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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

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Netflix wants to chop down your family tree

Netflix has unveiled the details of its new anti-password-sharing policy, detailing a suite of complex gymnastics that customers will be expected to undergo if their living arrangements trigger Netflix’s automated enforcement mechanisms:

https://thestreamable.com/news/confirmed-netflix-unveils-first-details-of-new-anti-password-sharing-measures

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/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes

Netflix says that its new policy allows members of the same “household” to share an account. This policy comes with an assumption: that there is a commonly understood, universal meaning of “household,” and that software can determine who is and is not a member of your household.

This is a very old corporate delusion in the world of technology. In the early 2000s, I spent years trying to bring some balance to an effort at DVB, whose digital television standards are used in most of the world (but not the USA) when they rolled out CPCM, a DRM system that was supposed to limit video-sharing to a single household.

Their term of art for this was the “authorized domain”: a software-defined family unit whose borders were privately negotiated by corporate executives from media companies, broadcasters, tech and consumer electronics companies in closed-door sessions all around the world, with no public minutes or proceedings.

https://onezero.medium.com/the-internet-heist-part-iii-8561f6d5a4dc

These guys (they were nearly all guys) were proud of how much “flexibility” they’d built into their definition of “household.” For example, if you owned a houseboat, or a luxury car with seatback displays, or a summer villa in another country, the Authorized Domain would be able to figure out how to get the video onto all those screens.

But what about other kinds of families? I suggested that one of our test cases should be a family based in Manila: where the dad travels to remote provinces to do agricultural labor; the daughter is a nanny in California; and the son is doing construction work in the UAE. This suggestion was roundly rejected as an “edge case.”

Of course, this isn’t an edge case. There are orders of magnitude more people whose family looks like this than there are people whose family owns a villa in another country. Owning a houseboat or a luxury car makes you an outlier. Having an itinerant agricultural breadwinner in your family does not.

But everyone who is in the room when a cartel draws up a standard definition of what constitutes a household is almost certainly drawn from a pool that is more likely to have a summer villa than a child doing domestic work or construction labor half a world away. These weirdos, so dissimilar from the global majority, get to define the boxes that computers will shove the rest of the world into. If your family doesn’t look like their family, that’s tough: “Computer says no.”

One day at a CPCM meeting, we got to talking about the problem of “content laundering” and how the way to prevent it would be to put limits on how often someone could leave a household and join another one. No one, they argued, would ever have to change households every week.

I put my hand up and said, “What about a child whose divorced parents share custody of her? She’s absolutely going to change households every week.” They thought about it for a moment, then the rep from a giant IT company that had recently been convicted of criminal antitrust violations said, “Oh, we can solve that: we’ll give her a toll-free number to call when she gets locked out of her account.”

That was the solution they went with. If you are a child coping with the dissolution of your parents’ marriage, you will have the obligation to call up a media company every month — or more often — and explain that Mummy and Daddy don’t love each other any more, but can I please have my TV back?

I never forgot that day. I even wrote a science fiction story about it called (what else?) “Authorized Domain”:

https://craphound.com/news/2011/10/31/authorised-domain/

I think everyone understood that this was an absurd “solution,” but they had already decided that they were going to complete the seemingly straightforward business of defining a category like “household” using software, and once that train left the station, nothing was going to stop it.

This is a recurring form of techno-hubris: the idea that baseline concepts like “family” have crisp definitions and that any exceptions are outliers that would never swallow the rule. It’s such a common misstep that there’s a whole enre* called “Falsehoods Programmers Believe About ______”:

https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

In that list: names, time, currency, birthdays, timezones, email addresses, national borders, nations, biometrics, gender, language, alphabets, phone numbers, addresses, systems of measurement, and, of course, families. These categories are touchstones in our everyday life, and we think we know what they mean — but then we try to define them, and the list of exceptions spirals out into a hairy, fractal infinity.

Historically, these fuzzy categorical edges didn’t matter so much, because they were usually interpreted by humans using common sense. My grandfather was born “Avrom Doctorovitch” (or at least, that’s one way to transliterate his name, which was spelled in a different alphabet, but which was also transliterating his first name from yet another alphabet). When he came to Canada as a refugee, his surname was anglicized to “Doctorow.” Other cousins are “Doctorov,” “Doctoroff,” and “Doktorovitch.”

