trade #capitalism #andromeda #science #TradeRuinsEverything

Unfortunately I may not be able to start any new video series for TROM anytime soon, due to the circumstances I am in. I have tried but it is kinda impossible.

Driving school madness.

For one I am too busy with the insane driving school - here in Spain it takes ages to do it and they are so draconian when it comes to these exams. You have to drive so perfect and the vast majority will fail the exam the first time. Funny part is NO ONE drives like that here or anywhere else in the world. And everyone knows that, but these people have jobs so they continue to teach you like this....as usual on this planet. Nothing surprising.

My instructor wants me to do more and more lessons, which means more time and money wasted. If she "thinks I am ready" for the exam, I will do it in July (next month). If not I'll have to wait till September....and based on statistics I am more likely to fail it the first time. So I'll probably have to wait a few more weeks after the first exam to try again.

This is so absurd it is hard to imagine how fucked up it is. If I knew I would have gone to Romania and get the driving license there in less than 2 months. Mind you I have started the driving school in Spain in December last year. Already some 7 months in...nuts!

I will make an article/video about the entire experience because there is a lot to learn from it. In a TROM-sense.

Summer madness

I live in a very small town that is 100% touristic. 3-4 months a year, from June/July to September tens of thousands of people come here and everything is a fucking mess. Noise, everything busy and kinda dirty, insanity. My family is working all day, they are stressed, they come and go, it is a terrible environment to be able to do anything creative. Add into the mix the extreme temperatures that are coming with the tourists, and it is really impossible to do anything like a video series.

For a video series I would have to first be motivated and have the space to "think" and come up with ideas. Write the scripts, fact check, etc.. Then to record - and when can I? I do not have the space/env to do that. And then to edit....Every summer is like that here, and every time I felt quite lethargic because of it.

Even while I write this article I have to put my headphones on with a white noise to be able to focus because I am sick to hear the noise coming from outside or inside the house. Every night I also put my speakers at maximum volume with an artificial thunderstorm, as loud as I can, to "cancel" the noise that comes from everyone getting up in the morning getting ready to work.

Else I could not sleep. I've been doing this for years now. Luckily it works. But this is not an environment that can allow me to do anything creative at all. I managed to do it somehow over the years but am too tired now....something needs to change, and it will!

Make money, buy a motorhome.

We will buy a small motorhome somewhere at the end of this year or beginning of the next. We want to live in it full time. One like the one in the photo.

But this puts a pressure on us to make more money now. Sasha is working a lot as a divemaster and I honestly do not do much. That makes me quite frustrated and depressed. I want to help in that regards but I was always terrible at making money. I can write books, make documentaries, and a lot of projects, but I am unable to make money.

I have tried with Webape.site but I cannot get any new "customer" who wants a website....

Unfortunately the donations I get from TROM are not enough at all to support my work. You know if the 200 for TROM campaign was successful and I knew we have enough money to survive, I could find a way to start a new video series for TROM and do more.

Unfortunately we are barely 40% funded. This is a constant struggle and a motivation killer for me after so many years of doing what am doing.

Motivation.

Speaking of getting support, it has become more and more difficult for me to keep myself motivated in this situation especially when you see that you can't even get 200 people to support all of our projects with the bare minimum of contribution. It means whatever I do for TROM does not reach that many people. And that is true. So without a proper support how can I push it forward? Projects like TROM are quite impossible to survive in this society....

I've been active since 2007, that's some 17 years. It is tough. But I am not giving up.

The best anyone can do now to help the project is to subscribe to our 200 for TROM campaign. 5 Euros a month, 200 people, make it sustainable. Unfortunately we need money else idk how I can work full time for TROM and keep this project relevant and alive.

Future?

I've said for months now that this year will be a bit insane for us. We need to move and do a lot of changes to our lives, make money, put up with a lot of stress and so forth.

The plan is this: suffer for the next few months and make money as much as we can. I have started to also sell some of our stuff that we do not need. And after the driving bullshit is done probably I'll work some days in cleaning. I will also try to get myself motivated enough to perhaps write some articles for TROM since that can be easier than making videos. I just have to find some quiet place/time (say from 00:00 to 06:00 in the night when everyone is asleep) and write/do research. Maybe later I can transform them into videos.

