One element of this is that we need parents to step up. It is an appalling failure of parenthood to send a neurotypical, able-bodied child to school not yet toilet trained. Additionally, it is not the sole responsibility of the school to foster all aspects of childhood development. To discover a love of reading, children must be exposed to those who love to read. To learn social skills and empathy, they must be spoken to and empathised with. To develop fine motor skills and creativity, they must hold a pencil and colour and play. All of this begins at home.

Of course, this begets a wider conversation about why even dual-parent households struggle to provide this. Some is clearly the need for both parents to be in full-time work, soaring childcare costs and the lack of village that would traditionally have eased this burden. Some of it is cultural; Britain has a real crabs in a bucket mentality that punishes people who are perceived to want something more. Look at the meteoric rise of Luke Littler, and the subsequent boo-ing only a year later. We do not have a culture that rewards earnest engagement with institutions of learning, especially beyond the mandatory schooling or university years.

This is a crying shame. We have such a rich history, such magnificent nature, such fascinating arts and indeed, some of the finest educational institutions on earth. Yet our own press attacks former students for complaining about their inaccessability? Governments offer punishing loans, the repayments of which are not used to pay for what was borrowed but instead prop up stagnating public services.

A healthy society requires the services of university-educated workers, skilled tradesmen, and service staff. This is fundamental to the functioning of our society. Vut it is a mistake to gatekeep education for only specific career paths. Anyone and everyone, regardless of background or trade, should have the opportunity to pursue study for leisure. To discover oneself and the world around them. To keep their brains elastic and develop critical thinking and the ability to articulate an argument. We argue over the necessity of this, but neglect to consider the wider benefits to the country and society of having an educated populace. Who knows how many great artists, writers, and thinkers exist solely within the confines of their own mind, told that university and learning is only valuable in pursuit of a career?

— Frost

Whilst I have strong opinions on the applications and ethics of AI; I am not a reactionary nor a luddite, and have used it recently to guide me through a boiler repair. Another application I have tried is mealplans, but alas I’ve found it to never quite scratch the nebulous mood I’m in. It is loathe to suggest anything beyond basics, even when prompted. I have realised I require a little more spontaneity. That said, I do enjoy planning an evening menu and all the richness that entails. I will have the coming Saturday to myself, so I hope to curate a delicious solo dining experience.

Solo time is rare and whilst I of course adore the company of my spouse, I enjoy taking advantage of time alone to indulge myself. Less devouring to excess, but more recognising that being alone affords an opportunity to fully focus on the sensory aspects and to take things at entirely my desired pace. With complete focus and attention, it provides a lovely opportunity to fully enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

— Frost

There does seem to be a new romanticism of the classical era in online spaces, particularly in western, right-wing, male-orientated spaces. These are the spaces an algorithm will generally usher me towards, which is slightly unfortunate and entirely predictable. I do want to see the marvels of Roman engineering, the sortition systems of Athens, the Meditations of Aurelius. However, the online fascination with classicism echoes the neo-druidry of the romantic era; a pagentry where the historic reality is oft overlooked in favour of an idealised version. They cast aside the genuine contributions of the women of history, the dependencies on slavery, the fact that art and philosophy and such was prized, yes, but also financially propped up by the rich in a way these grifters would decry as socialism. Whilst there is no doubt that the history and legacy of the classical era are rich, fascinating topics - do any of the thirty-thousand likers on a america-first, Deus Vult-tagged posts actually meaningfully engage with them? Have they actually read the Sophocles they extol? Or do they simply retweet to indicate proximity to intellectualism, and scroll to the next piece of attention-consuming ragebait?

If you are not part of the elite now; you would not have been part of the elite then. You would not be part of the bourgeoisie these accounts cast themselves as. That is not a failing, but that these accounts leverage the ideals and achievements of these civilisations to further the aims of the modern elite at the expense of the working person who consume them is baffling.