Naturally, his first name could have been “Abraham” or “Abe,” but his first employer (a fellow Eastern European emigre) decided that was too ethnic and in sincere effort to help him fit in, he called my grandfather “Bill.” When my grandfather attained citizenship, his papers read “Abraham William Doctorow.” He went by “Abe,” “Billy,” “Bill,” “William,” “Abraham” and “Avrom.”

Practically, it didn’t matter that variations on all of these appeared on various forms of ID, contracts, and paperwork. His reparations check from the German government had a different variation from the name on the papers he used to open his bank account, but the bank still let him deposit it.

All of my relatives from his generation have more than one name. Another grandfather of mine was born “Aleksander,” and called “Sasha” by friends, but had his name changed to “Seymour” when he got to Canada. His ID was also a mismatched grab-bag of variations on that theme.

None of this mattered to him, either. Airlines would sell him tickets and border guards would stamp his passport and rental agencies would let him drive away in cars despite the minor variations on all his ID.

But after 9/11, all that changed, for everyone who had blithely trundled along with semi-matching names across their official papers and database entries. Suddenly, it was “computer says no” everywhere you turned, unless everything matched perfectly. There was a global rush for legal name-changes after 9/11 — not because people changed their names, but because people needed to perform the bureaucratic ritual necessary to have the name they’d used all along be recognized in these new, brittle, ambiguity-incinerating machines.

For important categories, ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. The fact that you can write anything on an envelope (including a direction to deliver the letter to the granny flat over the garage, not the front door) means that we don’t have to define “address” — we can leave it usefully hairy around the edges.

Once the database schema is formalized, then “address” gets defined too — the number of lines it can have, the number of characters each line can have, the kinds of characters and even words (woe betide anyone who lives in Scunthorpe).

If you have a “real” address, a “real” name, a “real” date of birth, all of this might seem distant to you. These “edge” cases — seasonal agricultural workers, refugees with randomly assigned “English” names — are very far from your experience.

That’s true — for now (but not forever). The “Shitty Technology Adoption Curve” describes the process by which abusive technologies work their way up the privilege gradient. Every bad technological idea is first rolled out on poor people, refugees, prisoners, kids, mental patients and other people who can’t push back.

Their bodies are used to sand the rough edges and sharp corners off the technology, to normalize it so that it can climb up through the social ranks, imposed on people with more and more power and influence. 20 years ago, if you ate your dinner under an always-on #CCTV, it was because you were in a supermax prison. Today, it’s because you bought a premium home surveillance system from Google, Amazon or Apple.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/29/impunity-corrodes/#arise-ye-prisoners

The Netflix anti-sharing tools are designed for rich people. If you travel for business and stay in the kind of hotel where the TV has its own Netflix client that you can plug your username and password into, Netflix will give you a seven-day temporary code to use.

But for the most hardcore road-warriors, Netflix has thin gruel. Unless you connect to your home wifi network every 31 days and stream a show, Netflix will lock out your devices. Once blocked, you have to “contact Netflix” (laughs in Big Tech customer service).

Why is Netflix putting the screws to its customers? It’s part of the enshittification cycle, where platform companies first allocate surpluses to their customers, luring them in and using them as bait for business customers. Once they turn up, the companies reallocate surpluses to businesses, lavishing them with low commissions and lots of revenue opportunities. And once they’re locked in, the company starts to claw back the surpluses for itself.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

Remember when Netflix was in the business of mailing red envelopes full of DVDs around the country? That was allocating surpluses to users. The movie companies hated this, viewed it as theft — a proposition that was at least as valid as Netflix’s complaints about password sharing, but every pirate wants to be an admiral, and when Netflix did it to the studios, that was “progress,” but when you do it to Netflix, that’s theft.

Then, once Netflix had users locked in and migrated to the web (and later, apps), it shifted surpluses to studios, paying fat licensing fees to stream their movies and connect them to a huge audience.

Finally, once the studios were locked in, Netflix started to harvest the surplus for its shareholders: raising prices, lowering streaming rates, knocking off other studios’ best performing shows with in-house clones, etc. Users’ surpluses are also on the menu: the password “sharing” that let you define a household according to your family’s own idiosyncratic contours is unilaterally abolished in a quest to punish feckless Gen Z kids for buying avocado toast instead of their own Netflix subscriptions.

