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magalarajoonideprohvetid · 5 years

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1.10.2 ramadan.man [in english]

First part, Ramadan.man_12.1_last_saved_02/07, published in Nihilist.fm on 03/07/15;

second part, Ramadan.man_12.2_last_saved_17/07, published on author’s blog on 17/07/15;

full text in estonian in 6ism2e_dpi_error:_unsupported_personality, 2016, Nihilist.fm and ZA/UM, pages 89-98;

translation by Kristi Ockba

1.10.2 ramadan.man

Ramadan.man_12.1_last_saved_02/07

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It is evening. The boys were watching yet another episode of Avatar before I sent them off to bed. The time is 22:30 and I will soon be able to eat. The first day of fasting is about to end.

«Boys, today you must go to bed on your own.»

«Why?»

«Because I must now eat.»

«Why now?»

«Because it is Ramadan now. I do not eat during the day, but when the sun sets, I can start eating.»

«Why are you eating now?»

I am tired and hungry and so I snap: «Because otherwise I will die, if I don’t eat during the day and I don’t eat during the night either!» This was the wrong thing to say, but I am hungry and tired.

«I don’t want you to die!» Happy starts to cry.

«I don’t want to sleep, I want to eat,» Generous says without a care.

I love Happy’s sentimental sensitivity and Generous’ raw carelessness. I console and comfort Happy until he also decides that he would like to eat something. It is 11:00 pm. The three of us are sitting in the kitchen. Generous is eating some fried ham and Happy shares my Ramen noodles while his spaghetti is boiling. We are happy, happy to be the way we have been created. This is a tribal thing. The Vihalem tribe of United Autonomous Individuals. UAI — it’s a tribal thing. We are happy and free. Unfortunately millions of people around the world are not.

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My senses are tight, loaded. Supersensitive. I smell cigarettes before non-smokers do. At the Kristiine youth center some guy on his way out lights a cigarette. The hoodlum wanted to act tough and bend the rules. He was barred from the center for life. Serves him right, his stupid behavior didn’t just end badly for him, but also made me crave for a cigarette.

Walking down the street I can smell lovely perfumes, feminine and sweet, and the smell of cigarettes coming from those girls walking a few steps ahead of me.

There is a terrible smell coming from three guys sitting in bus number 46, just a few rows ahead of me. They smell of ethanol; it exits their bodies with every breath, from every pore. As they get up to get off the bus, I can sense garish stench of smegma. Bastard, wash your self or go get circumcised. Hobos.

I can smell the aromas of food – everywhere. All food smells good. My stomach is no longer growling. It is much too empty to growl. Food is beautiful. I am on the terrace and I am thinking how beautiful food would be in my mouth. The wind brushes through the leaves of trees. The wind is beautiful. It brushes me. Somewhere in the distance some people are making sandwiches and fruit bars. The time is 16:30 and I would be able to eat them in six hours and twelve minutes. By that time they will most probably be eaten.

I sense a some kind of smell, sweet, carried by the wind from the leaves. I do not know the source, but I can sense it sharply, suffocatingly. My senses are loaded. My senses are my superpowers. I am a starving superhero, I am Ramadan.man.

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I have started reading the Koran again. After the second Sura I always find myself thinking about Harut and Marut. Two angels, sent to earth with free will. On the first day they get everything wrong. In addition I am reading Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali’s Rescuer from Error/The Niche of Light. I so hope it will not be a disappointment. In the meantime, I skim through the posthumous catalog of the Polymer Cultural Factory, which I received from the compiler for a pleasurable barter deal. The first five chapters of Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness also seem great.

I like to read during Ramadan. This is my only passtime, self-education, my only entertainment, the consumption of which I do not feel guilty. I don’t feel guilty feasting letters with my eyes, rapaciously, as if someone were trying to take it away from me.

I am focused, fast. Hunger concentrates me. I am Ramadan.man. Superhero, with supersenses, a superreader.

