This is, of course, next or late stage capitalism, wherein the capitalist maximizes his return on the most negligible of investments. The dot-com bubble come to fruition.

A few examples so you know what I'm talking about: Amazon, Ebay, Uber, UberEats, Doordash, Skipthedishes, Airbnb, YouTube, Soundcloud, Spotify, Any Dating Site, etc etc.

Amazon and Ebay both make money off of listing items for sellers (and charging the seller a commission) and as well making a commission on the purchaser. That commission might be hidden in a hundred ways, from service fees, transaction fees, interest on money that stored in Paypal accounts (very clever Ebay!), advertising fees, etc, etc. In fact, once you have the platform there's no end to the ways you can monetize it. But - Ebay & Amazon themselves produce nothing - jobs to administer, upgrade the website, liaise with customers, in the case of Amazon perhaps some items stored locally in warehouses, but nothing is done that couldn't be done cheaper by the manufacturer of the product.

What Amazon provides is an Umbrella, of sort, where everything can be found under a single "roof", because - no one wants to go to the trouble of searching different websites.

In the case of Uber, UberEats, DoorDash & Airbnb, money is paid by the clients (restaurants or property listers, commissions for restaurants frequently averaging above 20%, Uber charges drivers in excess of 25%), that surcharge is in turn passed on to the customer. Except - in restaurants, which already precarious in their earnings must swallow and additional 20+% loss in food sold through third party "middlemen", and to make matters worse the middlemen cut the vendors out by setting up look-a-like websites and ads and rerouting phone calls to the restaurant through their service. Nobody wins but the middlemen.

Dating sites? YouTube? A hundred other websites? All creating profit and money through content created by the users. Users have become hostage to the platforms they helped to build.

This is now the world - the vast disconnect between the people that produce value and the people that make money off of it. Money spent "locally" is routed through Uber and winds up in the hands of corporations thousands of miles away with no local interest or investment.

Anyways, it's a pointless rant, merely a list of services (and the types of services) that I strive to avoid.

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Category: Rants

A website that creates a sigil from your intent. The internet of Magik ...

It used to be magic, before everything became obscured by ads and owned by multinational corporations.

Anyways: 

The Sigil Engine: https://www.sigilengine.com/

Other related sites of interest: The Online Tarot (here a disclaimer, I'd generally prefer to do a reading with proper cards, candles & ambience, but - these will do in a pinch:)

Used to be a favorite, but the site is no longer maintained and most of the decks and options have disappeared: 

The Bigfoot/Sasquatch Tarot: HERE (Crazy as it seems for such a specific request, you have choices...Because who DOESN'T Think of the Tarot and then Bigfoot?)

And, since clearly you're here wasting time, The I-Ching: 

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Category: Miscellany

Meanwhile...

The days, crisp and sunny, wet and snowy, sometimes a fine mix of both...

Days, too cold, too wet, too slippery to go far, then, some days just right. Head off with Chris, exploring above the fluorite seam, find an old silver mine (another one, this mountain, it's a swiss cheese filled with them), shallow adit that ends in perhaps 30 feet. Interesting growths - crystals forming on the ceiling.

Going through the tipple, some shiny crystals, at first Fluorite (I think), but no, then Calcite (but too hard), take them to Brad at the Chamber of Mines. "Quartz" he tells me, only, to my eye, they're a bit different than quartz, and first of all I mean the weight, more an "Ore" weight than a quartz weight, heft it in your hand and you'd know, but - until I have better information I have to defer to his expertise, and I should, really, but - heft it in my hand again - the weight, surely it must be something else - a transparent silver ore? Hmmmm.

When the snow is melted walk the beach, look for arrowheads, none, but this:

Remains of a blue crayfish, invasive most probably, but a vivid, electric blue...

To the valley, other things to be dug for, exploring to be done. But no, get out of the car, walk to the cliff, find yourself waist-deep in snow, unable to move. Lake level is dry, but only a few meters off the road and things can get hairy in a hurry. Other locations, similar results, too much snow still to do any finding. Back to the sapphires, crawl into the crevice that leads behind the pegmatite, a narrow squeeze into a tight cavern filled with icicles, trying to squeeze my way out crushes my phone, a hundred bits to be glued and taped back together...

The blue-jays, now 16 in total, word spreads, wait in the tree every morning, a few, more vocal, hop along the rail, try to wake you up, it's time for breakfast! 

The evening, moon-dog, my camera on the phone isn't up to getting the shot, maybe there's some pro-settings I could adjust, but I'm not finding them, play with the settings, results vary, are the same, it's just a blobby of light in the sky with what appears to be a lens-flare.

Bringing us to yesterday. Morning, snowing - again, 4 inches already and there's a raging blizzard of sorts, white caps on the lake, trees bending and ducking, the blue-jays have hidden themselves away for the day, hunkered down. And enjoying my first cigarette, looking out over the lake - where the falling snow meets the white-capped waves there's a boat...

Small fishing boat, cabin, you can just make it out, who would be on the lake at this hour? In this weather? And so I watch it, it's going up lake with the waves, now turning, again, and again, I try to take a picture but it's disappearing into the horizon, too far to make out precisely. It spins, and again, bobs, it's not manned, clearly, there's something haunting to watch a boat come unmoored dancing on the edge of the foreshortened horizon, spinning, to be carried up to a further shore or to capsize and sink, these speculations already irrelevant as it's disappeared...

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Category: Miscellany

Amusing story from friend about a legendary former co-worker. We'll call him "Sun-Ra", (not his real name, his "real name" is another Kootenay Alias), he had met the people from the workshops he had in the valley whereupon you'd learn all about Sasquatch, he was something of an expert having published books upon the subject, conducted seminars, offered instruction on psychically channeling these misunderstood hairy men of the forest...

By "the people" of course I mean the people with the "machine". He would, you'd guess, be a natural for this sort of work, his own beliefs and ideologies running as it were somewhat tangent.

I'm curious, I don't have his real name but find it easily enough, there are surprisingly few Sasquatch experts out here, most are dilettantes or pundits, this guy, he's the "real deal". Website, Facebook page (I follow him, why not? Why be here if you don't meet the locals?). Poorly drawn pictures of Sasquatch surrounded by flying saucers ornament the covers of his book. I have to find a copy and read this. 

Anyways, back to Sun-Ra, he'd come to work for the company at the behest of the owners, his expertise in Sasquatch implying a scientific rationale that would no doubt be well suited to explaining the machine to potential clients. And first thing he'd do was go for a walk up to Oso, grab a coffee, have a joint, get lit, spend the day there in the garden lecturing and informing his disciples on 'Squatch etiquette and lore, flying saucers, government conspiracies...

Eventually, (by which I mean a year and a half later) they fell out (I gather, amicably enough), he went his own way, back to the valley to doubtless to continue his research, still, something of a legend amongst the old-timers there, no hard feelings but the spirit-guides were a bit off on that one weren't they Martha? A hearty laugh, as dark as they'll ever get.

The owners, since then, have been a little hesitant about hiring True-Believers, a bit of skepticism is fine if not voiced, this job, like an awful lot of jobs nothing like it but like it in every other way, depends on discretion, the ability to quell all reasonable dissent or query, just put your head down and get it done...

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Category: People
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