#5/03/2020

[foreverlivingproductstore-2023]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

The US Copyright Office frees the McFlurry

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I have spent a quarter century obsessed with the weirdest corner of the weirdest section of the worst internet law on the US statute books: Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 law that makes it a felony to help someone change how their own computer works so it serves them, rather than a distant corporation.

Under DMCA 1201, giving someone a tool to "bypass an access control for a copyrighted work" is a felony punishable by a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine – for a first offense. This law can refer to access controls for traditional copyrighted works, like movies. Under DMCA 1201, if you help someone with photosensitive epilepsy add a plug-in to the Netflix player in their browser that blocks strobing pictures that can trigger seizures, you're a felon:

https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2017Jul/0005.html

But software is a copyrighted work, and everything from printer cartridges to car-engine parts have software in them. If the manufacturer puts an "access control" on that software, they can send their customers (and competitors) to prison for passing around tools to help them fix their cars or use third-party ink.

Now, even though the DMCA is a copyright law (that's what the "C" in DMCA stands for, after all); and even though blocking video strobes, using third party ink, and fixing your car are not copyright violations, the DMCA can still send you to prison, for a long-ass time for doing these things, provided the manufacturer designs their product so that using it the way that suits you best involves getting around an "access control."

As you might expect, this is quite a tempting proposition for any manufacturer hoping to enshittify their products, because they know you can't legally disenshittify them. These access controls have metastasized into every kind of device imaginable.

Garage-door openers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Refrigerators:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#filtergate

Dishwashers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/03/cassette-rewinder/#disher-bob

Treadmills:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/22/vapescreen/#jane-get-me-off-this-crazy-thing

Tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#deere-john

Cars:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Printers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty

And even printer paper:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#dymo-550

DMCA 1201 is the brainchild of Bruce Lehmann, Bill Clinton's Copyright Czar, who was repeatedly warned that cancerous proliferation this was the foreseeable, inevitable outcome of his pet policy. As a sop to his critics, Lehman added a largely ornamental safety valve to his law, ordering the US Copyright Office to invite submissions every three years petitioning for "use exemptions" to the blanket ban on circumventing access-controls.

I call this "ornamental" because if the Copyright Office thinks that, say, it should be legal for you to bypass an access control to use third-party ink in your printer, or a third-party app store in your phone, all they can do under DMCA 1201 is grant you the right to use a circumvention tool. But they can't give you the right to acquire that tool.

I know that sounds confusing, but that's only because it's very, very stupid. How stupid? Well, in 2001, the US Trade Representative arm-twisted the EU into adopting its own version of this law (Article 6 of the EUCD), and in 2003, Norway added the law to its lawbooks. On the eve of that addition, I traveled to Oslo to debate the minister involved:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

The minister praised his law, explaining that it gave blind people the right to bypass access controls on ebooks so that they could feed them to screen readers, Braille printers, and other assistive tools. OK, I said, but how do they get the software that jailbreaks their ebooks so they can make use of this exemption? Am I allowed to give them that tool?

No, the minister said, you're not allowed to do that, that would be a crime.

Is the Norwegian government allowed to give them that tool? No. How about a blind rights advocacy group? No, not them either. A university computer science department? Nope. A commercial vendor? Certainly not.

No, the minister explained, under his law, a blind person would be expected to personally reverse engineer a program like Adobe E-Reader, in hopes of discovering a defect that they could exploit by writing a program to extract the ebook text.

Oh, I said. But if a blind person did manage to do this, could they supply that tool to other blind people?

Well, no, the minister said. Each and every blind person must personally – without any help from anyone else – figure out how to reverse-engineer the ebook program, and then individually author their own alternative reader program that worked with the text of their ebooks.

That is what is meant by a use exemption without a tools exemption. It's useless. A sick joke, even.

The US Copyright Office has been valiantly holding exemptions proceedings every three years since the start of this century, and they've granted many sensible exemptions, including ones to benefit people with disabilities, or to let you jailbreak your phone, or let media professors extract video clips from DVDs, and so on. Tens of thousands of person-hours have been flushed into this pointless exercise, generating a long list of things you are now technically allowed to do, but only if you are a reverse-engineering specialist type of computer programmer who can manage the process from beginning to end in total isolation and secrecy.

But there is one kind of use exception the Copyright Office can grant that is potentially game-changing: an exemption for decoding diagnostic codes.

You see, DMCA 1201 has been a critical weapon for the corporate anti-repair movement. By scrambling error codes in cars, tractors, appliances, insulin pumps, phones and other devices, manufacturers can wage war on independent repair, depriving third-party technicians of the diagnostic information they need to figure out how to fix your stuff and keep it going.

This is bad enough in normal times, but during the acute phase of the covid pandemic, hospitals found themselves unable to maintain their ventilators because of access controls. Nearly all ventilators come from a single med-tech monopolist, Medtronic, which charges hospitals hundreds of dollars to dispatch their own repair technicians to fix its products. But when covid ended nearly all travel, Medtronic could no longer provide on-site calls. Thankfully, an anonymous hacker started building homemade (illegal) circumvention devices to let hospital technicians fix the ventilators themselves, improvising housings for them from old clock radios, guitar pedals and whatever else was to hand, then mailing them anonymously to hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#medtronic-again

Once a manufacturer monopolizes repair in this way, they can force you to use their official service depots, charging you as much as they'd like; requiring you to use their official, expensive replacement parts; and dictating when your gadget is "too broken to fix," forcing you to buy a new one. That's bad enough when we're talking about refusing to fix a phone so you buy a new one – but imagine having a spinal injury and relying on a $100,000 exoskeleton to get from place to place and prevent muscle wasting, clots, and other immobility-related conditions, only to have the manufacturer decide that the gadget is too old to fix and refusing to give you the technical assistance to replace a watch battery so that you can get around again:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24255074/former-jockey-michael-straight-exoskeleton-repair-battery

When the US Copyright Office grants a use exemption for extracting diagnostic codes from a busted device, they empower repair advocates to put that gadget up on a workbench and torture it into giving up those codes. The codes can then be integrated into an unofficial diagnostic tool, one that can make sense of the scrambled, obfuscated error codes that a device sends when it breaks – without having to unscramble them. In other words, only the company that makes the diagnostic tool has to bypass an access control, but the people who use that tool later do not violate DMCA 1201.

This is all relevant this month because the US Copyright Office just released the latest batch of 1201 exemptions, and among them is the right to circumvent access controls "allowing for repair of retail-level food preparation equipment":

https://publicknowledge.org/public-knowledge-ifixit-free-the-mcflurry-win-copyright-office-dmca-exemption-for-ice-cream-machines/

While this covers all kinds of food prep gear, the exemption request – filed by Public Knowledge and Ifixit – was inspired by the bizarre war over the tragically fragile McFlurry machine. These machines – which extrude soft-serve frozen desserts – are notoriously failure-prone, with 5-16% of them broken at any given time. Taylor, the giant kitchen tech company that makes the machines, charges franchisees a fortune to repair them, producing a steady stream of profits for the company.

This sleazy business prompted some ice-cream hackers to found a startup called Kytch, a high-powered automation and diagnostic tool that was hugely popular with McDonald's franchisees (the gadget was partially designed by the legendary hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang!).