This links back to my previous post on rituals. Lacking religiosity and community, many turn to religious-like communities for guidance or consolation. These accounts propose extreme forms of stoicism, self-discpline, deprivation… impossible, ahistoric standards to ensure that young men believe everything is their fault or the fault of the outgroup. Currently, this would be immigrants in most western paradigms. This is not to say that there is no value in a classical education; in fact I would argue that now, in the face of declining literacy, access to discourse, and critical thinking, a classical education is more important than ever before.

Aspirations to better oneself are admirable. An interest in history heralds great possibilities. Retweeting a condensed, politically-propulsed post that assuages you of intellectual insecurities, by mere proximity to an ancient culture, is simply a disservice to your own mind. You must read for yourself, critique for yourself, think for yourself, to recognise the majorty of these so-called neo-classical accounts for what they are: grifters, and nothing more.

— Frost

I was anticipating that the macbook would be more and less difficult to disassemble. Approximately thirty screws in, I would’ve required a hex tool to remove the logic board entirely. Given that I was only inside to inspect it and give it a quick wipe with 99% isopropyl alcohol, this wasn’t too much of a barrier and I was able to rotate it around the point of contact. Reattaching the casing proved to be much more troublesome, with the clip system. Having disassembled many laptops over the years, I’ve always found that casings are the problematic part. this seems intrinsic in design; make it prohibitive to repair a device & customers will purchase a replacement.

For the first time in many years, I opted not to upgrade my mobile when my contract was up. From sony ericsson with their most uncomfortable tiny joystick, to the iphone 3GS, then finally pivoting to android; I’ve played with a lot of mobile devices. The golden era of apple predates the subscription-model app store; apps were 79p for lifetime access & the jailbreak scene was in full-swing. Cydia was a glorious gateway to sideloading apps and springboard offered hundreds of themes teeming with microcustomisations. Early apple tech felt so full of possibility. Whilst android remains based upon AOSP, the 21st c. has seen efforts to curtail side-loading, anonymous app development, and encrypted private communcations. I haver between adopting a fairphone with e/os and exploring Linux phones as a serious contender. banking apps seem to be the primary hurdle for my use case, though i do enjoy the easy use of existing apps like MyFitnessPal and Spotify. De-googling my phone will likely be a much bigger hurdle than setting up the home server, from my early investigations. I’d prefer to move away from google entirely (for similar reasons as to why i advocate for firefox over brave), but there appears to be no serious non-google/non-apple contender in the market.

There is much to think about. For now though, I intend to stick with my current android device for as long as it is functional. There is no sense in wasting a functional, repaired device.

— Frost

Prior to the spillage, I was considering which browser to use. I have always been a firefox proponent. Whilst I appreciate Brave and other privacy-focused chromiums, I think it’s important to support one of the only viable competitors to Google’s dominance. Yes, Chromium itself is open-sourced, but the heavy upstream reliance on Google and Google Services means that telemetry remains baked in by default. Tenacious forks may strip it out, but still fundmentally contrinbute to the entrechment of Chromium (and thus Google) as the gatekeeper of web standards. The Mozilla Foundation has been a pillar for the FOSS cause for decades. Adding to their active user-base is but a small contribution to their mission. Should chromium become the mono-engine, we hand sovereignty of web standards to the dominant technical force of surveillance capitalism. A mono-engine with a monopology over web standards and compatabilities, particularly in the hands of Google, would be a grave thing for anyone who supports a free and private browser experience. Whilst yes, Mozilla do make a signficiant revenue from Google adverts; there are no non-niche alternatives and we must not let perfect become the enemy of good.