I will also try to film some stuff with the tourism here and other things "incognito" to then later on make some videos about.

In October we have to plan and see what money we have. We will have to bring my parents to Romania in November, so we will drive their car from here with their stuff since they move back for good. They will retire. We will stay a little bit in Romania to try and solve some more paperwork bullshit if we can - imagine this: Sasha has a driving license from USA, but she is only allowed to drive in Spain for 6 months with it. After that she needs to change it into a Spanish driving license. Easy? NO! She would have to go through the same bullshit driving school and exam like I am now....imagine that shit! She already knows how to drive but she will be forced to do again the theoretical and practical exam and take "driving lessons".

This world is such a load of nonsense it is not even funny anymore.

So we may try to see if we can exchange her driving license into a Romanian one, then exchange it for a Spanish one without doing the exam.

Hey Spain are you fucking mental?!

Anyway. We hope the madness will be over at the end of November. We will spend no more than a month in Romania (I hope). Then come back to Spain to buy a motorhome. Move into the motorhome and go fuckin away from the stupid parts of the world as much as we can.

We won't have enough money to buy the motorhome + pay the monthly expenses.....so we will also make a campaign if anyone can help out considering all I am doing for TROM is free and the motorhome is a house for me as well, of course, so that's a help for TROM basically. We will make the campaign towards the end of the year. We have the vast majority of the money we need to buy the motorhome already, but what do we do after we buy it when the only monthly support i get now is around 3-400 Euros?!

So it is going to be a bit rough for us to do the move.

The motorhome life.

Hopefully at the beginning of the next year we will be in our motorhome (TROMhome) and start a completely new life. We will make videos about our "adventures" and how it is to live in such a tiny mobile space with limited resources. Perhaps it is interesting for some. I want to put a big TROMhome logo on the motorhome, and to eventually go meet with interesting communities or projects and make videos about them.

In parallel I will keep our projects alive and relevant and I still hope to start a new video series whenever I can.

Ideally we would be able to travel and meet interesting projects and people and make videos about all of it, and also keep TROM relevant and alive and create new content. Meet our TROM friends, take them for a week or so with us, and try to live a very minimalistic life, enjoy it, and see where it goes.

Final thoughts.

I am terribly eager to make new content for TROM. I have a ton of ideas and notes. I feel quite depressed and frustrated to not be able to do that. But it is what it is. If it wasn't such a struggle to live in this society, perhaps I'd be wrong about this society when I describe the awfulness of it through our TROM materials. That's the paradox.

Maybe a miracle will happen and I would somehow start the video series soon, but I can't see that to be very likely. It is a terrible situation to want for the time to pass by faster, considering that our life is so short, but that's how I feel now: I want for these next months to be over! I want to see Sasha free and focusing on real important stuff not be trapped working 10-11 hours a day. I want us to not live in the same place anymore and be on our own. I want to start a video series that I can keep producing for the many years to come. I want us to keep on fighting but also have a relaxing life. And it is very doable!

This is a cake my family bought for my "birthday" recently haha. Me and Sasha, and TROMhome :). We will make this happen ;)

That's all for now :)

This month a bunch of "trom" people visited us and we had such a wonderful time together.

We had an Amber party looking through the microscopes at 40 million years old creatures...

Something most people in this world probably consider as boring and "lame". But if you understand the mind-blowing reality we live in, then you would understand why an amber party is a super fun and wonderful party :).

We also looked at the Moon through the telescope...

And we enjoyed the nature around, we had interesting discussions and a lot of fun.

I always hated to meet with "friends" because that usually meant lets get drunk or talk about boring shit, or brag about the stuff you have and all that. Or just eat and do nothing. Hated it. But now with these people I LOVE it. It feels natural and sane, and so much fun. And relaxing!

These are wonderful people who care about this world and have very interesting minds. And there are so many more like them. And I want to "harness" them all haha. We will organize a yearly event for sure and do more than just have a fun meetup. We will have fun but also do some important things for TROM and in general for pushing ahead with TROM-like ideas.