Netflix was able to ignore the studios’ outraged howls when it built a business by nonconsenually distributing their products in red envelopes. But now that Netflix has come for your family, don’t even think about giving Netfix some of what it gave to the MPAA.

As a technical matter, it’s not really that hard to modify Netflix’s app so that every stream you pull seems to come from your house, no matter where you are. But doing so would require reverse-engineering Netflix’s app, and that would violate Section 1201 of the DMCA, the CFAA, and eleventy-seven other horrible laws. Netflix’s lawyers would nuke you until the rubble bounced.

When Netflix was getting started, it could freely interoperate with the DVDs that the studios had put on the market. It could repurpose those DVDs in ways that the studios strenuously objected to. In other words, Netfix used adversarial interoperability (AKA Competitive Compatibility or ComCom) to launch its business:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Today, Netflix is on the vanguard of the war to abolish adversarial interop. They helped lead the charge to pervert W3C web-standards, creating a DRM video standard called EME that made it a crime to build a full-featured browser without getting permission from media companies and restricting its functionality to their specifications:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

When they used adversarial interoperability to build a multi-billion-dollar global company using the movie studios’ products in ways the studios hated, that was progress. When you define “family” in ways that makes Netflix less money, that’s felony contempt of business model.

[Image ID: A Victorian family tree template populated by tintypes of old-timey people. In the foreground stands a menacing, chainsaw-wielding figure, his face obscured by a hoodie. The blade of the chainsaw is poised to chop down the family tree. A Netflix 'N' logo has been superimposed over the man's face.]

#pluralistic #enshittification #shitty technology adoption curve #cpcm #interoperabiltiy #comcom #adversarial interoperability #interop #netflix #family #ambiguity #digitizatio #nym wars #authorized domain #dvb #dvds #password sharing

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licorice-and-rum · 3 months ago

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SOC and Neoliberlism

So, as promised, here it is my analysis of Six of Crows and how neoliberalism is amazingly portrayed in Ketterdam, and how the city is an example of what happens in a community that is not provided for.

Before we begin, I wanted to say that English is not my first language, and, considering I read SOC in Brazilian Portuguese, I might translate some names literally or differently from the English version but I think it's manageable to read and understand my point. If not, I'll edit the text.

The first thing we have to understand is how neoliberalism works and the theory behind it, and then we'll talk about how it's portrayed in Ketterdam.

So neoliberalism is a theory born more or less at the end of the 20th century (70s-80s), and it finds its roots in laissez-faire capitalism, meaning that it's a political current that tries to suppress and/or eliminate the State's influence from the market. The neoliberalist view understands that the market can supply by itself the population's needs without help or limitations imposed by the State.

The thing here is that most people listen to this and think neoliberalism is about electronics, cars, and other stuff. The truth is, that neoliberalism aims to suppress the presence of State-run facilities in ALL corners of society, such as health care, housing, water access, electricity, etcetera.

So, we can use the American and Brazillian health systems to understand it better, for example:

In the US, the ones providing health care for the population are great corporations - they decide the price of care, they work together with pharmaceutical companies to define medicine prices, and the laws that bind them are pretty much only offer and demand. There is almost none State intervention to provide the population with accessible health care.

However, this brings problems, of course: not everyone (actually, most people) has real access to health care simply because they can't afford it, or they can't afford it without taking a big financial hit, which threatens their other basic needs, such as food, housing, water, electricity, etcetera. Not everyone can provide for their medical needs, such as diabetic and disabled people.

That leads to:

(a) an increase in poverty;

(b) a decrease in educational levels - if you don't have the means to pay for higher educational levels because of health care debt, or if you're sick and need to go to class and tough through it but you're not really learning anything, and so on, which leads to a major workforce in base level production and a minor class who has access to this education;

(c) an increase in overworking people - meaning that we have a lot of people taking on several jobs to be able to pay for things like health care, which increases the competitiveness between people, making individualism levels go up and breaking up human beings' natural sense of community.

I could also talk here about how this breeds isolation and increases the potential for mental health problems but I think you got what I was saying.