I do continue to consider privacy implications. Mullvad browser (a Firefox fork) has become increasingly visible, and I have decided to use it for any sensitive browsing. I do, however, like signing in to certain websites (Git, for one!), which does somewhat neuter the benefits. Instead, I have opted for a hardened Firefox profile for day-to-day browsing. This is where I am comfortable straddling the line of convenience & privacy. I considered more hardened Firefox forks like Waterfox or Librewolf, but these do appear to be, ultimately, Firefox with someone else configuring your settings. A worthwhile project for sure, but not something I particularly need, especially given that forks remain downstream for security patches. Privacy & security are fine lines, but I am confident I have maximised my Firefox privacy and minised the telemetry to a level I am happy with. This is the intersection of politics, policy, privacy, & security where i’ve settled. I hope that Firefox continues to grow their userbase, and that even Chrome-users move away from the default browser to privacy-forward forks like Brave in the meantime.

— Frost

I don’t think this is necessarily a need to bring back the religious elements, though I suppose most of these holidays were religious in origin. But it is a valauble thing to have a historic continuity, an occasion for celebration, to mark the passage of time in a communal way rather than just birthdays or personal anniversaries. Our declining native holidays in the modern day contributes to;

1. A lack of cultural identity; particularly as we import more and more Americanisms like Black Friday.

2. A lack of connection with the local community; particularly as we spend more time socialising over social media or any distance-agnostic tech.

If we don’t feel connected to our wider community, to our land, to our heritage, why would we fight to better it? There’s a distinct lack of ’third space’ in the modern world, a side-effect of the decline of religiosity in the population. Individualism thrives in these conditions. It saddens me to see that communal celebration, such an integral facet of being human for almost all of human history, appears to take a backseat for commercialism.

There’s an intrinsic value in experiencing festivities that reach back hundreds of years. Aside from the general feel-good factor, they inspire great art, poetry, music, bring history to the forefront of the public consciousness, stoke intracommunity relationships… yet without an intrinsic commercial value (see what’s happened to Valentine’s Day), there appears to be little room for them in the 21st century.

Yet without that sense of community, apetite for projects that better the community is low. Without pride in local surroundings, people are disinclined to look after them. Without a shared sense of belonging in the wider world, people do not trust nor engage with their wider world.

Whilst I am not suggesting ‘more holidays’ is the sole solution to an increasingly fractured and individualistic modern Britain, I certainly think that we underestimate and underutilise the role historic holidays have played in creating a functioning, thriving society.

On an individual level, I also think without religious institutions in the daily life, many yearn for a philosophical comforting. Ritual has always played a pivitol role in establishing structure and predictability in times of stress and strife. We are bombarded with more information now than at any other point in human history, whilst simultaneously are more disconnected from traditional comforts such as faith. Perhaps a little more ritual and tradition could bridge this gap?

— Frost

I do not particularly anticipate that it will attract a large readership, if any at all. However, if you have happened upon this space; please feel free to pull up a chair and grab a metaphorical cup of tea & a biscuit. I would suggest a chocolate-dipped viennese finger.

I largely envision crystalblue as a small slice of the internet that’s disconnected from algorithms, adverts, and general noise. It is a quiet space, somewhere that invites the writer & reader to linger without expectation.

I intend to use it to document my transition away from Google and foray into self-hosting. Long-term, I would like to migrate this project to a self-hosted solution, however Cloudflare Pages is suitable enough for now.

Currently, I am exploring Invidious as a way to watch YouTube without providing a mega-conglomerate with all my data. My initial intention was to simply always be connected via my commercial VPN and run it through Docker, but YouTube’s anti-abuse metrics have made that difficult. It seems that my VPN exit was blocked. I thought perhaps I could run it through a specific VPN exit that I know works with YT via gluetun - I know this would involve rotating the server every so often, but this is an acceptable trade-off to me. I typically reach for Eastern European servers to access YT, which do work in the browser. However, to my dismay, it seems YT treats headless requests differently. verifying an exit works on the browser isn’t enough to verify it’ll work in Invidious. I’m also unable to use DASH when running behind gluetun, which is unfortunate as I don’t really want to watch in 720p.

In the meantime, I’m watching with a VPN on via YoutTube with Privacy Badger, an adblocker, and a private window. but I would prefer to self-host, eventually.

— Frost