Author: chuck

Floating in the Void – Experiences With Sensory Deprivation

Stepping inside a sensory deprivation tank is a little strange at first. It’s pitch black and the tank itself is soundproof. There’s around 850 pounds of Epson salt dissolved in the water so that your body is very much buoyant while you float, allowing your muscles to relax (and if you have a scratch on your body you aren’t aware of, you’ll know immediately since you’re essentially salting the wound!). It smells like salt obviously, but you get used to the smell quickly. The water itself is kept at average skin temperature (~93.5° F), which allows you to lose track of your body.

I’ve found that floating in a sensory deprivation tank can be similar to that of other forms of meditation in that you’re focusing on breathing and watching thoughts arise (though this entirely depends on your own practice). It’s also very different simply because you’re naked and all the things I’ve mentioned above – you’re not in a constant state of analyzing your sensations and the world. A typical float lasts about 90 minutes which is more than 4x longer than my own average meditation session. Granted, floating is much more comfortable position for meditation than sitting in the same position for an extended period of time, which translates to being more enjoyable. To be honest, the only benefits over traditional sitting meditation is that information from your five traditional senses are dialed way back and your session is much longer.

I’ve experimented with sensory deprivation tanks around eight or so times and have had a couple interesting sessions – both subtle realizations regarding consciousness and experiences that have resulted in long term lifestyle changes.

I once tried floating while I had a hang over back in 2017. Whenever I had to deal with a hang over I would typically drown out those awful sensations and feelings of self loathing with television, video games, and eating a lot of junk food. Note that this was a regular (at least weekly) pattern of behavior. However, stepping into a sensory deprivation tank instead of doing those things, I faced those raw feelings and sensations head on. I had observed those thoughts of self-loathing that I historically was only partially noticing. After that experience, I swore off alcohol and haven’t been drunk since.

On a separate occasion, I had noticed that a 90 minute session went by rather quickly, as though my perception of time were distorted. Thinking back on it, I simply fell asleep midway through and exited the tank feeling refreshed as I had just taken a short nap. Either way, a personal insight here is that that being awake and being unconscious isn’t necessarily a hard line between these two states. There are varying levels of wakefulness as there are varying levels to unconsciousness (think of the various stages of the sleep cycle).

Like traditional meditation, sensory deprivation isn’t likely going to be a psychedelic experience, though I think it can offer insight into the nature of consciousness at the very least. At most, it can be a catalyst to a lifestyle change.

Updating the Linux Kernel on LMDE 4

I’ve been using Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 as my daily driver (both work and play) for the better part of a year. Being a Debian-based distribution, we can generally count on stability albeit at the cost of the most up-to-date packages. LMDE4 comes with Linux Kernel 4.19 but if for whatever reason you need to update to a new Linux Kernel, it’s a fairly easy process and can be done with just a few commands.

First, we can confirm which version we have with the command: uname -a.

Let’s go ahead and upgrade.

We can search for the latest kernel by searching the repos with the following command: apt search linux-image. Here we find that the most current stable (and signed) version of the Linux Kernel for 64 bit CPUs is version 5.8.


To install this version, we’ll enter the command: sudo apt install linux-image-5.8.0-0.bpo.2-amd64. This process can take a bit – it took a little over 10 minutes for me.

Once complete, reboot the machine. Now enter the first command we entered above to confirm we’ve updated to version 5.8


And we’re done!

Why I No Longer Use MEGA’s Encrypted Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is as popular as ever and I for one have been a vocal advocate for backing up your personal files to a cloud service provider. With the imminent release of Proton Drive, I’ve seen some people bring up MEGA.nz as a secure and encrypted alternative to Dropbox and Google Drive and wanted to write out my thoughts regarding my experience as a paid user and a previous moderator to r/MEGA before shutting down my Reddit account.