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Ramadan.man’s superpowers do not include fixing things. One can say that one of Ramadan.man’s superpowers is messing things up. For instance, that’s what happened to my bike last year.

First of all I wanted to oil the wheel collar and then screw it shut. When I unscrewed them it was evident that the rings had been rusted and the wheel bearings fell apart. I should not have touched it to begin with. The same applied to the pedals; I wanted to change them but I accidentally screwed it in the wrong direction. The stem threads were completely ruined. This year, I started to clean the ventilation of my laptop and ruined the motherboard. At the same time, the desktop computer that I was using to view the tutorial to open the laptop stopped working. Yep, superpowers.

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Midsummer day. At home. No grilling what so ever. Not even meat free. I was ready for it. I built a lego house for Generous. He was extremely happy. Maybe in his eyes I have some superpowers?

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I enjoy watching films. Especially in the summer and especially vampire films. This Ramadan I finally watched a movie that has been on my list of films to watch for a long time, and this film became the winner of my top five vampire films.

The movies left out of my top five list were Shadow of a Vampire (2000), Interview with the Vampire (1994) and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). The first one I just really liked and the second was my first. I went to Kosmos cinema to see it when I was seven years old. The third… the only guy who could pull of a 90’s tribal tattoo is George Clooney. For sure.

TOP 5:

5. What We Do in the Shadows (2014). New Zealand. Mockumentary. It is funny. Really funny.

4. Thirst (2009). South-Korea. From the same director of Old Boy. Need I say more?

3. Let the Right One In (2008). Swedes can do and show you all kinds of things in their films. For God’s sake don’t watch the 2010 film Let Me In!

2. A Girl Walks Home Alone (2014). A feminist Iranian vampire film. Thank you, Ernest, for recommending!

1. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). An ocean of references. Music. Tangier. Drinking blood from drams.

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I sacrifice this world, the comforts of this world. And I sacrifice myself. I watch this world, I try to be only an observer. My presence is perceivable; I perceive my own presence. And at the same time I am vanished. And that doesn’t matter. The sun climbs across the building. These are it’s final rays. I look desperately at the sky and search for the moon. The sun and moon determine my situation, my condition, my position in this world, that I bring for a sacrifice. My sacrificed self-position. Sunset and dawn rays determine me as alive or an observer. The crescent starts from the right and grows towards the left. Half means a quarter and a full moon means half. The full moon scares me. Too many lunatics, who find themselves just then. During Ramadan I don’t feel myself loosing my mind, I am too tired and empty. There is just the reflections of a past madness, reflections of primal madness. I throw stones at those reflections, to get to the primal madness, to look it in the eye. I am afraid.

I cry a lot, more than I can consume water. My heart is tender and soft, this must never change, it must never petrify. I cry because people die in the hands of crazy people, because of how wonderful children can be, because of how much a brother can love his sister. I would like to cry more because of how much good there is in this world but unfortunately I can’t. My sacrifice is trivial, a trivial disciplinary exercise, a reminder and a self admiration in comparison to the millions, who must daily endure hunger and thirst. In the best case scenario, this is a preparation for times when winters are long and droughts hit the summer, and the only one’s who survive are the ones who do not care about their presence.

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Have a lovely Ramadan, only a full moon’s worth is left. Mustamäe, 07/15

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Ramadan.man_12.2_last_saved_17/07

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Hunger has disappeared. I can’t feel hunger anymore, I have no more strength to feel it. Hunger made me awake, made me want, need, desire. Hunger made me jump. 3 hours and 50 minutes. With every night I eat less, and with every day I do less. I have the feeling I am disappearing, vanishing. With every day there is less «I», my body is in permanent ratio with my ego, with the forward-leaning and active one. Imagine people who have been starving for years –– how much can they do for themselves? Their families, their communities?