In response, Taylor played dirty, making a less-capable clone of the Kytch, trying to buy Kytch out, and teaming up with McDonald's corporate to bombard franchisees with legal scare-stories about the dangers of using a Kytch to keep their soft-serve flowing, thanks to DMCA 1201:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cold-war

Kytch isn't the only beneficiary of the new exemption: all kinds of industrial kitchen equipment is covered. In upholding the Right to Repair, the Copyright Office overruled objections of some of its closest historical allies, the Entertainment Software Association, Motion Picture Association, and Recording Industry Association of America, who all sided with Taylor and McDonald's and opposed the exemption:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/us-copyright-office-frees-the-mcflurry-allowing-repair-of-ice-cream-machines/

This is literally the only useful kind of DMCA 1201 exemption the Copyright Office can grant, and the fact that they granted it (along with a similar exemption for medical devices) is a welcome bright spot. But make no mistake, the fact that we finally found a narrow way in which DMCA 1201 can be made slightly less stupid does not redeem this outrageous law. It should still be repealed and condemned to the scrapheap of history.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[rampldgifs]

COMMISSIONED ! click the source for 517 gifs of CARLOS MIRANDA in VIDA S02-03(2019-2020). do not use in celebrity rps. please note that i do not approve of the 5+/- age rule. these were made from scratch and more will be added at my leisure, so please don’t edit, repost or claim as your own or i will eat you. tag me if you’re posting edited gif icons for public use. consider reblogging to spread poc options if useful. enjoy !

[thealieninhiding]

The Katie McGrath Archives (WIP)

A repository of my ongoing digital archeology & archival work please contact me if you have anything to contribute and buy me a coffee if you value my content

Updates

(last updated 2025-01-14)

2025-01-14

Scans:

2008-10 InStyle (LQ)

2009 DRAMA Magazine (LQ)

2009-10 The Sunday Times Style (Ireland)

2010-10 Tatler

2010-12 InStyle

2011-02 Instyle (LQ)

2011-07 Tatler (LQ)

2011-10 Sunday Independent

2012-03-14 Sci-FiNow

2012-03-23 The Lady Magazine

2024-07-03

Scans:

2014-02-07 London Times - Dracula sets

Audio:

(Un)likeminded 2x02 How to Survive The Apocalypse

2024-05-24

Video:

2017 Katie McGrath interview [CW|KMcGsource]

2017 Supergirl Season 3 Sweet dreams (are made of this) Music Video

2017 CW SDCC Promo Supergirl and Arrow

2019-01-01 The CW Promo Open To All

2021-04-25 Supergirl Season 6 Katie McGrath Lena Luthor

2021-09-15 Supergirl Season 6 Katie McGrath Reflecting on Supergirl

2024-05-22

Audio:

Interview - 2009-07-17 Katie McGrath Mr Media interview

Interview - 2009-10-15 Geek Syndicate Merlin BTS special

Video:

BTS - 2008-10-08 Blue Peter Merlin BTS

Events - 2009 TV Choice Awards Digital Spy interview

Events - Getty Videos of 2009 TV Choice Awards, 2010 Merlin Series 3 launch, 2011 W.E. premiere, 2017 King Arthur Premiere

2024-05-17

Archived interviews

2008-12-07 Tribune Magazine - What Katie Did

2011-10-14 What's on TV - Merlin's Katie McGrath- 'Bad girls have more fun!'

2012-12-03 Fanhattan Blog - Colin Morgan, Katie McGrath and Bradley James on Season 5 and The Series Finale

2018-08-01 The TV Junkies - Supergirl SDCC 2018 Interviews- Lena’s Impractical Lab Outfits, the Return of Reporter Kara and a More Grounded Season 4

Audio

HHush samples

Interview - 2009-2011 Sci-fi Talk rewind merlin the series specials episode 1

Interview - 2011? Merlin S4 Sci-fi talk byte katie mcgrath on morgana

Interview - 2013 BBC Radio 1xtra part 1 & part 2

(Un)likeminded 1x02 While You Were Dreaming

Trees a crowd- Irish folklore segment

Magazine scans

2008-09-20 Radio Times

2009-06-08 TV Week (Aus)

2010-09-05 Sunday Express

2010-09-30 Totally Merlin Magazine

2011-12 Total Film

2012-03-14 Sci-Fi Now

2012-10-06 Radio Times

2013-04-06 Irish independent

2013-09-02 Marie-Claire (UK)

2013-12 Instyle

2013-12 Total Film

Video:

Fans - 2012-04-16 Merlin4 [carlospyrrhus]

Fans - 2017-08-30 Supergirl cast together on set [Joyce Law]

Interview - 2009-09-?? Merlin S2 audio interview with Katie McGrath [BJsRealm] part 1

Interview - 2010-09-06 Merlin Series 3 - BBC Radio 1xtra Interview with Angel Coulby & Katie McGrath [BJsrealm]

Interview - 2011-10-14 Merlin S4 Colin Morgan, Eoin Macken Katie McGrath on The Late Late Show

Interview - 2012-07-15 Colin Morgan and Katie McGrath at SDCC 2012 - innerSPACE [merlinnetwork2]

Interview - 2012-07-18 Katie McGrath Talks Merlin At Comic Con 2012 [ThinkHeroTV]

Interview - 2012-10-25 BBC Radio 1 Breakfast - Colin & Katie part 1 & part 2 [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Merlin S5 Katie McGrath interview international press day [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Colin, Bradley, Katie phone interview [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2013-11-09 Katie McGrath on BBC One Saturday Kitchen [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2019-07-22 ENTREVISTA SUPERGIRL Elenco fala sobre a nova temporada [Warner Channel Brasil]

Interview - 2019-07-23 Melissa Benoist Teases Directing An Episode Of 'Supergirl' [ET Canada]

Interview - 2020-02-21 ‘Supergirl’ Celebrates 100th Episode [ET Canada]

Panels - 2011-07-28 Merlin Comic Con 2011 Panel [ThinkHeroTV]

[dearly-somber]

SLUMP | h.js

-> pairing. jisung x 9th member!reader (f)

-> genre. angst, emotional hurt/comfort

-> rating. 13+

-> w/c. 1382

-> warnings. angst; Y/N overworks herself; Y/N passes out; a lot of worrying by the members; emotional distress

-> a/n. This song is 🥹🥹

-> collection. songfics

-> started. ???

-> fin. Dec. 28th, 2020 @ 10:32

-> edited. Wed., Oct. 24th, 2022 @ 21:25

You were stuck staring at your ceiling, mind blank and body restless.

You felt like you were lagging behind at this point. Chan had reassured you that there was nothing wrong and you were doing as well as everyone around you, if not better. But you felt otherwise. A lot of anti's had been posting tweets, posts, videos, all about how you were meaningless to the group, except for the fact that you were the only girl and therefore gave the group a bit of pizzazz.

You wanted to prove yourself.

You wanted to prove that yes, you were a good rapper. You were a good singer. You were a great dancer. But they always compared you to your members.

“She can't rap like Changbin, Jisung or Felix.”

“She can't sing like Seungmin, Jeongin or Chan.”

“She can't dance like Minho or Hyunjin.”

“She can't write or compose like Jisung and the other 3RACHA members.”

“She's useless to the group, except for publicity.”

You pulled off the covers and walked to your bathroom, putting on some light make-up and brushing your teeth and hair before heading over to your closet to get into some decent clothes for practice. You pulled out your phone and checked the time:

03:45 a.m.

It's fine. More than enough time to practice. You shook your head, managing to sneak out of the dorm and head around to the practice room. When you got there you immediately connected your phone to the speakers and started practicing to songs with which you wanted to improve rapping. That you did for two hours until 5:45 am. Then you did vocal practices and warm-ups until 6:45. Then for the last few hours until the other members would show up, you practiced your choreography and dance in general. You had muted your phone and couldn't hear any message notifications, hence why you couldn't hear your members blowing up your phone.

•••

"Where is she? She's not anywhere in the dorm—"

"She's not picking up her phone, either..." Jeongin added anxiously, looking between his hyungs.

Chan, though worried, tried to keep cool to make sure chaos was kept to a minimum. "Don't worry, guys. I'm sure we'll find her somewhere in the building. She probably went to practice a bit earlier today."

"You think so? She usually never wakes up early." Changbin said, biting his inner cheek as he tapped his phone case worriedly.

"That's true. We always have to wake her up." Minho added, folding his arms as he finished fixing his hair.