I currently am (soon to be was) a paid Tier 1 Pro user. With free plans, the service is very unreliable and slow (especially for larger files) and will periodically block you from downloading/uploading if you’ve reached your free usage quota (which I don’t have a problem with – they’re a company and can’t be giving away their service for free). While using their paid service, I never once had an issue with their automatic backup tool for Linux (called MEGA Sync) or the mobile app – speeds were reasonably fast 99% of the time and my data was reliably backed up. The company is also pretty transparent about how the encryption works with the publication of their security white paper and their apps are source-available on Git Hub.

While being a moderator, I spent a lot of time cleaning up the subreddit of spam (and boy was there!) and modernizing the theme, adding links, and even adding the official MEGA Support account as moderator. I realized that one of the most popular uses of the service (to no fault of MEGA) is the sharing of porn – which in my opinion degrades it’s reputation in terms of recommending it due to how it has become synonymous with “porn” on several “adult” subreddits. In addition to the creeps, a lot of their free user base (especially the ones on Reddit) are very entitled believing that the service should be entirely free and don’t understand that the company needs to make money.

However, that’s not the reason I decided to move away from MEGA as a cloud storage provider. Half the reason I’ve moved away from using their service isn’t the fact they’re based out of New Zealand (a member of the Five Eyes countries), but rather they’re completely owned by a Chinese company – I understood that some of the company’s shares were owned by a Chinese investor and then seized by the New Zealand government, but I understand it is that the company is essentially owned in it’s entirety by a Chinese company (sadly I can no longer seem to find the New Zealand tax site that proves this the ownership).

The second half as to why I’m no longer using the service is coming to acknowledge the fact that with any cloud storage services, you’re putting your trust and your personal data into someone else’s computer. Although MEGA offers encryption by default (something that Dropbox and Google do not offer), I’m nonetheless trusting them when they say they cannot decrypt my data.

I’ve since moved away from cloud storage to store my files in favor of storing them locally along with an external offline backup. Once my MEGA plan expires at the end of the month, I’ll be grandfathered in to the 50gb “free” plan which I’ll likely use to back up non-personal data I don’t really care about. So at the end of the day, I will not only no longer pay for the service, but I’ll no longer actively use it. This being said, with the launch of Proton Drive, I will likely not use the service to backup my personal files. “The cloud is just someone else’s computer” as the saying goes.

The Value of Education – Defending my Bachelor’s Degree

Back in 2012 I graduated college with a Bachelor of Science degree – a process that took a total of 6 years and $26k in student loan debt. I double majored in psychology and sociology with a minor in philosophy and I can honestly say getting that piece of paper was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Occasionally I wonder if I should have obtained a more technical degree given my enthusiasm for technology, but ultimately I would not change a thing. At the time I chose psychology as my major because I am genuinely interested in human behavior and I wanted to get into social work (something decided not to do after graduation).

Nowadays, there seems to be a popular rhetoric I hear or read about online: college is a waste of time and most degrees are worthless. Although I think there are too many students going to college despite not knowing what the really want to do (does anyone really?) and that there are a lot of degree fields that lack a direct career path, I nonetheless think a post-secondary education is extremely valuable for both personal development and in terms of economic value.

The claim that college graduates are flipping burgers is ridiculous. There are certainly people I’ve met in college that really had no ambition and were simply there because 1) that’s what they were told to do or 2) they were collecting financial aid money. You can find this type of person that has no drive, motivation, or ambition to do much in any social group. Also, some people just have bad luck. I am skeptical there are many college graduates working fast food and those that are, I highly doubt it’s long term.

I know people that have a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science that make well over $100k a year. On the other hand, I went to college with a guy who graduated the same time I did. 6 months after graduation I started a low level job selling smartphones for Sprint. Around the same time, this guy was on the front page of the local paper setting fire to his degree as an act of protest stating how fucked up the system is and that he can’t get a job because he was lied to. The sad reality is that getting a degree does not guarantee you a good job – especially right out of college.