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Why am I always trying—and always pointlessly—to define myself? Who I appear to be, how I label myself, as what I feel myself, to what can I connect myself? Am I a vegan, a nationalist, a feminist, a chauvinist, a capitalist, an anarchist, an islamist? Ist-ist-ist. Who is «I» without anything? What is left of «I”, if I have no history, name, background system? Who am I? A living being? A human? How much have I tried to discover what a human is? Evolution, the history of humanity, the stories of creation, genes, processes, memes. Am I able to look at my self as a noumenon or am I just a holistic phenomenon? Am I a dirt, a «sounding clay» or an intermediate link in evolutionary chain? Am I all at the same time or none of them? Creator/created, conflict, an independent communicator or a syncretist? Maybe I am not set in stone, maybe I am not a static character, but a constant adaptor? The history of «I» consists of development, movement, change, adaptation. «I» is a human. Do you feel the same?

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I sleep everyday until the midday prayer. Sleeping saves my energy. Today I had to wake up early, to make it to the MA admission test. I feel like vomiting, I feel really bad. Not sure what I would vomit. Three quarters have past, I am enfeebling.

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You know this refugee thing. I have spent too much time on it. I wrote many pages on what I find to be wrong with it. It’s crap, both what I wrote and how it is dealt with. I am not willing to criticize, argue nor ramble anymore. I basically refuse to fall into the spiral of online commentaries, where some guy wants to say some absurdity and expects someone to answer. I don’t see a reason for this, I can’t see what good it does, it is not good for me, it is not good for my emotional and psychological wellbeing. All people have equal rights, the right to life and freedom. For all! There is no difference whether the color of your skin is «white» or «black», whether you are a woman or a man, your right to life and freedom does not depend on your passport or your personal ID, it depends on working heart. And you have the right to strive towards life and freedom.

Fuck, I started preaching again. You know what I mean… Think good, speak good, do good.

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We went to watch Minions with the boys. It was the 10:00 PM screening. As true westerners we broke our fast in the middle of the movie with nachos with melted cheese and Coca-Cola. After the movie we came home. Whilst waiting for the elevator, Happy noticed CCTV cameras in the waiting area and said: «This is freakin’ creepy.» Right on, boy, this is creepy. While the West killed God, the All-Seeing eye, we birthed Big Brother who watches over our every step, every action, every time we scratch our asses. Freakin’ creepy.

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It’s 1:42 AM and freshly asphalted road underneath Tammsaare/Järvevana viaduct is sprawling in front of me. Tires chirr on fresh asphalt, and thou the rear wheel is wobbly and chain covered with dirt, my bicycle scampers surprisingly fast. Today was the last tarawih prayer; I am glad that I was present. It was good, good for my body, soul and mind; they needed it. An hour and half of praying, four raka‘āts of evening prayer and twenty four raka‘āts of tarawih prayer. An hour and half out of that four hours, during which I could have been consuming, eating and drinking. Penultimate sacrifice before the end of the lunar-month. Last time I saw moon crescent was seven days ago. Clouds were slicing it horizontally into pieces. Now I can’t see it anywhere. Moon is dead. Dead to be born again. And the circle starts again.

This Ramadan is the twelfth Ramadan of my life. Every one of them has been different, but that doesn’t matter. Tomorrow is left. I must remember the two days I traveled and two days I fasted in Mecca time. Two full nicks and two half ones. I hope the rest will be accepted.

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Tonight, I read the children’s encyclopedia for Happy. In the beginning there was the Big Bang. It seemed to me that he did not fully understand all of this talk of compression of matter and the ever-expanding universe. Or I was not able to fully explain it to him. It was all too abstract, it was much easier to talk about planets and stars. I assume it is quite similar, if I had to talk about God to him.

Doubt, doubt is constant. Doubt follows me all the time. I doubt in everything – actions, principles, the actuality of my faith, the existence of God, my existence, the norms of society, reality. Doubt is good. Doubt is an earthquake that destroys badly constructed buildings to build new ones. Doubt makes the mind soft like crying does for to the heart. The mind must not harden, a petrified mind is evil, it is not capable of dialogue.