On the other hand, we have the Brazilian health care system (SUS), which is a universal gratuitous medical care service through the whole country. Its purpose is not profit, it's providing health care for the community, so therefore, any SUS unit is bound by State law and run by the State. By law, every SUS unit must provide for anyone who enters its premises in need of medical care. Everyone, Brazillian and foreigners, poor or rich, must be treated if they need to. It's the law.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's all rainbows and flowers, there are definitely many problems in SUS. However, what I'm trying to showcase here is that, when the needs of a population are met, the population itself is more resilient, their life quality goes up and so does their participation in their community.

On the other hand, in neoliberalism, when the State is absent from these areas of community service, the market is, in theory, the one providing for the community. In practice, however, what we observe from neoliberal policies in cities with a great poor population in Latam for example, is that when the State doesn't provide for the community, the market is unable to step up for them because of their obscene prices.

The poor population that doesn't have their needs met by the State or the market sees a great boom in criminal activities within their spaces. That's mainly why criminal organizations are so present in slums and favelas throughout Latin America: criminal organizations are a way for the community to provide for themselves and, as a means to become more powerful, they provide for the community in exchange for their services (not to say they do that for the good of their hearts, of course not).

It's why it's so common, for example, that criminal organizations such as PCC in Brazil pay for kids from favelas to undergo Law school, for example.

And that's is where I wanted to go to start the conversation in SOC: one of the main traits of Ketterdam is the Barrel and, in the Barrel, we have the presence of many criminal organizations, such as the Dregs, the Dime Lions, the Menagerie staff (not the girls, ofc), etcetera.

This, as observed by Kaz himself, is one of the only ways to survive on the Barrel - you filiate yourself to a gang because you need to be able to provide for yourself and, more times than others, for your family as well.

Kaz's story is actually a perfect example of how Ketterdam is the representation of America in the early 20th century in full policies of laissez-faire (neoliberalism): as we can see in Titanic and many other historical fictions, the said American Dream had people believing the US to be this economical paradise where they could all enter the market and become millionaires.

The result of it is the Great Depression, of course, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

When Kaz and Jodi leave Lij for Ketterdam, Jodi believes he'll become a merchant - which is a pretty common belief of those who arrive at Ketterdam, as Pekka Rollins and Kaz himself state in Crooked Kingdom.

The reality of it, though, is much harsher, because the truth is that when you have a market that controls everything, as we see in Ketterdam with the Merchant's Guild (I think that's how it's translated?) and the Stadwatch as a police force, you see perfectly how neoliberal policies really work in real life:

You have a higher class who controls the market and the riches (question: who do you think got the money Shu Han sent to Ketterdam at the beginning of the first book: the people of the city/country or the merchants in the "government"?), and a lower class that, without support from the State or the market to have their needs met will turn to their own means to do so.

So you have the trafficking that brought Inej to the island, the unlimited gambling that Jesper was trapped in, the cons Jodi and Kaz fell for - it's all product of liberal policies.

And so, you have Ketterdam and its neoliberal policies (:

(I really love to make this kind of analysis, please, if you have something you want me to talk about, don't hesitate to ask)

#soc #soc wylan #soc inej #soc fandom #social science #soc jesper #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #ketterdam #leigh bardugo #six of crows duology #six of crows #jesper fahey #crooked kingdom #book analysis #books #book review

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allmyocsarebritish · 8 months ago

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stares at you with sad wet pathetic dog eyes

I've been dwelling on this for an oc but !! vox x reader where the reader is some sort of water creature/being and just 😈 ugh them being so gentle with each other but like little jokey threats from reader

unlikely lovers and just *screams into pillow* I love vox

- not Renée 🧡

Unlikely lovers

Vox X water based reader

Warnings(?): reader controls water, with demonic form of a siren, soft Vox, Vox overworking himself

Hi *not* Renée, I really really hope I did your idea justice, it was so fun to write and I love ittt!!

Electronics and water didn't mix. Exposure to liquids damaged appliances, sending them overloading in an electric surge and sparks flying. It was a well known fact, but, in accordance with the laws of attraction, opposite charges are always drawn towards eachother.

Vox should have been more careful, knowing that you were destined to destroy him. But he wasn't, and now here you were, corrupting his system and turning him soft. The audacity you had to just waltz in and short circuit his brain, (? Monitor?) permanently implanting yourself in his kingdom of bits and bytes was unmatched. And the worst part was how much he enjoyed it.