I am so happy that I have these creatures as my friends :)

This is the coolest thing on Earth! -- videos.trom.tf/w/oQ9amzYkm8FgT… (recorded by me 10 minutes ago)

Amber! Or stuff that the trees leak, then insects get trapped inside, then somehow it becomes super hard and survives for millions of years. It becomes transparent (lots of it) and we can look inside and see these creatures that lived millions of years ago and they look the exact same as they did when they got trapped.... Can't believe this "thing" exists on Earth!

My friend Agata game me a BAG full of amber. Her father was a scientist and amber was one of his main focus. He passed away and Agata gave a lot of his collection to museums but kept some.

Now it was the best time to buy a microscope! I spent only 50 euros on this one and it was well worth the money:

I spent ours tonight looking at every one of them and I can't stop it haha.

I HAVE to start the video series that I keep on talking about! We need not only to inform people about our global issues (cough trade!) but also inspire people to look at the important stuff. To know that the natural world is billions of times more fascinating and complex than any bullshit they are mesmerized to buy due to the aggressive marketing campaigns that happen everywhere.

We need to make this consumption craze obsolete. And reality (science/nature) is by far the best substitute. Often free, mindblowing, and more importantly real!

I wish i would start to make the video series now! But mentally can't. I need to adjust my enthusiasm and think about money/trade, at least partially. I will do it tho!

Anyway, amber deserves a video. Amber is fabulous. So precious, but not in terms of money, in terms of real value: to see how the past was. To learn about the tiny creatures and other things. To, in the end, know more about who we are.

#amber nature #microscope #insects

I finished reading @Sasha 's book after reading a rough draft some 2-3 years ago. I wrote a review when she released the book but now that I finished it and it all is fresh in my mind I want to briefly say some condensed atom-sized thoughts about it, without spoiling it for those who have not read it.

This book can be deceiving. You may think it is about a small cute girl traveling around the world with very little money. And that is part of it, but the unique aspect of this book is the overall mental growth for Sasha. This is what I LOVED about it. To see how a human grows to understand how the world works and how that makes her react. All of the crazy and wonderful (at times scary) adventures are not just that, are part of the ingredients that create the cake.

And she is a wonderful cake.

The places that Sasha saw and got to experience make me feel like I lived in a cave my entire life. I bet many people will think that Sasha invented some of these stories because it is insane in a few years time to jump from tribe to tribe, meet locals, go live with them, have extraordinary experiences with them, have no money, then work a few months make a shit load of money, buy a car, live in the car; hitchhike the entire Europe, sleep in the middle of Australia, go and snowboard for free or little money on so many tall peaks from all around the world, become a divemaster, surf awesome waves in Hawaii, drive your car across the entire USA and swim with dolphins, sharks and manta rays.

Fucking shit! This human lived 55 lives in 15 years. You either get depressed at that, thinking like me that you have not experienced even 1% of what she experienced, or make you motivated to go see the world and free yourself from this trade based society (which also makes me want to do).

Sasha did a WONDERFUL job describing all of these places and experiences. No photos needed! And many of these adventures and places will forever live inside of my brain as if I was a close observer.

Best of all, in my view, is that now she signed a "contract" with me with this book, to join me in my battle! :) A battle of TROM vs Society! Her book is her contribution and there is more to follow!

With that she sandwiched her book perfectly - the beginning bun (prologue) that will give you a taste of what is about to come; in the middle are the many flavors of ingredients stacked neatly and chronologically on top of each other - some 300 pages of life; and lastly the top bun that perfectly brings it all together in a perfect taste, connecting the dots and making all of the ingredients and the bottom bun part of one big thing.

Big World.....Small Sasha...

Congratulations for this huge amount of work!