"I'm sure she's fine." Felix said hopefully, smiling in a calming manner before heading out to the practice room with the others.

•••

You stopped for the third time in the last 2 minutes. Your whole body was aching and your head hurt. You took a sip of water and a quick 30 second breather before restarting the song. It was midway through the Side Effects choreo that the members stumbled into the room, frantically looking around before visibly relaxing at the sight of you. You tried to put on a bright smile, turning around to look at them fully. “Who's late, now?" You stuck your tongue out half-heartedly, laughing airly as you went to unplug your phone, flinching at the large amounts of texts and missed calls.

"Where've you been?" Jisung asked as he walked over for a hug, his blue hair illuminated in the light. You shrugged, opening your arms to hug him. Once you leaned into him you went limp in his arms, your eyes closing blissfully and body appreciating the break. Jisung cocked a brow as you pulled away almost forcefully, but decided to keep quiet, staring blankly after you since you refused to tell him what was up.

•••

"Okay! Five, six—five, six, seven, eight!" Minho counted you all in and you missed the beat, stumbling forward and bumping into Seungmin.

"Sorry, Minnie. You okay?"

"I think I should be the one asking that question, noona… You look pale."

"No, I'm goo—woah.” The floor danced beneath your feet as a sudden wave of dizziness overcame your senses, Changbin catching you as you fell back.

"Y/N, you don't look good." Changbin said worriedly, keeping his hands close to you even after you had shoved them away.

"I'm fine, don't worry."

"Y/N—"

"I said I'm fine!" You snapped at Chan, your shoulders tense. Everyone looked at you nervously. You were known for your patience and almost never got angry, though when you did it never ended well. Sniffling, you swore under your breath, storming out and into the bathroom.

With a collective sigh, Hyunjin stopped the music, watching as Minho ran a hand through his hair while others paced nervously, Jeongin fiddling uncomfortably with his fingers.

“Jisung?"

The blue haired boy turned to look at his leader attentively, his bottom lip captured between his teeth.

"Would you mind trying to talk to her?"

Nodding, Jisung walked over to the door and gently wrapped his knuckles against it.

"Come in..." You said hoarsly, sounding like you had been crying. It was pretty obvious that you had a soft spot for Jisung, hence why Chan thought you'd talk to him.

"Noona..." Jisung said quietly, walking over to your hunched form at the end of the bathroom: leaning against the wall and crying into your knees. He wrapped his arms around you and you cried further into his shoulder, trying hard not to be too loud. Jisung was on the verge of tears himself, rubbing circles into your back in hopes of comforting you. When you calmed down, you explained to him that you had been practicing for at least seven hours and after he did the math he looked at you seriously.

"You've been here since three a.m?" You nodded, leaning forward and resting your head against his shoulder, eyes closing. "Noona, that's dangerously long!"

"I know, Sung-ah... It's just that... I wanna do a good job, you know? It's like everyone's miles ahead of me, just out of reach, and I'm the only one at the bottom of the pile, waiting to be forgotten…” You were crying again, and Jisung felt his heart ache as he hugged you closer.

“I just want them to root for me, too. I wanna show them all of me because they're all watching but I don't know what they want."

Jisung gently leaned back and took your face in his hands. “Whoever 'they' are, they don’t matter. You're giving us everything you've got and it's more than enough. You don't have anything to prove, noona. You're doing fine just as you are and doing this to yourself is far from what we want from you."

You nodded, leaning into his touch and slumping down slightly. Jisung nodded and brought you closer, eventually noticing that you had passed out, most likely from exhaustion.

"What happened?" Hyunjin asked questioningly when Jisung came out carrying you. He shook his head, looking from you to his members.

"She passed out. She's been practicing since three this morning. I'm taking her back to the dorm to sleep it off. We'll be able to check up on her later. She should be awake by the time we finish up here."

Chan nodded and told Jisung to head on up to the dorms as practice continued.

•••

When you woke up, you smelled pizza. Rubbing your eyes tiredly you walked into the living room where Jeongin attacked you with hugs.

"You feeling better yet, noona?"

"Innie~ that's a bit tight, love.”

"Ah, sorry—" Jeongin pulled away with a hint of pink on his face because of your pet name.

You ruffled his hair and nodded. “I'm feeling much better, maknae-ya."

"That's great! We left you your food in the kitchen and there's a buddy coke for you in the fridge." Jeongin smiled happily as he joined his hyungs by the TV where you guys were they were watching fail army.

"You better not do that again, okay?" Jisung said seriously as he walked up to you, leaning against the counter while watching you get your food and drink.

"I won't, Sung. Thanks for helping me today..."

Jisung smiled as he side hugged you quietly. “Always."

[tteokdoroki]

✩࿐ the mixtape series: keshi edition (masterlist)

about. we turn to music during our most intimate moments, listen to three minutes of perfectly strung together words to best convey emotion. in this universe you turn to a playlist searching for love. OR. a collection of songs by the artist keshi following your relationships with six of your favourite bnha characters.

warnings. minors and ageless blogs do not interact. sfw, suggestive, fluff, angst, hurt-comfort, happy endings, toxic relationships/dynamics, fwb relationships break ups, engagements, alcohol mentions - each fic has its own warnings.

things to note. proud to introduce my new mini project that i’ve been working on while i was away! i wanted to try writing a mini series to practice my short form writing. i hope you enjoy!

track list. to be updated every saturday at 6pm - 10pm gmt. each contains its own set of warnings and ratings. reader discretion is advised - find the playlist here !

01. right here - katsuki bakugou (22:07)

about. “if you need me, i’ll be here.” - exes to lovers!au, ex!bakugou, hurt comfort + happy ending.

02. onoffonoff - eijirou kirishima (29:07)

about. “when we start, we never stop.” - toxic relationship!au, miscommunication, pro hero!kirishima suggestive, angst + open ending.

03. war with heaven - izuku midoriya (5:08)

about. “damn, i’m missin’ my baby.” - fwb!au, friends to lovers, long-distance relationship, pro hero!deku, suggestive, fluff + happy ending.

04. understand - shoto todoroki (12:08)

about. “maybe we could try it, if you let me.” - established relationship!au, engagements, lazy sundays, pro hero!todoroki, fluff-comfort + happy ending.

05. summer - sero hanta (19:08)

about. “fuck around, feel my heartbeat.” - fwb!au, mutual pining, confessions, pro hero!sero, suggestive, fluff + happy ending.

06. beside you - denki kaminari (26:08)

about. “say i’m not your type but i know what’s on your mind.” - friends to lovers!au, reunions, rebounds, pro hero!denki, suggestive, fluff + happy ending.

— all rights reserved © TTEOKDOROKI 2020-2023. all fanfics belong to me, do not copy, translate, repost nor recommend on tiktok any of the works seen here

[thankyouforthememoriesworld]

On a completely different note for all this Montana talk, I love this feature on Paige and there are so many awesome little quotes and a lot of Paige's backstory about her upbringing.

This particular section is of course as expected:

"Her fingers ripping through one recruiting pitch after another on Twitter, Bueckers is relentless in the way she’s trying to convince Fudd, who plays at St. John’s High in Washington, D.C., to join her at UConn. The two became close friends as teammates with USA Basketball. “I think she’s a really good player and a really good person and I’m really close with her,” Bueckers said. “Yeah, I’ve tried to do everything I can. I mean, nobody else is recruiting her as hard as me. I just know her game so well. She’s a scoring guard, a scoring 2-guard, and a lot of point guards now are score-first. But I’m pass-first, and really unselfish, and I think that’s also UConn basketball. I just think she would [thrive] there. And she would be her best under Coach. I just think it’s what’s best for her. I don’t know if she agrees.”

