8.9.17

...and the fugly

some things have happened! some of them are good! some of them are shit though.


Paul has finally finally finished and submitted his documentary. it's been handed in to the course at the University of Birmingham & the tutors say it will be a few months before it's marked, so i won't be able to tell you what they think of it very soon. Paul is gonna upload it to his YouTube channel within a few weeks though so you lot will see it first (it says, as if its blog has any readers. HI GOOGLE SPIDER) i'll put the link to it up here & on twatter when i get one.

thankyou to everyone who contributed help to it, of any kind. Jenova Rain and Kevin Warwick were both lovely people, and there are so many other people who contributed or offered videos, interviews, etc etc - there was lots of extra material that Paul couldn't cram into the 25 minutes he was allowed for the film, so i will be putting up this stuff for you all on my own YouTube (once i fish it out from behind the sofa and dust it off, obviously.) there's full interviews that Paul did with Jenova and Kevin Warwick face to face, plus a long-distance one with Vicarious, and one with me although you should probably not watch that one because i could not have worse hair if i fucking tried, goddamn. i'll put these up as soon as i can.

less good: the Student Loans company called yesterday, asking for £4200. apparently this is the soonest they decided to tell me after i had to leave university the second time, which (can't remember if i wrote about it here or how much) was also because of the SLC - they wouldn't pay the tuition fee, which at that time was £9k per year, but they were cool with giving out some maintenance money. could i get family to pay the nine grand, they suggested? every year for a total of twenty-seven thousand fucking pounds out of pocket? i explained that even if we sold everything we collectively owned and one of my (valuable!) kidneys, we wouldn't be able to come up with that kind of money. oh, said the SLC. well, you'll have to fuck off out of that uni then. they did not at any time mention that this meant they'd be wanting that money back DIRECTLY - i figured i'd be paying it back as part of my regular student loans, i.e. when i'm earning enough to justify repaying it, and they were happy to let me think that for several years up until now when they suddenly decided not to.

didn't make any difference on the phone to them that i have zero income apart from benefits, and those go completely on food/electric/gas/internet/rent/travel/course tuition etc etc - perhaps you should go to a debt charity, said the SLC. i don't have any debt (apart from this one that i suddenly have...) so i'm not sure how the hell they'd be able to help. i tried to explain this & that no matter how you wrangle my finances, i can't afford to take anything out of that budget to pay these guys. welp, we need something, said the SLC. you've got until Monday to come up with something, we need you to ring back on the 11th and go through all your incomes and expenditures with us over the phone and decide how big a chunk of that we're gonna take.

i'm trying not to think about it until then. this weekend a film crew will be here - they want to interview me for a TV series about "cheating death", which has an episode about h+ (or it might be biohacking, i'm not sure). they're also interviewing Kevin Warwick, though not at the same time, so the finished episode will probably be quite interesting - it's going to be a BBC Worldwide thing, i'll put links up as i have them. i'm also waiting for an interview i gave up in London for a Turkish TV show to be published on their website. unfortunately i am not famous enough to actually get paid for this kind of stuff.

fuck, the future came and i didn't get my jetpack OR to be rich and famous. where's my goddamn jetpack?!

L

5 comments:

Dan Campbell said...

25 minutes allowed? I’m sorry, did the university misunderstand and think that biohacking was something trivial?


Bad hair. Perfect. That’s worth the price of admission. Anything that looks worse than my hairpiece, is worth laughing at.


Really looking forward to the Warwick exchange.


Wow. You’d think that education was really about profit, and not about learning and becoming stronger citizens. I’m really sorry, Lepht. But I can’t imagine they can force you to do anything, when you simply don’t have the resources.


The future came, and we found out that the promises weren’t actually intended for us.

Anonymous said...

People read it. At least this androgynous meat-sack from across the pond does. ++Good right?

I'm excited for the doc. I'm laughing that you don't think you can charge money for your time, especially if they seek you out for it. That's self-worth that you should objectively re-evaluate.

Be well.
-one of legion.

Lepht said...









Dan - yep, 25 minutes is the max length for a dissertation film in that particular programme. it's partly why the film only covers my work & not ALL of our work - there just wasn't time, apparently. sucks, since i know Paul would have made a fucking amazing feature-length biohacking documentary. maybe i can get him to do one at some point! :]
re. the hair - that is cool, now we can be bad hair buddies
re. shitty for-profit education - i honestly do think this is the end effect of introducing tuition fees. the fees go up and up each year, people get priced out, and if something happens with your health that a university might have some sympathy for, you can bet your arse the Student Loans Company will have absolutely none. it does suck, but thankfully i think you're right - i don't think they can squeeze money from a stone, so to speak.

>The future came, and we found out that the promises weren’t actually intended for us.
exactly the reason why there needs to be hackers of all types, in my opinion. but even so, sadly all too true.


androgynous meatsack buddy - i am doubleplusglad to find out i have TWO whole readers. re. money it's not really that i don't think i can charge, so much as that nobody offers money. maybe i should start asking? in any case, my self-worth is about as much as my net worth; both are in serious need of some investments.
hopefully i'll be able to point you to an upload of Paul's doc soon, i'll keep you posted.

have a good week sibs
L

Dan Campbell said...

"i know Paul would have made a fucking amazing feature-length biohacking documentary. maybe i can get him to do one at some point!"

Fingers crossed.


"i don't think they can squeeze money from a stone, so to speak."

Ok, but make sure you're not stoned, when you talk to them. They might get jealous, and squeeze harder.


Thanks for the response, Lepht. That really is appreciated. Good luck, tomorrow. If fan letters can help at all, just give us an email address, and we'll tell them how poor you are, and how valuable your self-education has been.

Anonymous said...

Do you have a bitcoin wallet and a method there to convert bitcoin to pounds?

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