Grab her book from here bigworldsmallsasha.com/book/

#trade #capitalism #travel #trade-free #adventure #hike #book #bookrelease

tio

2024-04-04 20:18:26

NEW BLOG POST:

A book years in the making

Read it on my website (recommended):

tiotrom.com/2024/04/a-book-yea…

Or read it here:

This is @[url=https://fosstodon.org/users/sasha]Alexander[/url] and her most valuable project to date:

A book. But a book is not simply a lot of words or a pile of paper. It is memories, emotions, worldviews, and a lot of work to put them all together. Her book is a story that spans over 15 years. But these years are hardly what most people experience on this planet.

She was born in Russia but at age 8 had to move to the United States and deal with a new world. New language, new culture, new people; her mom, her bother, and some pets. Her father went back to Russia, and that affected her a lot.

A mountain of changes to absorb as a kid which led her to a world of drugs and anger.

She details these struggles which at times feel like hard to believe stories – a 17 year old girl selling drugs in New York, crazy mushroom trips and adventurous thefts.

But she managed to pull herself together and change her life for the better. She was not impressed by the imaginary borders humans create and call countries, so she went on flying like a free bird :). From Canada to Mexico, Australia to Europe, Russia to Thailand. 15 years of adventures with almost no money. Because money won’t stop Small Sasha :).

A way to discover the world and yourself.

When you get to experience so many cultures and places, you can understand much better what humans are, and what makes them who the are.

The places she saw and the people she met are extraordinarily described in the book, in a way that you feel like you are there. No photos needed. You’ll laugh, wonder, or feel uncomfortable reading some of her uncensored experiences.

It is a galaxy of stories that she had to put together using notes from the past, photos, and her own memories stored in the mushy pile of cells we call the brain.

She managed to compile this massive story in a way that it is super fun to follow, but also to get a feeling of how she grew a mind in all of these years.

That mental growth and her experiences, made her realize how fucked up this society is and how much we are destroying this environment and the creatures in it.

She started to volunteer for some organizations over the years, eventually getting closer to the project I made, TROM. And so here we are, a book later, spending our lives together.

I cannot describe how wonderful this book is, how emotional and funny. So much fun, but also a lot of reality check for many people who are going to have their values challenged.

She crafted this book so much, that at times you feel like Carl Sagan, David Attenborough and George Carlin contributed to the book :).

A wonderful read! A massive CONGRATULATIONS to Sasha for the immense work she put into this. I know too well how for the past 4 years she worked so much on this book that it almost put our relationship under a big question mark. I never saw anyone putting so much effort into anything. It was too intense!

But now it is OVER. Finally! I thought I will never see this happen. Wow!

After so many years of work, and almost no money, she is putting the book for free on her website bigworldsmallsasha.com/ in digital format, despite us not having much money to make a life for ourselves on this planet. But of course, if you want to support her (us) you can buy the physical copy too. Or donate if you can.

I helped design the entire cover and I am quite proud of it :).

Go read it! I know I will read it again. This time the physical copy, in a hammock somewhere in nature.

Sasha you fucking did ti!

PS: The book was made with trade-free software. LibreOffice, Krita, Inkscape.

#nature #traveling #society #capitalism #trade #book #bookrelease #foss

Big World | Small Sasha

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022-2024 2007 Freed from slavery (finished high school). Drove across North America 3 times. Lived in Whistler, Canada. 2008 Lived in Canada and California.

^{Big World | Small Sasha}

This is @Sasha and her most valuable project to date:

A book. But a book is not simply a lot of words or a pile of paper. It is memories, emotions, worldviews, and a lot of work to put them all together. Her book is a story that spans over 15 years. But these years are hardly what most people experience on this planet.

She was born in Russia but at age 8 had to move to the United States and deal with a new world. New language, new culture, new people; her mom, her bother, and some pets. Her father went back to Russia, and that affected her a lot.

A mountain of changes to absorb as a kid which led her to a world of drugs and anger.

She details these struggles which at times feel like hard to believe stories - a 17 year old girl selling drugs in New York, crazy mushroom trips and adventurous thefts.

But she managed to pull herself together and change her life for the better. She was not impressed by the imaginary borders humans create and call countries, so she went on flying like a free bird :). From Canada to Mexico, Australia to Europe, Russia to Thailand. 15 years of adventures with almost no money. Because money won't stop Small Sasha :).