Many young people suffer from the economic burden of paying off loans. Also, life at a university does not necessarily encourage good money habits. After graduation, I see all too often (myself included) people making only the minimum payments toward their student loans and hope that some politician with big promises will wipe out their student debt. The sad reality is the government will not come in and save the day and this hope only prolongs the pain of student debt further.

That’s enough of potential negatives of a degree, let’s change gears to the benefits. A college degree does not simply show you’re knowledgeable in a specific area of study. The college environment fosters the obtainment of other skills, knowledge, and experience including critical thinking, information analysis, presentation skills, reading comprehension, public speaking confidence, increased vocabulary, working in groups, leadership, and networking just to name a few. There are a lot of real world skills one can pick up by the time they complete their degree program.

Networking has been an important component to my college education. Not just simply learning how to network, but the connections I made in college have proved to be valuable. I’ve utilized the connections I made during college to land positions at reputable companies – so the saying goes it’s not what you know but who you know.

Maybe there needs to be a shift in focus while attending college – perhaps less emphasis on subject and more emphasis on the skills and experiences necessary for the 21st century. Our world is undergoing significant change and that rate of change is not slowing down. What was once considered a good education 50 years ago is no longer enough for success in college, career, and citizenship in the 21st century. There is a movement in the education community that suggests that the future of education needs to emphasize the four C’s: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. This philosophy on education is targeted for K-12 students, however in my experience these skills are more or less obtained in college but could be more formalized.

I believe that education is valuable in itself, but if we must attribute economic value to it, then I believe yes, it is (for the most part) economically valuable as well. I think anyone that’s gone through the process and obtained a degree should be proud and recognize that what they accomplished is beneficial to their growth as a person – both personally and professionally. Do you need a degree to succeed professionally in life? Absolutely not – there are other paths like learning a trade or joining military that can be of significant value as well, but a college degree is a viable and worthwile path.

Donating to Security and Privacy Advocating Organizations & Projects Pt. 2

Recently the developer behind an alternative YouTube front-end that I regularly use to avoid actually using YouTube announced that he’s calling it quits. Although his blog post that clarified his intentions of shutting down said he’s not quitting because of costs, he did break down all the costs associated with the project and approximately what he pulled in monthly from donation (which was equal to roughly $5 per month). This developer was eating a ton of cost to keep the website going. Granted if I were in his shoes, I would place the call-to-action to donate in a more obvious position instead the bottom of the page, but nonetheless it reminded me that if we have an extra few dollars each month we should use them to support open source projects.

I know I’m in a privileged position to be working when so many people have gone unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I feel that donating to free and open source projects is important now more than ever. For example. the TOR Project recently laid off a third of their team and just today Mozilla had to let go of 250 employees working on Firefox.

Below are some projects I’ve made some donations to. With the exception of andOTP, all donations were done via Bitcoin. I personally don’t make that much money, but I’m trying to get into a pattern of behavior of donating small portions of my monthly income to FOSS and non-project projects I use regularly or generally support.

GrapheneOS – is an Android-based, security-hardened, privacy focused, free and open-source, mobile operating system I’ve been using on my Pixel 2 XL for the last several months. And the lead developer behind the project Daniel McCay is renown in the privacy and security community.

PrivacyToolsIO – This website has been a valuable resource for me as I transitioned from using Google and other privacy invasive services to more secure and privacy-centric tools. The team behind PrivacyTools thoroughly vets and provides recommendations for digital tools and services so long as they’re FOSS and have a solid reputation among other things.

Free Software Foundation – This non-profit organization was founded by Richard Stallman in the 1980’s to support the free software movement and promote the freedom to study, distribute, create, and modify computer software. The FSF is also the organization behind the GNU General Public License and continues to advocate the use of free and open source software.

NewPipe – is an alternative YouTube front-end for Android that is essentially a replacement for the YouTube android application but without the advertisements and tracking.

andOTP – this is a two-factor authentication application that’s free and open source. The app is maintained by a small team, but the current main developer is active.

It’s been a long time since I’ve donated to a non-technical cause. I think I’ll change that next month.