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Happy Holidays! Mustamäe, 07/15

#literature #badliterature #pulp fiction #transgression #transgressive #punkmuslim #ramadan #ramadan.man #6ism2e_dpi_error #Nation of Islam #islam

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cryptobrief · 5 years

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When you invest in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, you are faced with several options on where you can store it to keep it safe, but the question has to be asked as to whether you can really keep your crypto safe? In an industry that is threatened by hacks and theft, what do you need to do to rest easy, knowing your Bitcoin is safe?

Over the years, exchanges have been hacked or compromised which has seen hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency stolen from people’s accounts never to be seen again, this is due to the decentralised manner of the cryptocurrency and the fact that stolen funds are often impossible to trace.

Hacking has been a major problem in cryptocurrency circles ever since Bitcoin was introduced in 2008. There have been hacks and problems even before Bitcoin reached its all-time high of $20,000. This isn’t to do with the growing popularity of Bitcoin, no, it’s more to do with the fact that crypto criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated.

A good example is the Mt. Gox exchange which was hacked for 740,000 Bitcoin in 2014. This was worth more than $460 million at the time and even with the prices of 2018, it would have been over $1 billion.

In the near future, Mt. Gox is set to come back online but the question still remains as to whether you should store any Bitcoin or cryptocurrency on exchanges such as Mt. Gox, Coinbase or other online sites.

More recently, this year, we saw the crypto exchange QuadrigaCx left unable to repay $190 million in its client holding after its founder suddenly passed away, he was the only one who knew the private key to the holdings and thus, customers have been unable to retrieve their funds.

Exchanges aren’t the only thing to get hacked, as in 2017, one of the leading mining services, Nicehash was hacked for more than $70 million. Even last year, reports surfaced that over $1 billion was hacked from various other crypto-based services.

With exchanges and mining pools out of the question, where exactly can we turn to secure our Bitcoin?

Computer Wallets

Yes, obviously you can store your cryptocurrency in a wallet on your computer but there are some problems with this.

If your hard drive dies, or you just forget about it, it’s gone forever.

As reported by Riz Virk in a recent Hackernoon article, he knew someone who had some Bitcoin on his laptop from 2014 but he forgot it was on there and when the price started to rise in 2017, he realised that he had hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin somewhere on his laptop. When he went to look for it, he found that the Bitcoin. “When he went to look for it, he found that the bitcoin client he was using was so old that it didn’t work anymore! Luckily he was able to get the private key and put it into a new wallet”. Virk's friend had a lucky ending but from this story alone, individual laptops are clearly not very secure and can be hacked!

In addition to wallets on your laptop or desktop, hardware wallets are a popular option too. In the Nano ledger USB device, you simply plug it into your computer and away you go. The private key is only stored on the hardware wallet and not actually stored on the computer if you follow me.

Cold Storage

You can keep your cryptocurrency safe in an office or bank. As Virk writes, “I know many founders of crypto companies and one approach is to store your ether in, for example, a hardware wallet or the seed phrase and have it stored in a physical safe or in a physical safe deposit box at the bank.”

So there are some serious disadvantages to both hardware wallet and cold storage and you can’t access them when you travel from more than one place. For companies, there will be multiple people who would need access to it and so it becomes very time consuming having to take a trip to the bank every time you want to gain access to your crypto.

Don’t Stick it in Just One Place

Another option is to spread out your crypto to different exchanges. If you travel a lot and need access to your crypto but don’t want your crypto stuck on your computer, this is the best option for you. Nevertheless, this doesn’t stop any exchange or site from being hacked but it will reduce potential losses, if one of your storage providers is hacked. You will need to remember all the passwords (wouldn’t recommend using the same one as you will be very vulnerable if an exchange gets compromised) so therefore, this could be a little inconvenient.

Where you Bought it

Last but not least, you can just store it where you bought it! For many people, this is ideal because you can log in anywhere and access it.

Again, the obvious problem here is that it is hackable like all major hacks such as the ones previously mentioned.