A way to discover the world and yourself.

When you get to experience so many cultures and places, you can understand much better what humans are, and what makes them who they are.

The places she saw and the people she met are extraordinarily described in the book, in a way that you feel like you are there. No photos needed. You'll laugh, wonder, or feel uncomfortable reading some of her uncensored experiences.

It is a galaxy of stories that she had to put together using notes from the past, photos, and her own memories stored in the mushy pile of cells we call the brain.

She managed to compile this massive story in a way that it is super fun to follow, but also to get a feeling of how she grew a mind in all of these years.

That mental growth and her experiences, made her realize how fucked up this society is and how much we are destroying this environment and the creatures in it.

She started to volunteer for some organizations over the years, eventually getting closer to the project I made, TROM. And so here we are, a book later, spending our lives together.

I cannot describe how wonderful this book is, how emotional and funny. So much fun, but also a lot of reality check for many people who are going to have their values challenged.

She crafted this book so much, that at times you feel like Carl Sagan, David Attenborough and George Carlin contributed to the book :).

A wonderful read! A massive CONGRATULATIONS to Sasha for the immense work she put into this. I know too well how for the past 4 years she worked so much on this book that it almost put our relationship under a big question mark. I never saw anyone putting so much effort into anything. It was too intense!

But now it is OVER. Finally! I thought I will never see this happen. Wow!

After so many years of work, and almost no money, she is putting the book for free on her website bigworldsmallsasha.com/ in digital format, despite us not having much money to make a life for ourselves on this planet. But of course, if you want to support her (us) you can buy the physical copy too. Or donate if you can.

I helped design the entire cover and I am quite proud of it :).

Go read it! I know I will read it again. This time the physical copy, in a hammock somewhere in nature.

Sasha you fucking did ti!

PS: The book was made with trade-free software. LibreOffice, Krita, Inkscape.

#nature #traveling #society #capitalism #trade #book #bookrelease #foss

No surprise that Alexei Navalny died....unfortunately the situation in this world is not like a movie, where the bad guys are defeated. It seems to me like we've built a society that encourages villains and give little chances to anyone who wants to do anything in a more just way in this society.

Navalny had a huge following and was able to pierce with his campaign through the thick and foggy blanket of propaganda that the Russian government is so good and persistent at. And Navalny may not have been a saint or may not have changed much in Russia, who knows considering the level of corruption that infected all governments around the world, but for sure he was attacked, silenced, and eventually killed (directly or indirectly through a lot of abuse).

Many journalists have been imprisoned or even killed, and now we can see these publicly and so clearly. It is naive to think that pretty much anyone who challenges Putin drops dead or in prison and this has nothing to do with Putin. But probably these wannabe dictators do not even mind to cover up anything anymore.

We are noticing the modern public beheading of those who challenge the status quo. But these modern dictators do not have yet the courage to admit that they did it. They only make it very obvious that they did.

Russia seems to have become an authoritarian regime, the old school one. And this is increasingly concerning. Silencing the protesters, killing the political opponents, and infecting the media with terrible propaganda.

"make no mistake" (to quote the chief of USA), the other tribes are flavors of the same medicine. USA, EU, and the rest, are abusive in their own way, and have killed, and still killing, many innocent people. Russia is just worse. So don't let the degree of "doing bad things" take away from the fact that the other tribes are also abusive. USA may not kill the political opponents, but it is damn good at giving no chance to any radical change in the good direction of their tribe.

Anyway.... it is a sad and scary world. Humans, what a deplorable species.

I am making the documentary about Navalny freely available on our Peertube videos.trom.tf/w/b17jsjV11Khxv… and will be featured on the homepage. See how obvious it is that the guy was targeted and almost killed not long ago. Terrible.

Are we ever going to be an "intelligent human species", floating in space on a marvelous ball of wonders that we can take care of? Exploring the in and outs of it? Or are we going to continue as tribalistic and primitive creatures, exploiting and killing?....

