Introduction: Open Up to the World!!!

Hello all,

My name is Daniel Stover, and I am chronically ignorant of that sweet spot between culture and technology.

The First Step

I still remember when I realized I had a problem. I was in my early thirties. I had no mobile phone. That was approximately 5 years beyond the point where every living soul I knew did have one, even mom and dad. I reveled in this. It felt like I had a special knowledge. I felt like the only member of THE religion that had REALLY figured it all out.

Then, I moved to France. My hosts insisted that a mobile phone was absolutely, completely necessary in about every way. On a list of priorities, it would be at most just slightly behind having a kitchen sink, and they were right. They were right.

*Clermont-Ferrand, France: You may know it as the birthplace of Michelin. I know it as where lies the lair of Saruman-of-Many-Colors.*

In that moment, my special status in my one-man religion fell in on itself. In that moment, I had become that kid on a hot, summer day who has just dropped 2-scoops of fresh, dreamy ice cream on the sizzling pavement. Pouting wistfully as that dazzling creation became nothing more than a swimming pool for ants...

I am still the guy that will download a new app precisely when somebody important to me unequivocally demands that I do so in order to have communication rights. So you will forgive me that I only recently figured out how much of a thing Youtube channels are…

Converted in the Light of Youtube

And I loved it… These Youtubers were people that could have been my colleagues or someone I would meet at a café! Then, I found out about Patreon, and I loved it, too. We could directly fund the creators! My curiosity about how we can support our much admired, independent content creators eventually brought me to Steemit.

I am here to to support others. I am looking for creators that are putting out good content on crypto-currencies, on contrarian but rational analyses of politics and culture, on tech trends, or that just make me laugh. I hope to help build my favorite creator’s mini-communities by contributing to a vibrant comment section. Finally, I have a project I want to share here.

And that is how I hope to develop myself...

I want to improve my writing skills, and my inner nerd is feeling neglected. The project is to document a personal experiment: “100 Days to Cybersecurity Literacy.” I am hoping it will be useful to someone wanting to go from close to zero knowledge to having a sense of cybersecurity macro issues and some specific technical knowledge. Here is Day Zero, where I explain helpful pre-requisites and the directions of the experiment. Please come with me on this journey!

A Journey of 10-Meters Starts with Getting Out of the Chair

*"Hey! My webcam does stuff other than make Skype work!*"

I have been a disaffected punk rock kid, a hippy spiritual seeker, a mathematics student, a bartender, an educator, an expatriate… I reserve the right to return to any of these roles as desire and circumstance suggest. I am currently in the middle of a career change. I may write about some aspects of these parts of my life whenever I think there might be something of interest to others.

I wish you all the best!!! Thanks!