It’s worth saying that just because the site or exchange that you use hasn’t been hacked yet, doesn’t mean that it won’t be in the future. Whilst this option is easiest, it’s certainly one of the least secure ways to store your Bitcoin.

Honestly, it’s up to you. Your Bitcoin and crypto is your investment, therefore you should be confident in deciding exactly how it is stored. Do your research and keep your assets safe in the way that you deem most appropriate.

#briefs

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ebonydirectory · 6 years

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Black Children And Technology In The 21st Century

Black Children And Technology In The 21st Century Black Children And Technology Part 2 Recently a friend and I had a discussion regarding what initially appeared to be a very straightforward subject which led to something that has not been explored enough recently, Black children and technology in the 21st century. Smart Phones and Social Media And How They Impact Black Children And Technology In The 21st Century The background story. A friend of mine recently witnessed a fight between two elderly men. While he and another tried to stop the fight, others just watched, made jokes, encouraged the two men to continue fighting and some stood by and filmed the fight with their smartphones with the intention to later post the top-selling, blockbuster movie of the year (joke) onto social media. My friend commented that filming a fight in the street and posting it onto social media could not have happened 10 years ago. I thought and said "YES IT COULD". He disagreed and said "Maybe, you could have, but everyday people could not have". The implication there was that because I've been into technology and communications for a long time, only people that were into that 10 years ago were the only people who could have done that. The discussion went on for some time and I decided to find some evidence and proof that supported my views that everyday people had the ability and equipment and the global infrastructure was in place for a video to be filmed from a smartphone and be posted onto social media back in 2008. If you would like more information on technology courses for your children or yourself THAT CAN TURN INTO A HIGHLY PAID CAREER have a look at: Cyber Security, Ethical Hacking And Penetration Testing Computer Programming For Children Robotics For Children This article was born from that discussion as I thought of how many people simply abuse or waste the technology that is already in our hands and I also realised that we as a race are still overlooking the potentially highly successful future that stands ahead of us if we choose to nurture our children towards building, creating with and overstanding, the new technologies that are available today. I've added some interesting facts that show why it's parent article Black Children And Technology and this update "Black Children and Technology In The 21st Century" are subjects that we have to look at VERY SERIOUSLY......... By the year 2000 AD smartphones were already available and Social Media in it's modern guise had been around since the early 1990's. Not everyone realises that the modern meaning of "Social Media" actually includes any form of digitally based communication that is easily accessible and can be interacted with, by a large number of people, who can share various forms of media including text, pictures, video and voice. Today this includes email, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc. Older popular platforms included MySpace, MSN / Windows Messenger, ICQ, AOL Messenger, etc. Because of the cost of smartphones in the early part of the 2000's, not many people could afford them. So most of the users were business executives or other people within organisations who generally were in need of such advanced technology so the devices were often paid for by their companies. But by the mid 2000's they had become affordable to a large number of people around the world. Some of the manufacturers included HTC, Palm, HP, RIM / Blackberry, Dell, Nokia and Ericsson. This picture is of the 2008 - “G1 with Google”, which featured many Google applications, including Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and GTal

k. It was also integrated with the Amazon MP3 store, allowing users to easily buy digital music, and featured the Android store where users can browse and buy new applications. Source: Macworld.com Now if we consider the fact that when these phones were being released some of the youngsters today were babies or not even born. However they are the ones who have mastered the technology and many of us, whether we are new to technology or are veterans, are being taught by them. Here at EbonyDirectory.com we often ask the youths in our communities how they use technology and what they would like to see technology be able to do in the future. Their answers are often very educational. Social Media has been a vital tool to many of us, as have our smartphones. The young people of today have not been immune from this, in fact they are the ones who have embraced these technologies more than adults and the young spend ALOT of time using their smartphones. Many people think this is to the detriment of their health and education among other things. However, we cannot ignore the fact that they are MASTERS of this new technology and their mastery has come about through hours, days, weeks, months, years of hands-on, often self-taught, practice and study. We really ought to give them much credit for what they have learned and are continuing to learn. As we are fully aware, the combination of smart phones and social media can create a dangerous environment, so we must protect our youth at all times. But are we also putting that same amount of energy into encouraging them to hone their skills with their iPhones and Androids as much as we encourage them to do maths, languages, geography, history and the sciences?