Tio

2024-02-16 17:08:38

Navalny Documentary

The film tells about the events related to the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the subsequent investigation into the poisoning. On 20 August 2020, Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent,[6] falling sick during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, and was hospitalized in serious condition. Navalny was taken to a hospital in Omsk after an emergency landing there, and put in a coma. Two days later, he was evacuated to the Charité hospital in Berlin, Germany. The use of the nerve agent was confirmed by five Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) certified laboratories. Navalny blamed Russian president Vladimir Putin for his poisoning, while the Kremlin has repeatedly denied involvement.

Even I forget that I released a massive documentary some months ago...and that I worked so hard on that. I honestly forget about that quite often and deep down I feel a bit frustrated and sad that I do not do more. But maybe I just forget that I have put so much effort into that and perhaps that drained me of energy. Of course I am crazy busy with the driving license now and am doing other things in the background for TROM, but I need to remind myself that I've done a lot to scream, and I will do more, but I cannot be always like a machine that never stops. So I need some more time to get myself back on track and create new things, scream more and in different ways, and so forth.

I am trying, but the world in which we live is like a bullet-train of nonstop things happening. Most of them are idiotic and ugly. So most people are trapped in this race. Myself included many times. That's why I forget about the documentary.

Wars, disasters, debates, problems, noise. Too much noise. And not much progress into any saner direction.

I ponder sometimes if I should stop trying, and live a quiet and simple life and not give a shit. I don't know...it is hard to imagine that "me". I started my "online activism" back in 2007 or so. That's a scary 17 years ago. And the world has only gotten worse. So why continue I ask myself....

Maybe I just need to recharge myself this year and change my personal life quite a bit. To then have some new energy and motivation to do more, and newer. But also different.

It is also really difficult to try and manage all of these projects and the stuff that I do, with 20% of what I need financially in this trade world...if at least I had enough support to keep me afloat, I could have the confidence of doing more, and doing other things too in this direction.

For now I will be busy with the retarded driving test for the next 1-2 weeks. Then if I manage to pass the exam, it should be easier. I will have to wait a few months for the practical test (driving) but I am quite sure I can take that one. So let's see how I organize myself and the TROM projects for the next months. I will post updates on my Friendica if course.

#romstuff

Video:

In this video Adam Conover argues that people cannot leave Twitter because everyone is there and Mastodon is hard to use. He thinks that the best is to transform Twitter into a nationalized, gov-owned public good platform.

Well...

He may be right that people are not going to leave Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and the like since "everyone is there". Which, let's be honest, is an indirect way of saying that humans are mindless sheep who will go to the popular party regardless if they are fucked in the ass all day. So let's not brush this aside. Humans are mindless idiots, at least most of them. And busy for that matter. That should scare the shit out of us and to make us try to find a solution for that, not a solution for Twitter and the like.

Second, Mastodon is not the fucking "fediverse". The fediverse is a big network made up of many different platforms. It is like calling the mail, GMAIL. As if it is only Gmail. Also, if Mastodon is hard to use, and for that matter other platforms like Friendica and so forth, then humans must be true idiots because it takes you a minute to understand how these work. They are as "complicated" as Twitter, Facebook and the like. The people who think that using Linux or a federated platform is "hard", are those that need any little excuse to not change their habits. When people start to use new platforms like Zoom, TikTok and the like, they put up with whatever new interfaces they have to navigate, just to use them because "these apps are trendy and everyone uses them".

Lastly, a gov owned social network is not like a gov owned educational network like PBS....PBS produces specific content that it controls. A social network is made up of the content that people produce....if the gov would control that, it would be censored like hell. Terrible idea!

The solution is decentralization. Else you have a giant company or gov that decides what we are allowed to post. Therefore, small instances of locally-moderated groups of people, that create a giant network. Welcome to the Fediverse.

Now let's continue to educate people about it rather than dreaming about the gov taking over a multi-billion dollar ad-based company and making it usable and free for all of us.

#tromstuff

I need to divorce myself more from the society/politics/conflicts part of our world. It is insane what it has become. When Russia put hundreds of thousands of troops on Ukraine's border and were accused of preparing an invasion, they said that's entirely false. Then they invaded, then they called the war against Ukraine as a "special military operation".