This cracked me up because of course she was a hyper active menace:

Bueckers was a Little League pitcher and catcher and the type of kid who would run and skip through the aisles of Target, always trying to knock items off the top shelf. “And I remember being like, ‘Stop jumping,’ ” Amy, her mother, said.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231103105458/https://www.courant.com/2020/03/08/mike-anthony-paige-bueckers-and-geno-auriemma-are-chuckling-through-the-early-stages-of-their-uconn-basketball-relationship/

- 🔎

I never read this and I loved it, so many good quotes in it ⭐️. She actually begged for Azzi at Uconn both publicly and to Geno, I'm speechless.

Poor Geno had to deal with her for 5 years, he must be tired 😭.

Bueckers' response: "Yeah. As a matter of fact, I think my basketball IQ is higher than yours."

"But just making that statement," Auriemma responded, "shows what a dumbass you are."

[bakibakideemon]

I’m back to into Haikyuu!! And before I say anything - I absolutely adore Kageyama. It’s been a minute that have thought about his character/ discussed him. But recently came across some really great character studies of him.

Here is a list of Fics I read recently which I fell do his character justice (and just because I like them). (These are amazing fics by some great authors)

1) The best thing you (n)ever had by eleasofia

Summary: When Oikawa is asked out by Kageyama for the first time, he turns him down, saying he wouldn't date someone who is so clearly inferior to him. Three years later, after Seijou's loss to Karasuno, Kageyama asks again, and despite not really (read as: absolutely not) wanting to, Oikawa somehow ends up agreeing nevertheless. It might really be time to forget about old grudges and move on. Turns out, it's even harder than he thought it would be.

Published: 2017-12-05 Words: 6,425 Chapters: 1/1

2) Normal by AuthorInDistress

Published: 2018-10-15 Words: 5,031 Chapters: 1/1

Summary: A special guest is here in Kageyama's town and he couldn't care less.

3) I don’t know where we’re going, but I’d like to be by your side by voices_in_my_head

Published: 2020-08-03 Words: 8,548 Chapters: 1/1

Summary: "Atsumu doesn’t approach Kageyama Tobio the first day of the youth training camp, but he does keep an eye on him. He’s not the only one; everyone is curious about the main setter of the team that finally uncrowned Shiratorizawa."

Or: once Atsumu got to meet the real Kageyama, he never stood a chance. Honestly, he's not that bothered about it.

4) With all my love (And almost all of my mind) by rumxrs

Kei heaves a sigh, raking a hand through his short blonde curls. Tobio repeats the action unknowingly, and shivers shortly afterwards. A nervous shiver, like death was sending spearmint puffs of air down his neck.

Their story; told in snapshots, phone conversations, and dreams.

Published: 2016-03-29 Words: 2,175 Chapters: 1/1

5) Make It True, Takeru by luvtooru

Summary: After overhearing his uncle Oikawa mention he had a crush on someone with 'black hair and blue eyes,' Takeru assumes he’s talking about Kageyama, the grumpy setter from Karasuno. Unaware that Oikawa actually meant Shimizu-san, Takeru dives headfirst into a chaotic mission to play matchmaker—for the wrong person

Published: 2024-11-10 Words: 7,969 Chapters: 1/1

6) can this be a real thing (can it?) by akaashism (acciomerlin)

Summary: Tobio has an unexpectedly steamy dream about Oikawa one night. He tries his best to grapple with the resulting cocktail of feelings it invokes, but maybe an accidental revelation has its own set of rewards in store.

Published: 2023-06-20 Words: 10,712 Chapters: 2/2

7) What do you see when you look at me? By Aync1lgw

Summary: Three people - A woman who has been pining after Oikawa for years and finally wants to confess her feelings, a taxi driver who just happened to pick Oikawa and Kageyama up from the bar and then Oikawa's old roommate from medical school with whom Oikawa was sharing a rental apartment for the week. What is it that these people see when they look at Oikawa Tooru and Kageyama Tobio together?

Published: 2021-11-24 Words: 5,739 Chapters: 1/1

8) infernal devices by lettucehope

Summary: In a quest for revenge, Tobio learns that store-bought flames work just fine when you're summoning the powers of Hell.

Published: 2022-07-02 Words: 26,886 Chapters: 8/8

9) Cute bastard by mitoe

Summary: Oikawa calls Kageyama cute bastard every time he sees him and Kageyama hates it

Published: 2022-05-03 Words: 4,254 Chapters: 1/1

11)

10)

[dwrlm-orion]

📌List of My Fav Fanfic That I've reblog here or I just found again (In case they're deactivated or something else so I won't cry over my stupidity) I'll pin this

(UPDATED!!!)

SIMON RILEY (CALL OF DUTY)

Being Simon Riley Little Sister by @hotmencoreplus Simon Riley adopt an Orphan by @mrshesh Being affectionate with their S/O at the pool by @mrshesh NSFW with military!Reader by @konigenblobbity It All Comes Crashing Down by @tacticaldiary If You Bite My Hand Again by @halcyone-of-the-seaone-by-the Picture-Perfect by @ghostaholics The four times you fell asleep on Ghost and the one time Ghost fell asleep on you Part 01 / Part 02 / Part 03 / Part 04 / Part 05 by @longing-for-the-past-times Simon attempt to make dinner but fail by @starstruckmiraclekitty The Things We Say by @lunarw0rks Monster by @rowarn Bleeding Blue (Apocalypse AU) by @nsharks

ALEJANDRO VARGAS (CALL OF DUTY)

Border Chase (Frontier) by @auroradragon

GOJO SATORU (JJK)

Ride a Car with Gojo (it didn't end well) by @enkvyu Gojo Masterlist: I want to Kiss You by @arminsumi Vampire Gojo by @gojorgeous

WILLIAM JAMES MORIARTY (MORIARTY THE PATRIOT)

My Jolly Sailor Bold by @fairy-writes Lost and Found by @manias-wordcount William take reader to a hotel @rosesrflo Masterlist by @dazaiandhislovelybandages William encourage reader to embrace her femininity by @moriartyluver False Lover (this is series and I love it) by @moriartyluver Mastermind by @gh0st-author If Looks Could Kill by @beneathashadytree Their Darling in Lingerie by @rosesrflo

TWISTED WONDERLAND

Yuu and The Great 7 AU by @cherrys-side-bitch Lilia x Reader : Briar's Secret by @aventurine83 Rollo x Reader: Like Fire Hellfire by @raven-at-the-writing-desk Vampire Lilia x GN!Human Lover by @roseapov Lilia and Healer by @1dont-really-know Maleanor and Silver by @llondonfog Malleus: Unrequited by @blues824 It's a Crewel World by @blackopals-world List of Fic by @blackopals-world Yuu BF ask Crewel for their hand in marriage by @yuri-is-online Floyd Leech x Reader: Idiot Love by @acey-wacey Yuu Facts by @mee-op Canon Yuu by @starsilluminateourgalaxy 3rd Year Shoujo AU by @/korlkorl(deactived) A Cat in The Kitchen by @raven-at-the-writing-desk Milk & Honey by @llondonfog Cafetaria by @hipsterteller Yuu and The Magical Power of Song (Pomefiore) by @bajistadiamond Masterlist of Coralinnii by @coralinnii List of twst fanfic by @tartppola

REGULUS BLACK (HARRY POTTER)

Le Coup De Foudre @theostrophywife List of Regulus Black Fav Fic Part 01 / Part 02 by @lovemelikecrazyiloveyoucrazy Other Girls by @ourloveisforthelovely

SIRIUS BLACK (HARRY POTTER)

Enemy to Lovers by @augustwithquills

NEUVILLETTE (GENSHIN IMPACT)

Neuvillette and His Arrange Marriage by @violet-eng Pedal to The Medal by @yandere-wishes

ZHONGLI (GENSHIN IMPACT)

The Phoenix to His Dragon by @euniveve

KAMISATO AYATO (GENSHIN IMPACT)

Ayato enamoured by his vice by @jinxlixir Privacy by @aestherin

SCARAMOUCHE/WANDERER (GENSHIN IMPACT)