Source: Statista We ought to be. These devices will be a HUGE part of their future. Have a look at the graph to see how mobile devices are overtaking desktops and laptops for Internet usage. If you would like more information on technology related courses for your children or even yourself THAT CAN TURN INTO A HIGHLY PAID CAREER have a look at: Cyber Security, Ethical Hacking And Penetration Testing Computer Programming For Children Robotics For Children Black Children and Information Technology News Articles In our previous article on Black Children and technology we provided several stories that had appeared in some past information technology news articles. Black children featuring in information technology news articles is becoming more and more commonplace everyday. Now that there is even more information available on the internet on how well black children are advancing with the new technology in the computer world, this proves that we must support them and encourage them at every opportunity. Have a look at these examples: Karabo Matlali has been learning how to code since she was six years old.

The Grade 5 pupil at Maria Montessori House in Four-ways, northern Johannesburg is now 10, and her love for coding has not only enhanced her skills in mathematics but has also helped her to build and develop a moving robot. Source: https://face2faceafrica.com There is also 15-year-old Amadou Diallo who immigrated from Guinea in West Africa two years ago and won a scholarship to attend New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering because he created a video game and excelled in his computing classes.

Source: https://www.bxtimes.com Although not a child, this young man, Brian Gitta from Uganda has invented a non-invasive malaria testing device named Matibabu. Source: http://matibabu.thinkitlimited.com If our children and young people are our future and if the future is undoubtedly digital, who best to forward our race than those who were born into this technologically advanced world and have gotten to grips with it as if they were born with the computer languages already pre-programmed into them? As Whitney Houston sang 'Don't you know the children are the future, teach them right and let them lead the way......' Please watch this short video from BlackGirlsCode.com with Kimberly Bryant who was invited by Oprah Winfrey to receive a standing ovation for her commitment, hard work and outstanding efforts to assist young black girls and boys to learn to master technology. She is a great example to us all as she shows us what TRUE encouragement is. Could The Fictional Country Of Wakanda In The Movie "Black Panther" Be A Representation Of What We Can Expect As A Result Of Nurturing Black Children And Technology In The 21st Century? Many people have seen this movie and have passed their own judgements on it, good or bad. Without getting into the politics of the film, one thing that cannot be denied is that at least one person, somewhere on this planet can see a glimpse of how the black race could be living in harmony with our environment and with technology if we collectively and responsibly, harness the power and opportunities that technology has made available. If you haven't seen the movie and if you are interested in black children and technology in the 21st century, the movie Black Panther is a must. Regardless of anyone's opinion of the movie the fact remains that as a race we can, with the help of the children, become world leaders in this rapidly evolving world that has many of it's advancements rooted in technology. Think of what Steve Jobs achieved as 1 man with a vision. I've used him as an example as he is someone whom most of us are familiar with. And if we are not, then we almost certainly all are familiar with his iProducts. He was able to have a vision of how technology could be used and how it could be advanced without the worlds permission. We need to adopt that same mentality and give our children a chance to realise their hopes, dreams, aspirations and goals WITH our support and guidance. Imagine how different this world could be if we owned and led companies like Apple. Imagine what an impact we could have on this world and planet if collectively we could build companies that impact peoples lives and thinking the way Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google do. If you would like more information on courses for your children or even yourself THAT CAN TURN INTO A HIGHLY PAID CAREER have a look at: Cyber Security, Ethical Hacking And Penetration Testing Computer Programming For Children Robotics For Children Read the full article

#apple #blackchild #Blackchildren #blackentrepreneur #blackteen #children #cybersecurity #ebonydirectory #ebonydirectory.com #ethicalhacking #future #informationtechnology #internet #iphone #it #robotics #technology

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