They bombed hospitals and schools and residential or public spaces, killing so many innocent people...

Day by day, people dying, politicians lying. People were crying...

And now Israel drops thousands of bombs on Gaza, killing again so many innocent people. Creating a total disaster.

Israel says they only kill the bad people, despite the videos and photos showing the contrary. They say they are saints and are fighting against evil, because you see Hamas killed over a thousand innocent Israeli people and that's EVIL, so they must go and kill thousands more innocent people....because that's GOOD!

Then Russia is like: Oh my god, this is genocide! Unbelievable! To drop bombs on hospitals and kill entire families. This is terrible!

And China speaking up against what Israel is doing, more than what Russia is doing. And Iran talking about "human rights"....

And Ukraine not putting any blame on Israel for doing what Russia is doing to them....

Add to the mix the Hamas and other groups that create a lot of misery and terror, and the values of the so called "Arab countries" that are full of shit, and the primitivism of religion overall.

Ukraine is also not an angel, or any other tribe for that matter. Politicians are lying, propaganda is a daily news, and people continue to suffer while at the same time we have problems like cancer killing so many people, tuberculosis that is treatable killing the poor by the millions; diseases, climate change, pollution....

But the thing is, many of these situations are still a result of our trade-based society. The destruction of our environment, enslaving people, making humans into consumers, and so on, are a result of this society.

But even when it comes to wars they are a result of boiling trade-interests on a high flame. Where politicians say all sorts of stupid things, create propaganda through social (ad) networks that also rely on trades, promoting nationalism and patriotism to get more votes, to then have these politicians rule over others, and have luxurious cars, do all sort of businesses, and gain more power.

In other words do you think the "head of states" really care about their tribe when they are almost always caught avoiding taxes, doing shady businesses, and stealing form their tribe?

They care about them and their families, but then they start to promote "patriotism" and "us the tribe" stupidity, to gain votes to be elected as "heads of states". And they use these platforms that care mostly about you paying them to promote your posts. The cycle of vomit.

The thirst for power comes mainly from humans being trained to trade to acquire, because the more you have the more power you have, and vice versa.

And then starting wars is part of the power thirst and the need to get more "support" from the "nationals".

A mix of rich people who lie and have power over others, and the others who are confused patriots, busy workers, and idiotic consumers. Going at war is easy.

And these things are not new at all. For thousands of years these things have existed. From the Roman empire to the Iraq war....

Conclusion.

This is a totally insane society, full of lies and idiots. A horror carnival. And I think the sanest way for me is to force myself to ignore this side of our society. Ignore everything that any politician says (I already do this anyway), ignore these conflicts that I cannot do a thing about and are wrapped in propaganda and misery; ignore this society and focus more on the natural world.

I want to try and do astrophotography to reveal what my eyes can't see. To go more in nature, to grow TROM and its many positive projects, to live a less stressed life, because the society is too retarded and chaotic to even make sense of it, let alone do anything about it.

#Israel #Palestine #ukraine #TradeRuinsEverything #astrophography #war

I rarely change my Notes app because I have a lot of notes and I need to use them. I can't afford to switch often, plus I could never find anything better than Zettlr for the past years. Until now.

AppFlowy!

That's the one I've been looking for.

Supports markdown but has a WYSIWYG so it is very easy to use. Text formatting, links, headings, tables, text colors and highlights, paste images, man it has a lot and yet it is so simple!

I add many code snippets and its code blocks are awesome and simple, with auto recognition for the code type:

And you simply hover a piece of text and have all of the options you need to edit, or add blocks via / or a button.

You can even create kaban-style pages:

WOW! Just WOW. It means that I am replacing not only Zettlr but Vijunka too, in one single app! And it is all local.

And it has a lot more, so give it a try.

They are working to add a search function (a must) and more features!

Yeah they added a ChatGPT integration for those who want to use it and add a API key to it....idk how to feel about that but I proposed to them to at least use GPT4all, the open source and locally run language model.

Anyway, I love this notes app! Give it a try. Trust me, it really is amazing how much you can do with it!