5 moments he fell in love with you by @meowanian Destruction (Cyberpunk AU) by @tsukimara nuvole bianche by @vxnuslogy Keep my heart by @aestherin

VYN (TEARS OF THEMIS)

Favorite Crime by @celamoon

ALASTOR (HAZBIN HOTEL)

Dear Dolly by @ohproserpine The Finer Things in Death by @falling-endlessly

SUO HAYATO (WIND BREAKER)

A Gentleman (& His Rambler) by @suosgirl

Notes:

*Due to my brain who have short memory problem or simply because I forgot to repost/documenting a good fanfic I read, I made this so I can re-read fanfic I genuinely like. Most of my fav fic already being documented (screenshot) and save in my drive since I've been here for long time (2020 I guess?? The first fanfic I search here is Twisted Wonderland. And don't worry I'll keep it to myself //senyum jahad)

**AND most of my fav writers deactivate their account without me knowing or realize, so it's a bit sad I can't re-read their works😿 (I BEG YOU DON'T DEACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT, I'LL READ EVERY SINGLE OF YOUR GENIUS WORK)

*** For all writers I've tagged, I love your fic so much and I give credits to the amazing you😳🌹

****I forget I haven't add fanfic in my Like list 🙃 (I'll do it other time)

***** I will also made my favorite AO3 fanfic too (Later, I'm too mager)

Question: Do i need their permission to be tagged? I felt complicated to do it (I got a little anxiety, my Introvert soul is jedag-jedug) but I decide to give a shot

P.S: you can keep it if you wanted too, no problem from my side. I think I've been reposting many of fanfic on my old account (I take a break from tumblr in 2022) but sadly I can't remember my username to that acc :(

[okaystoptellingmetomakeanaccount]

Scrog Timeline based on Life and times here we go. Part one lil kid scrog livin in Scotland.

The extended life and times of Scrooge McDuck. Part 1 - Glasgow 1867

First. There are a bunch of stories which show snippets of Scrooge’s life as a child (usually around Christmas). These snippets can vary from a single panel to multiple pages, but they are never the main plot. Among these are:

W DD 70-01, The Search for Cyril

W DD 72-01, Secret Of The Sargasso Sea

S 63099, Chairman of the Bored

D 9044, Wait For Me

D 99078, The Quest For Kalevala

I PM 187-2, The Brotherly News. - Note: Scrooge, Gideon and Grandma are shown as kids together in Scotland.

D 92305, The Lost Birthday. - Note: Partially time travel/suggested dream sequence, partially flashback.

I TL 2442-5, The Ghost’s Treasure… Or The Other Way Around

D 2012-058, Donald's Homemade Christmas

I TL 3063-2, The Numismatic Process

I TL 3239-1, A New Christmas Carol

I TL 3369-1, The Comfortable Temptation

D 2019-039, The New Year that Wasn't. - Note: This story contains a scene in which Scrooge travels to the past to give himself the number one dime. This is not reverted.

I TL 3368-1P, A Tournament of 100 Doors

D 2020-210, In Time For Christmas. - Note: This is a time travel story, and so the snippet is actually not a flashback. The snippet takes place during the night before Scrooge leaves for America.

I TL 3448-2, A Mysterious Anniversary

H 2022-002, The Treasure of Captain Seabass

I TL 3499-1, Fame

I TL 3501-3, Clear Coin Cleaning

I TL 3536-1P, The Test of Scottishness

I TL 3550-1P, The Leap Lamp. - Note: This story interestingly contains a retcon of D 91308. This retcon consists of Scrooge getting his shoeshine box on Christmas, as Fergus couldn’t finish it in time for his birthday. No known story contradicts this.

From here we can continue onto full stories that depict Scrooge’s time as a wee lad, whether they are flashbacks or not. Stories are placed in timeline order. If not sure (so for most of them) they are placed in release order. Among these are:

W US 44-04, The Invisible Intruder. - Note: Life And Times’ depiction of this time of Scrooge’s days is largely based on this story.

B 790164, A Taste and Three Cruzeiros

B 820168, A Christmas From the Past. - While the narrative is primarily about this past adventure, Scrooge only plays a secondary role.

B 830113, The First Bin. - Note: History told by LVD. Story does not necessarily seem to take place in 1860s Glasgow.

I TL 2865-03, The Mistake. - Note: Rare one pager showing Scrooge at school. Is in conflict with I TL 2695-1 in showing something that shouldn’t yet have happened according to Scrooge’s accounts in that story.

D 2013-026, The Orphan's Christmas

F DBG 16, The Dragon of Glasgow

H 2023-183, The First Christmas Ornament. - Note: After interference of Grandma Duck by the end, this story is revealed to be a fiction made up by Scrooge.

D 2020-145, The First Adventure. - Note: This story is a direct lead-in to Rosa’s story. As such, it’s probably the only one that can be surely placed.

D 91308, The Last of the Clan McDuck. - Note: it is very well possible for any of the above mentioned stories to take place during this story, as it contains time skips.

Honorable mentions:

I TL 756-A, Klondike’s Gold. - Note: This story famously portrays Scrooge’s youth as taking place in the Klondike, going as far as having him be born here.

W DAD 29-02, The Last Laugh. - Note: Scrooge mentions shining shoes and delivering papers when he was HDL’s age.

W DD 48-02, A Bucket of Scones. - Note: Scrooge mentions having left Scotland 60 years ago.

W JW 29-03, The Good Deed. - Note: Scrooge mentions growing up in Scotland in a boys’ home. Together with HDL they also visit his hometown: Pinchpenny.

I TL 697-B, The Unfortunate Dream. - Note: Dream sequence where Magica sees Scrooge earning his first dime as a child.

S 81095, The Search For Viking Treasure. - Note: Scrooge earns his first money by plowing fields.

I am 99% certain I have forgot and/or missed stories, so please feel free to comment or whatever to add to this. This post will keep being updated.

[fictionkinfessions]

Happy first-post-iversary!

I’m going to struggle to find the specific post but you said “Feb 3” and I wrote it down and now here I am!

We all love you soooo much- mwah!

(I am spraying silly string at you) 🎉🐈

- #NonCanonSkyGuy

/*sniffs*/ you remembered! I’m so happy ! Thanks, it’s finally the really real anniversary! Happy true anniversary everyone!

Blog Age via http://postlimit.com/bloginfo.php?blog_name=fictionkinfessions (Oldest Post): Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:57:01 -0500 about 5 years ago

Though if you want to be really technically, the birth of this blog is May 9th, 2015. Personally, I'd prefer not to think too much about how long I've spent in the internet!

ANYWAYS bring on the silly strang and cake!

👉🎂👈

[newsatsix1986]

This is Dale Jennings, reporting to you all for News At Six from 1989! 🌟💖📺

.

.

As all of my readers know, I love researching the real history behind The Newsreader! So when the Season Three trailer gave us our first glimpse of the brand new News At Six news desk for 1989, you can imagine how itchy I felt to start investigating to find the real news desk from the era that inspired it!

Season One’s was based off Ten’s Eyewitness News from 1986 (as seen in these pics of Melbourne’s Jo Pearson and David Johnston), Season Two’s was based off Seven’s Nightly News set from circa 1988 (anchored by Jennifer Keyte and Glenn Taylor in Melbourne), and for Season Three, we are seeming to return back to the designs of Seven Nightly News, this time their 1989 set. It bears some similarities to the 1988 set, except with a futuristic silver, blue and chrome tone.

For historical reference and evidence, I’m including these images from Brisbane and Melbourne’s Seven Nightly News, both from 1989. These feature Brisbane’s newsreaders of Kay McGrath and Frank Warrick (with sports reporter Peter Meares), and Melbourne’s team of Jennifer Keyte and Glenn Taylor.