For as long as Vox could remember, his status, image and reputation had undeniably been the forefront of his life, though it had become clear that you were toppling this. And, though he remained in denial about how extreme his affection was for you, it was clear to everyone who knew him. The other Vees, his workers, yourself, even if sometimes you did feel second best.

Vox was rather obsessive, allowing work to consume all of his waking hours, and though you knew that wasn't something you could change, you remained present throughout his long days.

Despite the long hours that had passed, Vox still showed no signs of putting his paperwork to the side. Your patience began to wear thin as he picked up yet another 'essential' phone call, and you became rather restless. As impressive as the corporate empire he had built himself was, the business was taking its toll, turning Vox into the living embodiment of stress. It was more than concerning, and as much as he tried to convince you he was not working too hard, you knew he had limits.

The sound of the phone call ending roused you from your thoughts, and you watched as his charismatic business persona began to crack.

"When are you going to take a break?" You complained from a chair in the back of his office.

"Just a second, dollface. I'm nearly done, I promise." Vox responded, not even sparing you a glance away from his excessive amount of screens.

"You were 'nearly done' over an hour ago." you rolled your eyes, slumping in your chair, staring at the back of his TV."Vox, I swear if you don't pay attention to me I *will* waterboard you."

You perked up at the realisation that your (mostly) empty threat caught his curiosity. He spun around to face you in his swivel chair, eyes narrowing slightly.

"You wouldn't." He spoke rather quietly, tone accusatory.

A mischievous smirk played on your lips as you sat up straighter, raising an eyebrow. Taking great care as to *not* splash your techy boyfriend, water droplets flung across the room from your fingertips, dampening the floor.

"Want to bet?"

Vox sighed and shook his head, getting up slowly and making his way over to you, barely suppressing the smile that made its way across his screen. You offered him your own, opening your arms for him to sink into. As soon as he complied, Vox felt the stress of the day begin to ebb and fade, melted by your anchoring presence. And though he was much too stubborn and prideful to admit it, your determination in forcing him to take breaks from his overpowering workload was comforting and much needed.

"Was that so hard?" You teased, hand gently drawing circles over Vox's arm. He rolled his eyes, though his soft smile betrayed the sarcastic act.

"Yes, unbearably." He rested his TV on your shoulder, feigning exhaustion from the effort of stepping away. You snorted a laugh and he brightened, allowing you to rest against him. You playfully, and gently, flicked his antenna, watching as it bounced back and forth before stilling. He gave you a look, taking your hand in his own, softly caressing it with clawed fingers, before raising your knuckles to his screen and pressing a kiss to them.

"What a gentleman." You joked, to which he shook his head, still smiling.

"Anything for you, sweetheart." He responded, sarcasm dripping from his voice to mask the genuine statement.

"Don't get soft."

"Wouldn't dream of it, darling."

Who would have guessed that the technology overlord could be so smitten for a water demon? It was inevitable that you would be his weakness, though what was unforseen was the fact it was in the best way imaginable. The other overlords may see his infatuation with you as a downfall and a failure on Vox's behalf, it was his strongest quality. You gave him a tolerance to water, hence the electronic sharks residing in his mansion. As unlikely as your love was, you were utterly enthralled with eachother.

Around you Vox held no real weakness, you were his strength, his partner, and all that really mattered in his afterlife.

#hazbin hotel vox #vox x reader #vox #hazbin vox #vox the tv demon #voxtekoverlord #voxtech #hazbin fandom #hazbin fanfic #hazbin hotel #vox x you

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thegreatobsesso · 1 month ago

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Milo's intro

Alright friends! This is probably scene #2 of the first draft, taking place right after Octavius's intro.

Milo doesn’t belong here.

Sinclair Tower is a steel and marble high-rise where gods of industry shake hands on multimillion pound foreign investments or sign contracts that control the flow of data on the internet. Or... something.

Milo’s not actually sure what any of these companies do. If you ask him, all their names just sound like gourmet corporate word salad - Crescendo Consulting, ATRIUM Insights, FocusFortune - and that only further convinces him that his presence is a ginormous mistake.

He’d sent in his application on a whim, for god’s sake. A shoot-for-the-stars kind of thing. He didn’t expect a call back. When the unfamiliar voice had identified itself as personal assistant to Octavius Sinclair, he’d nearly spit his drink.

That same voice rings out across the intimidating lounge of steel and light.