I am quite sure that what prevents me from going into a deep depression is my workaholism. I am always busy with things, some new, some old, some experimental. I always want to do new projects, write, create, enable. The fact that soon after I released TROM II, a 3 years work, I jumped into new adventures, says a lot. Many would fucking retire for a few years after working so much on a project, or drop dead.

I always do stuff. And that keeps me away from thinking about many truths. Some that really piss me off are these wannabe "activists" and "organizations" that bitch about this society and then have pompous motivational vomits about how we should do something, and help, and fight, and all that. Yet none, or almost none, of these motherfuckers that I know have ever helped TROM and the many projects that we have, even with a share or something.

We have so many tools that people can use, so many books, a new documentary, and more. I am always available for any podcasts, debate, presentation, wheteverthefuck. I am here screaming for more than a decade, but if I think how ignored TROM is, especially by these cunts :), then I could go into depression mode quite fast.

That's the truth.

Better to keep myself busy with my TROM work, else I may realize how hypocritical many people are. I will always share whatever is important in regards to TROM, regardless of the source. And we do daily on tromnews.com and such. And I've helped other projects whenever I could.

What just triggered me is this video by TVP . Ok made, but the message of: "We should change the world by getting involved. You can do something even from behind the computer!" Is so hypocritical coming from an organization that will NEVER share anything from anyone else. They will NEVER help those people who are active and fight.

TVP has some online reach so hey go ahead share TROM II, or TROM.tf, or other orgs from our Trade Free Directory! They won't! They never did. I worked with them for years. They just talk. Bullshitters. Many bullshitters out there.

Ok rant done.

Did you ever realize that the most popular browser in the entire world, is made and controlled by an ad company? And the most popular search engine....Same goes for the most popular "social networks". And mobile operating system....

Insane....

And now Google, who has the power to change the internet for the worse, is trying to do something that I had anticipated many years ago. You see, we think that we fooled these companies by using adblockers, or some interfaces like invidious and the like, but the truth is that we could do that because they allowed us to. As soon as these will threaten their existence they can throw massive amounts of money at it and make it difficult if not impossible to bypass these.

Example: since Google owns the search, the mobile operating system, maps, the most popular video platform and so on, AND they own the most popular browser in the world, they are trying to introduce some technical things into the browser and some of their websites to block the adblockers and more.

Basically if you visit Youtube.com via Chrome, then Youtube first asks Chrome about you. Like...are you using an adblocker? If Chrome says yes, then Youtube can refuse you. Therefore you cannot visit Youtube.com unless you do what Youtube says you should do. In this case deactivating your adblocker.

They call this the "Web Environment Integrity API" and are working on it already github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-…

Here's a snippet from their proposal:

Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain, but they often want or need to do it without paying directly. These websites fund themselves with ads, but the advertisers can only afford to pay for humans to see the ads, rather than robots. This creates a need for human users to prove to websites that they're human, sometimes through tasks like challenges or logins.

And this is their first point in their explanation. Of course they will fight for this. It will get harder and harder, if not impossible to block ads and trackers.

This is easily predictable when you understand that the main goal of humans on this planet is to trade. This for that. An evolution that results in big companies doing this sort of shit, even when they have more than enough.

I have been screaming about this for more than a decade. But most people do not listen. Do not want to talk about this. They make it look complicated (ad-based economics, surveillance capitalism, blah blah blah). In truth it is the same practice and incentive for Google as it is for the guy who owns a small grocery store. Stop thinking that this is an issue with big companies and billionaires. It is not. We are all, or most of us, scammers, charlatans, tricksters. On small or big levels.

What can we do about it?

First understand it. Understand why these things happen, because if you do not at best you can make some politicians approve some laws to try and stop these big players. And this does not work. We made a big book and a huge documentary all about this.

Second, try to use trade-free alternative platforms. See trom.tf/ - the ones that we offer. Or visit the Trade-Free Directory and search for some directory.trade-free.org/

We need to understand where the problem originates (trade) and inform people about it, but also try to use alternative platforms and software, so we don't depend on this motherfuckers.

#TradeRuinsEverything #tromstuff