From the tiny amount we’ve seen of our Season Three desk, our desk is sans the computer monitors in the background, and from the positioning of the lights above, we can assume we will have that row of screens running across the top, like Channel Seven’s. We also have a pronounced and rounded screen on the side so that Dale can watch crossovers and do satellite interviews, although it’s possible the real deal did too, I’ve just not been able to find footage supporting this to share as evidence.

We are lucky to have these images and footage due to the preservation work of professional and unofficial archivists on the internet, and so if you would like to watch the clips sourced to support their work, you can search the titles and users below. A big thank you to these users for preserving and sharing these pieces of Australian media history! Which news desk from The Newsreader has been your favourite?

Sourced Videos:

��ATV-10 Eyewitness News, Thursday March 27 1986 - Russell Street Bombing’ - OldNewsAUS from YouTube (uploaded 7/02/2014)

‘1988 Seven Nightly News Launch - Melbourne’ 18/01/1988 - Andrew Heslop from YouTube (uploaded 10/09/2023)

‘BTQ7 Seven Nightly News Opener/Closer 15/5/1989’ - Dan Martin from YouTube (uploaded 20/03/2020)

‘Seven Nightly News Australia (HSV7 Melbourne) Sept 29 1989’ - Australian Television Archive from YouTube (uploaded 8/03/2016)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon’s financial shell game let it create an “impossible” monopoly

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

For the pro-monopoly crowd that absolutely dominated antitrust law from the Carter administration until 2020, Amazon presents a genuinely puzzling paradox: the company's monopoly power was never supposed to emerge, and if it did, it should have crumbled immediately.

Pro-monopoly economists embody Ely Devons's famous aphorism that "If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Rather than using the way the world actually works as their starting point for how to think about it, they build elaborate models out of abstract principles like "rational actors." The resulting mathematical models are so abstractly elegant that it's easy to forget that they're just imaginative exercises, disconnected from reality:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all-models-are-wrong/#some-are-useful

These models predicted that it would be impossible for Amazon to attain monopoly power. Even if they became a monopoly – in the sense of dominating sales of various kinds of goods – the company still wouldn't get monopoly power.

For example, if Amazon tried to take over a category by selling goods below cost ("predatory pricing"), then rivals could just wait until the company got tired of losing money and put prices back up, and then those rivals could go back to competing. And if Amazon tried to keep the loss-leader going indefinitely by "cross-subsidizing" the losses with high-margin profits from some other part of its business, rivals could sell those high margin goods at a lower margin, which would lure away Amazon customers and cut the supply lines for the price war it was fighting with its discounted products.

That's what the model predicted, but it's not what happened in the real world. In the real world, Amazon was able use its access to the capital markets to embark on scorched-earth predatory pricing campaigns. When diapers.com refused to sell out to Amazon, the company casually committed $100m to selling diapers below cost. Diapers.com went bust, Amazon bought it for pennies on the dollar and shut it down:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18563379/amazon-predatory-pricing-antitrust-law

Investors got the message: don't compete with Amazon. They can remain predatory longer than you can remain solvent.

Now, not everyone shared the antitrust establishment's confidence that Amazon couldn't create a durable monopoly with market power. In 2017, Lina Khan – then a third year law student – published "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," a landmark paper arguing that Amazon had all the tools it needed to amass monopoly power:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox

Today, Khan is chair of the FTC, and has brought a case against Amazon that builds on some of the theories from that paper. One outcome of that suit is an unprecedented look at Amazon's internal operations. But, as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Stacy Mitchell describes in a piece for The Atlantic, key pieces of information have been totally redacted in the court exhibits:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/amazon-profits-antitrust-ftc/677580/

The most important missing datum: how much money Amazon makes from each of its lines of business. Amazon's own story is that it basically breaks even on its retail operation, and keeps the whole business afloat with profits from its AWS cloud computing division. This is an important narrative, because if it's true, then Amazon can't be forcing up retail prices, which is the crux of the FTC's case against the company.

Here's what we know for sure about Amazon's retail business. First: merchants can't live without Amazon. The majority of US households have Prime, and 90% of Prime households start their ecommerce searches on Amazon; if they find what they're looking for, they buy it and stop. Thus, merchants who don't sell on Amazon just don't sell. This is called "monopsony power" and it's a lot easier to maintain than monopoly power. For most manufacturers, a 10% overnight drop in sales is a catastrophe, so a retailer that commands even a 10% market-share can extract huge concessions from its suppliers. Amazon's share of most categories of goods is a lot higher than 10%!

What kind of monopsony power does Amazon wield? Well, for one thing, it is able to levy a huge tax on its sellers. Add up all the junk-fees Amazon charges its platform sellers and it comes out to 45-51%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Competitive businesses just don't have 45% margins! No one can afford to kick that much back to Amazon. What is a merchant to do? Sell on Amazon and you lose money on every sale. Don't sell on Amazon and you don't get any business.

The only answer: raise prices on Amazon. After all, Prime customers – the majority of Amazon's retail business – don't shop for competitive prices. If Amazon wants a 45% vig, you can raise your Amazon prices by a third and just about break even.

But Amazon is wise to that: they have a "most favored nation" rule that punishes suppliers who sell goods more cheaply in rival stores, or even on their own site. The punishments vary, from banishing your products to page ten million of search-results to simply kicking you off the platform. With publishers, Amazon reserves the right to lower the prices they set when listing their books, to match the lowest price on the web, and paying publishers less for each sale.

That means that suppliers who sell on Amazon (which is anyone who wants to stay in business) have to dramatically hike their prices on Amazon, and when they do, they also have to hike their prices everywhere else (no wonder Prime customers don't bother to search elsewhere for a better deal!).

Now, Amazon says this is all wrong. That 45-51% vig they claim from business customers is barely enough to break even. The company's profits – they insist – come from selling AWS cloud service. The retail operation is just a public service they provide to us with cross-subsidy from those fat AWS margins.

This is a hell of a claim. Last year, Amazon raked in $130 billion in seller fees. In other words: they booked more revenue from junk fees than Bank of America made through its whole operation. Amazon's junk fees add up to more than all of Meta's revenues:

https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/AMZN-Q4-2023-Earnings-Release.pdf

Amazon claims that none of this is profit – it's just covering their operating expenses. According to Amazon, its non-AWS units combined have a one percent profit margin.

Now, this is an eye-popping claim indeed. Amazon is a public company, which means that it has to make thorough quarterly and annual financial disclosures breaking down its profit and loss. You'd think that somewhere in those disclosures, we'd find some details.

You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. Amazon's disclosures do not break out profits and losses by segment. SEC rules actually require the company to make these per-segment disclosures:

https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3524&context=lawreview#:~:text=If%20a%20company%20has%20more,income%20taxes%20and%20extraordinary%20items.

That rule was enacted in 1966, out of concern that companies could use cross-subsidies to fund predatory pricing and other anticompetitive practices. But over the years, the SEC just…stopped enforcing the rule. Companies have "near total managerial discretion" to lump business units together and group their profits and losses in bloated, undifferentiated balance-sheet items:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2021/dec/crouching-tiger-hidden-dragons

As Mitchell points you, it's not just Amazon that flouts this rule. We don't know how much money Google makes on Youtube, or how much Apple makes from the App Store (Apple told a federal judge that this number doesn't exist). Warren Buffett – with significant interest in hundreds of companies across dozens of markets – only breaks out seven segments of profit-and-loss for Berkshire Hathaway.

Recall that there is one category of data from the FTC's antitrust case against Amazon that has been completely redacted. One guess which category that is! Yup, the profit-and-loss for its retail operation and other lines of business.

These redactions are the judge's fault, but the real fault lies with the SEC. Amazon is a public company. In exchange for access to the capital markets, it owes the public certain disclosures, which are set out in the SEC's rulebook. The SEC lets Amazon – and other gigantic companies – get away with a degree of secrecy that should disqualify it from offering stock to the public. As Mitchell says, SEC chairman Gary Gensler should adopt "new rules that more concretely define what qualifies as a segment and remove the discretion given to executives."