“Milo McKenzie?”

He jumps from his seat like it’s caught fire. “Hi, yes, that’s me.”

“Julian Keats. Please, follow me.”

He follows this well-groomed and neatly dressed human down a glass-walled corridor overlooking a dizzying array of unnecessarily complicated architecture. It feels crafted to disorient, although it’s probably just his anxiety. Julian ushers him into his clear box of an office that offers a full view of the bustling floor on three sides and the cityscape on the fourth. The din of businesspeople dies as the door shuts.

“Right,” Julian begins as Milo takes a seat across from him at his tidy desk. “Congratulations on having passed the screening process. I’ll give you a brief orientation, you’ll sign some forms for our records, and then you’ll be clear to meet with Mr. Sinclair.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he chirps, cringing at himself instantaneously. He’s a nerd, an overeager loser, a timid nobody-

“The basics,” Julian states over his rolling ticker-tape of admonitions. “This shouldn’t be anything new to you if you read the materials, but here goes. No electronics whatsoever go past the elevator, including and especially mobile phones. A typical session with Mr. Sinclair can last anywhere from one to four hours, unless interrupted by your safe word. He’ll use any combination of whips, handcuffs, ropes, paddles, clamps, spreader bars, dildos, plugs, vibrators and/or his personal business ties and belts. Anything outside that, he’ll show you and get your color before he uses it. He may want to fuck you, he may not. He may or may not let you come.”

Milo is overheating like an overtaxed laptop at this procedural recitation of things he did, in fact, already know. He's not new to scene - in fact, he had to provide references to prove it - but he’s never sat down with a business person in the middle of a bustling office space to talk about butt plugs.

Moreover, they're talking about Octavius Sinclair. He's like, the hottest man alive. He's famous and rich and a philanthropist and an icon. And he may fuck Milo, or he may not; he may or may not let Milo come.

Fuck!

“Yeah, that’s,” he says, reminding himself no one walking by can actually hear them in here. “That’s all great.”

“And I see... only hard limit is knives.”

“Yeah, that’s it. No knives.”

“What about blades in general? Razors, swords?”

Swords? “I... guess you can put blades in general there.”

Julian scratches out his original answer and jots the new one down in impeccable script.

"And, do remind me what it is you're to call him, and what you're not."

Finally, a chance to prove his preparedness! “Sir," Milo answers confidently. "Nothing but sir. Not his name, master, or daddy."

"And your safe word is?"

"Red, or ‘safe word’. Yellow means ease up or slow down. Green is good, and if I can't speak, I'll shake my head no and say uh uh uh."

Julian ticks boxes as he speaks. "That's great," he replies without a shred of enthusiasm. "I'm gonna need your signature here, here and here."

Just as he slides several forms across the desk, Milo’s phone buzzes in his pocket.

He ignores it, for now. Another minute or two won’t hurt.

“This one states you don’t have any allergies or significant medical conditions. This one says you haven’t had any unprotected sex since your last negative STD screening. And this one, please make sure to read it all the way through. This is the confidentiality agreement, which Mr. Sinclair will sign as well. “

The phone buzzes again. Shit. “I’m so sorry,” he says, “I have to take a call.”

Julian Keats stares at him, clearly more used to being the interrupter than the interrupted. He manages to inject an impressive amount of displeasure in a simple businesslike Ah, of course before Milo’s off searching for an enclave with some semblance of privacy.

He finds it in one of the flagrantly incongruous beanbag chairs in a corner where the view gives him vertigo. He sits facing away from the city dials back.

“Milo.” His sister’s voice, thick with terror. “I’m in trouble. I need help. I need you to come get me.”

He presses his fingertips against his eyelids. She sounds awful, and it hurts. “Okay, sweetie. I’ll be there soon, but in the mean time, can you tell me a couple things you can see right now?”

“I’m not crazy,” she whispers; frantic, like she’s hiding from someone.

“I know you’re not. I know. I just want you to describe a couple things you can see for me. Please.”

He sits with her for a moment while she talks, shakily, of things in her hospital room. The patterns of the curtains, the phrases scrawled by nurses on the dry erase board. The worn plastic case of CDs she’s had with her since she was admitted - Fiona Apple, Garbage, the Cranberries.