Amazon is the poster-child for monopoly run amok. As Yanis Varoufakis writes in Technofeudalism, Amazon has actually become a post-capitalist enterprise. Amazon doesn't make profits (money derived from selling goods); it makes rents (money charged to people who are seeking to make a profit):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Profits are the defining characteristic of a capitalist economy; rents are the defining characteristic of feudalism. Amazon looks like a bazaar where thousands of merchants offer goods for sale to the public, but look harder and you discover that all those stallholders are totally controlled by Amazon. Amazon decides what goods they can sell, how much they cost, and whether a customer ever sees them. And then Amazon takes $0.45-51 out of every dollar. Amazon's "marketplace" isn't like a flea market, it's more like the interconnected shops on Disneyland's Main Street, USA: the sign over the door might say "20th Century Music Company" or "Emporium," but they're all just one store, run by one company.

And because Amazon has so much control over its sellers, it is able to exercise power over its buyers. Amazon's search results push down the best deals on the platform and promote results from more expensive, lower-quality items whose sellers have paid a fortune for an "ad" (not really an ad, but rather the top spot in search listings):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

This is "Amazon's pricing paradox." Amazon can claim that it offers low-priced, high-quality goods on the platform, but it makes $38b/year pushing those good deals way, way down in its search results. The top result for your Amazon search averages 29% more expensive than the best deal Amazon offers. Buy something from those first four spots and you'll pay a 25% premium. On average, you need to pick the seventeenth item on the search results page to get the best deal:

https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3645/

For 40 years, pro-monopoly economists claimed that it would be impossible for Amazon to attain monopoly power over buyers and sellers. Today, Amazon exercises that power so thoroughly that its junk-fee revenues alone exceed the total revenues of Bank of America. Amazon's story – that these fees barely stretch to covering its costs – assumes a nearly inconceivable level of credulity in its audience. Regrettably – for the human race – there is a cohort of senior, highly respected economists who possess this degree of credulity and more.

Of course, there's an easy way to settle the argument: Amazon could just comply with SEC regs and break out its P&L for its e-commerce operation. I assure you, they're not hiding this data because they think you'll be pleasantly surprised when they do and they don't want to spoil the moment.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

Image: Doc Searls (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/4863121221/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[staydandy]

Adventure Behind the Bronze Door (2024) - 藏海花 - Whump List

List by StayDandy Synopsis : Five years after Wu Xie's last adventure his peaceful life is interrupted again. Wu Xie and Wang Pangzi set off on an journey to the snowy mountains to uncover the mystery behind Zhang Qiling's origins. Along the way Wu Xie realizes that the path of clues he's been following was not accidental but it was planned by someone. Wu Xie and Pangzi find out more about Zhang Qi Ling's background, but they get caught up in a conspiracy unlike anything they've ever encountered. (MDL) AKA : Tibetan Sea Flower

Whumpees : Wu Xie played by Edward Zhang (top left) • Zhang Qi Ling played by Zhang Kang Le (top right) • Wang Pang Zi played by Chen Ming Hao (bottom far right) • Young Wu Xie played by Xu Zhen Xuan (not pictured)

Country : 🇨🇳 China Genres : Action, Adventure, Mystery, Horror, Bromance

Notes : This is a Full Whump List • Adapted from the novel "Zang Hai Hua" (藏海花) by Kennedy Xu (南派三叔) • Chen Ming Hao is another great Pangzi! First seen (as far as release date goes) in Tomb of the Sea, and they don't recast him and use the same actor for the rest of the Lost Tomb shows (the 2 Reunions, and Bronze Door) • My favorite episodes are pink • Suggested watch order of series (not including movies & spin-offs) : – 1. Mystic Nine (2016) – 2. The Lost Tomb (2015) – 3. The Lost Tomb 2: Wrath of the Sea (2019) – 4. The Lost Tomb 2: Explore with the Note (2021) – 5. The Lost Tomb 3: Ultimate Note (2020) >> 6. Adventure Behind the Bronze Door (2024) – 7. Tomb of the Sea (2018) – 8. Reunion: Sound of the Providence (2020) – 9. Reunion: Sound of the Providence 2 (2020)

Related Lists : The Lost Tomb (2015) - Full List • The Lost Tomb 2: Wrath of the Sea (2019) - Full List • The Lost Tomb 2: Explore With the Note (2021) - Full List • The Lost Tomb 3: Ultimate Note (2020) - Full List

Episodes on List : 21 Total Episodes : 32

*Spoilers below*

01 : [memory/dream] Zhang Qi Ling fight … bleeding, unconscious, (young) Wu Xie hallucinating … [present] wakes from nightmare … [flashback] knocked out

03 : [flashback] Zhang Qi Ling tied up

04 : [present] Wu Xie doppelganger hit with slingshot stone.. both Wu Xie's tied up.. doppelganger hit again.. back of Wu Xie's neck cut, passes out

05 : … continued from previous ep. ... Revealed not cut, just tricked into thinking so with local anesthetic … shoulder squeezed … (@ 21:43 I seriously love the friendship of these 2 😆) … Wang Pang Zi head grazed by a bullet, bleeding and knocked dizzy for a moment

06 : Wu Xie's hand bit by insects, cuts his own hand, Pang Zi attacked & bit by the insects .. Wu Xie unsteady, Pang Zi dizzy from insect poison.. Wu Xie & Pang Zi freezing, Wu Xie shivering, Pang Zi passes out … revealed that Wu Xie & Pang Zi were stuck in an hallucination that entire time

09 : [past] Zhang Qi Ling cuts his hand … [present] Pang Zi drunk (pretending) … hallucinating (semi-comedic)

10 : [past] Zhang Qi Ling drinks a poison, passes out, entombed alive … pain

13 : [present] Wu Xie's vision blurs

14 : Pang Zi's arm grazed by bullet.. Wu Xie's finger cut by a wire.. Wu Xie & Pang Zi briefly knocked out … Wu Xie falls into a crevasse, briefly knocked out

15 : Knocked out by an explosion (not really shown), wakes in hospital, bandaged, unsteady, confused, rips out IV.. Pang Zi hospitalized, oxygen mask, comatose … revealed to all be Wu Xie's hallucination (starting from the attack/explosion)

16 : Wu Xie & Pang Zi hallucinate

17 : Wu Xie stabbed, collapses.. knocked out … stumbling around, still wounded, bandaging himself … despair, banging his head on the floor … stumbling around, holding his wound

18 : Limping, hallucinating, passes out.. stumbling.. passed out … Pang Zi tied up … Wu Xie (masked as Zhang Qi Ling) knocked to the ground, blown back by an explosion

19 : Coughing from corrosive gas, lying about current state, collapses from compound wounds, stumbling & unsteady, collapses, tossed & knocked out briefly by an explosion.. helped to walk.. collapses, coughing, passes out … (@ 17:23 legit made me cry) … wakes, coughing

21 : (near end) Hallucinating

24 : Cuts his own hand, forces his hand to bleed until he passes out.. wakes with his hand bandaged, Pang Zi's hand also bandaged after cutting it (not shown) … Wu Xie tied up, leg cut.. bandaged.. choked, blown back by an explosion

25 : Hits himself in the face with a rock to knock out a tooth (semi-comedic) … arm dislocated.. nearly falls down a crevasse, blown back by an explosion … arm set.. Wu Xie & Pang Zi fall down a crevasse

26 : Wu Xie in a fight.. scratched by monster & bleeding (faking)

27 : Blown back by an explosion

28 : Giant explosion, Wu Xie & Pang Zi injured (kinda hard to tell what's going on).. Wu Xie wakes, Pang Zi bandaged; neck brace & broken leg

29 : Injured by an explosion

[evidence-based-activism]

This has been on my mind a lot lately, but I couldn't find anything about this. I saw a data that says young people regardless of gender feel more lonely especially after covid. But articles everywhere describe the phenomenon as male loneliness epidemic. Is it true that loneliness affect men more than women?

Yes, I've noticed this as well! (It's definitely frustrating!)

In short, no, women and men experience similar amounts of loneliness. (Therefore, it should simply be a "loneliness epidemic" not a "male loneliness epidemic".)

First:

A pre-covid meta-analysis [1] concluded that "across the lifespan mean levels of loneliness are similar for males and females". This is a robust finding because a meta-analysis synthesizes the results from many different studies; this one covered 39 years, 45 countries, and a wide range of other demographic factors from a total of 575 reports (751 effect sizes).

An interesting longitudinal study [2] used both indirect and direct measures of loneliness and (essentially) found no significant effect of sex. (But there were some interesting interaction effects between sex and age or sex and loneliness measure, if you want to look at the study!)

This literature review [3] states that "sex differences in loneliness are dependent on what type of loneliness is measured and how" and it's possible sex only "correlates with other factors that then impact loneliness directly". The first quote here is referring to similar sex-age/sex-measurement interactions found in [2].

During/after the COVID-19 pandemic however:

The earlier review [3] stated that "most studies found that women were lonelier or experienced higher increases in loneliness than men with both direct and indirect measures", but this may be a result of participant selection bias during the pandemic.

That being said, both a rapid review [4] and a systematic review and meta-analysis [5] found that women were either more or equally likely to report loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the Pew Research Center has collected some relevant data:

Prior to the pandemic, 10% of both men and women in the USA reported feeling lonely all or most of the time [6].

And while this doesn't measure loneliness directly, 48% of women and 32% of men in the USA reported high levels of psychological distress at least once during the pandemic [7].

References below the cut:

Maes, M., Qualter, P., Vanhalst, J., Van Den Noortgate, W., & Goossens, L. (2019). Gender differences in loneliness across the lifespan: A meta–analysis. European Journal of Personality, 33(6), 642–654. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2220

Von Soest, T., Luhmann, M., Hansen, T., & Gerstorf, D. (2020). Development of loneliness in midlife and old age: Its nature and correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(2), 388–406. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000219

Barjaková, M., Garnero, A., & d’Hombres, B. (2023). Risk factors for loneliness: A literature review. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 334, 116163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116163

Pai, N., & Vella, S.-L. (2021). COVID-19 and loneliness: A rapid systematic review. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 55(12), 1144–1156. https://doi.org/10.1177/00048674211031489

Ernst, M., Niederer, D., Werner, A. M., Czaja, S. J., Mikton, C., Ong, A. D., Rosen, T., Brähler, E., & Beutel, M. E. (2022). Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review with meta-analysis. American Psychologist, 77(5), 660–677. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001005

Bialik, K. (2018, December 3). Americans unhappy with family, social or financial life are more likely to say they feel lonely. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/12/03/americans-unhappy-with-family-social-or-financial-life-are-more-likely-to-say-they-feel-lonely/

Gramlich, J. (2023, March 2). Mental health and the pandemic: What U.S. surveys have found. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/02/mental-health-and-the-pandemic-what-u-s-surveys-have-found/

[pressnat]

MEUS CC’S MASCULINOS FAVORITOS + CC/ MY FAVORITE MALE CC || PART 1

⇢ basics ||

eyes. https://www.patreon.com/posts/d-o-l-c-e-v2-eye-68183687?l=fr

eyelash. https://kijiko-catfood.com/3d-lashes-version2-for-skin-detail-experimental/

skinblend. https://lamatisse.tumblr.com/post/612766683809136640/butterish-my-first-skinblend-i-made-like-two

skinoverlay. https://www.patreon.com/posts/lemonade-skin-62813813

skintone. https://www.patreon.com/posts/bare-skintone-40506361

skin detail. https://www.patreon.com/posts/61433364

freckles . https://www.patreon.com/posts/40247063

nose shade. https://faaeishccpreviews.tumblr.com/post/648642853067800576/skin-details-nose-shaders-by-faaeish-download

blush. https://squeamishsims.tumblr.com/post/185846308452/booboo-blush-by-squeamishsims-so-ive-tried-so

eyebrows. https://www.patreon.com/posts/whispy-eyebrows-62391460?utm_source=Patreon&utm_campaign=Whispy+Eyebrows

lips. https://www.patreon.com/posts/55703083

mouth corners. https://www.patreon.com/posts/61433364

~~~~

⇢  presets ||

lip. https://www.patreon.com/posts/memphis-lip-43736936

nose. https://poyopoyosim.tumblr.com/post/686774059407736833/male-nose-presets-n5n6n7n8-teen

jaw. https://www.patreon.com/posts/jiumiqaq-jaw-72054166

~~~~

⇢ hair/cabelos ||

01. https://www.patreon.com/posts/oh-my-god-were-58952703

02. https://jny-sims.tumblr.com/post/685668030601117696/jny-redo-hair

03. https://www.patreon.com/posts/pelo-bueno-male-33392785

04. https://www.patreon.com/posts/male-hair-pack-2-65951700

05. https://www.patreon.com/posts/kent-hair-62397490

06. https://www.patreon.com/posts/63544161

07. https://www.patreon.com/posts/wild-ride-70288763

08. https://www.patreon.com/posts/wild-ride-70288763

09. https://www.patreon.com/posts/63544161

10. https://www.patreon.com/posts/71551981

11. https://www.patreon.com/posts/71827369

12. https://www.patreon.com/posts/72827056

13. https://www.patreon.com/posts/levi-hair-73080895

14. https://www.patreon.com/posts/79061220

15. https://allabouthatcc.tumblr.com/post/656904403834503168/grimcookies-hair-dump-ive-updated-all-of-my-old

16. https://aharris00britney.tumblr.com/post/187194346870/axa-2019-official-release

17. https://okruee.tumblr.com/post/684075013010243584/sylvester-hair-hi-babes-info-masculine-frame

18. https://www.patreon.com/posts/58261906

19. https://www.patreon.com/posts/lorenzo-by-54215805

20. https://www.patreon.com/posts/marco-by-56792600

21. https://www.patreon.com/posts/federico-by-70185929

22. https://www.patreon.com/posts/pedro-by-44485564

23. https://www.patreon.com/posts/pedro-by-44485564

24. https://www.patreon.com/posts/70428613

25. https://www.patreon.com/posts/58551246

26. https://liliili-sims4.tumblr.com/post/691837200658219008/bruno-hair-bgc-hat-compatible-24

27. https://qrqr19.tumblr.com/post/673612023225073664/hair-24-fluorite-hair-25-peridot-hair-26

28. https://qr19sims.blogspot.com/2022/03/hair-27-28-29.html

~~~~

⇢ beard/barba ||

01. https://greenllamas.tumblr.com/post/646204704634929152/beard

02. https://greenllamas.tumblr.com/post/646204704634929152/beard

03. https://greenllamas.tumblr.com/post/646204704634929152/beard

04. https://www.veigasims.com/2018/07/beard-facial-hair-style-12.html

05. https://www.veigasims.com/2020/11/beard-facial-hair-style-15.html

06. https://www.veigasims.com/2022/08/facial-hair-style-33.html

~~~~

⇢ acc/acessórios ||

01. https://ceeproductions.tumblr.com/post/655362683425751040/calm-fit-collection-a-mostly-male-cc-collection

02. https://ceeproductions.tumblr.com/post/696230540558385152/equinox-collection-its-the-start-of-my-favorite

03. https://www.patreon.com/adrienpastel

04. https://www.patreon.com/posts/warm-5-item-set-60918114

05. https://www.patreon.com/posts/round-square-38706995

06. https://maxismatchccworld.tumblr.com/post/190436912960/liliili-sims-scarf-collection-scarf-no1-45

07. https://ceeproductions.tumblr.com/post/655362683425751040/calm-fit-collection-a-mostly-male-cc-collection