He doesn’t say goodbye until she sounds a bit calmer, and he’s going to have to cancel his afternoon appointment to go her straightaway after this, but she should be fine until he gets there. The staff know her well enough by now to know when she's close to hurting herself, or somebody else.

He feels like crying, but even if it were a fine time for such a thing, his body wouldn’t actually do it.

So he goes back in and finishes signing all the forms. Julian’s clipped confirmation goes a bit past his ears.

“Alright, all sorted," he states, and Milo can almost see him itching to move onto the multitude of more pressing matters Milo's sure he's got. "Your appointment is at 10 pm. Arrive at the club at least 15 minutes before that and present this to security. They’ll scan the card and put you into the elevator to the penthouse. Once you’re there, just knock.”

“Wait, sorry, 10 pm tonight?”

“Yes, obviously. The confirmation file for today’s appointment said as much. Is that going to be a problem for you?”

Oh, Jesus. “No,” he hurries to confirm. “No, not at all, that works for me, it’s just... wow, I didn’t think it’d happen that fast.”

God, he thought he’d get a haircut, maybe lose a kilo, but he supposes not.

No, he’ll be walking into that room on the fifty-bajillionth floor of this very tower exactly how he is now, and letting a hot, filthy rich titan of business do whatever the hell he wants to him, within his own predefined limits. The guy the press calls the king of London, either because of how much he owns or the way he carries himself. Actually, Milo’s quite certain it’s a combination of both. And that’s...

Well, it’s bloody fucking fantastic is what it is. As he’s leaving the building, he looks around and, seeing no one paying much mind to him whatsoever, pumps his fist into the air in front of him. Just a little bit.

✨ WIP intro

🔖 tag list: @winterandwords // @foxboyclit //@revenantlore

@space-writes // @indecentpause // @words-after-midnight

comment to be added or removed!

📝 all posts from WIP: gay crime bdsm story

#WIP: spicy gay crime story #oc: milo #original writing #writeblr #writing snippet #writing excerpt #tw: sex #tw: language #tw: offices #fuck offices

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justinspoliticalcorner · 3 months ago

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Right-wing dark money activist Leonard Leo launches $1BN crusade to "‘crush" liberal America

Alex Rogers at Financial Times:

The conservative activist who led the crusade to overhaul the US legal system is making a $1bn push to “crush liberal dominance” across corporate America and in the country’s news and entertainment sectors. In a rare interview, Leonard Leo, the architect of the rightward shift on the Supreme Court under Donald Trump, said his non-profit advocacy group, the Marble Freedom Trust, was ready to confront the private sector in addition to the government. “We need to crush liberal dominance where it’s most insidious, so we’ll direct resources to build talent and capital formation pipelines in the areas of news and entertainment, where leftwing extremism is most evident,” Leo told the Financial Times. “Expect us to increase support for organisations that call out companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus spread by regulators and NGOs, so that they have to pay a price for putting extreme leftwing ideology ahead of consumers,” he said.

Leo has spent more than two decades at the influential Federalist Society, guiding conservative judges into the federal courts and the Supreme Court itself. In 2018, conservative justice Clarence Thomas joked that Leo was the third most important person in the world. Leo’s efforts culminated under Trump’s presidency, when three Federalist Society-backed judges were appointed to give conservatives on the Supreme Court a 6-3 supermajority, and profound influence over US law. The court has since then ruled to overturn the right to an abortion, among other long-sought rightwing causes. In 2020, after Trump lost the election, Leo stepped back from running the daily operations of the Federalist Society, while remaining its co-chair. The following year, Leo founded Marble, with a $1.6bn donation from electronic device manufacturing mogul Barre Seid, to be a counterweight to what he said was “dark money” of the left. He spent about $600mn in its first three years, according to public financial disclosures.

Leo said his goal was to find “very leveraged, impactful ways of reintroducing limited constitutional government and a civil society premised on freedom and personal responsibility and the virtues of western civilisation”. The $1bn money machine is now funding the conservative mission against private institutions, opposing diversity, equity and inclusion policies, climate and social concerns in investing and the “debanking” of politically conservative customers, in addition to taking on the public sector. The non-profit is increasingly interested in launching campaigns against “woke” banks and China-friendly companies involved in everything from food production to autonomous vehicles in the US and potentially Europe. Leo also intends to invest in a US local media company in the next 12 months, although he has not decided which, and is building conservative coalitions through groups such as Teneo Network, a club with chapters across the country. He also confirmed that Marble had since 2021 helped fund organisations that launched campaigns against companies with DEI, ESG and other initiatives, including BlackRock, Vanguard, American Airlines, Coca-Cola, State Farm, Major League Baseball and Ticketmaster.

The Financial Times interviewed right-wing dark money activist Leonard Leo, as he announced plans to launch a $1BN crusade to "‘crush" liberal America.

Leo has hinted that he’ll invest in an unnamed American media company within the next year.

#Leonard Leo #Dark Money #Marble Freedom Trust #Barre Seid #Teneo Network #Federalist Society

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avalontec · 9 months ago

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Discover how SIENNA ECAD is transforming the PCB design landscape through innovative Electronic Design Automation solutions. Their expertise in complex layouts and advanced analysis techniques is driving the future of electronics, offering custom solutions across industries. Learn more about their journey and the cutting-edge services they provide at Avalon Technologies. Dive into the full story here.

#pcbdesign hashtag #electronic hashtag #design hashtag #automation hashtag #innovationinelectronics hashtag #eda hashtag #electronicsmanufacturing hashtag #techinnovation hashtag #engineeringexcellence Avalon Technologies Limited Sienna Corporation Sienna ECAD Technologies Private Limited

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dailyoriginalcharacter · 1 year ago

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Hibiki Himura is a mute robot boy with kinda-sorta psychic powers who woke up on New Year’s Day 2000 in a dumpster with his memory completely wiped. Ever since, he has taken it upon himself to protect the humans of Acid City, NJ from violent rogue robots affected by the Y2K bug, and by doing so prove he is useful enough to live. He is way in over his head.

wikidot article [slightly outdated]

his tag on my artblog

his series' tag on my main

his artfight page

Hibiki is the main protgonist of Cyber Mind Year 2000 [CMY2K]. He is one of many [many many many] androids produced by the Halosoft Electronics Corporation, but seeing as Halosoft doesn’t mass-produce child robots, it can be easily deduced he’s a one-of-a-kind custom-order model; his original primary function, before he decided to take the fate of humanity into his own hands, is housekeeping and cleaning.He has a bad habit of thinking in black and white binaries, especially when it comes to morality (ESPECIALLY regarding the Three Laws of Robotics) and an even worse habit of tying his own life’s worth to how good of a robot he is and wracking himself with extremely disproportionate guilt over his own perceived moral goodness, hence the responsibility of protecting an entire city (and, in his mind, all of humanity) being taken on by a small child. He WANTS to be a pacifist (especially under the First Law; a robot must not harm a human nor through inaction allow a human to come to harm) and to him, all acts of violence towards humans are equal in severity, but unfortunately for him, real life isn’t that simple and sometimes someone has to get hurt to protect others. Reluctantly, he fights for the sake of defending mankind–even if he really would prefer to just talk things out.

Unluckily for him, talking things out literally is not an option; Hibiki is mute, so his options for communication are limited. Luckily, his kinda-sorta psychic powers are a big help as an alternative method of talking: Interfacing is a standard feature for Halosoft androids–by default, it functions as a sort of touch-based telepathy between technology and allows androids to transfer messages or even control other less-intelligent electronics simply by making and maintaining physical contact. Hibiki generally uses this to talk to others, either by touching another android to project what he wants to say into their head, or by touching a computer so he can display his dialogue on its screen to whoever is looking, but he often takes it a few steps further; Hibiki doesn’t have to touch an electronic directly in order to interface with it, he just has to make contact with something on the same network or connection. Not only that, but Hibiki can also deep-interface with other androids, diving into their minds without admin access and basically pulling a Psychonauts on them. This enables him to free other robots from mind control, see their memories, and, if necessary, beat their asses on a psychological scale. Besides this, he also has minor influence over nearby electronic signals when particularly emotionally affected and has been known to blow out lightbulbs with a panic attack.

Besides the kinda-sorta psychic computer powers, Hibiki also has built-in Astro Boy type jet boots, and the big oversized extra-long sleeves of his jacket can transform into arm cannons. He can overclock himself for extra power at the VERY BIG RISK of causing damage to himself, but he tends to do this pretty often because he both does not think highly enough of himself to prioritize his own wellbeing (especially where the Third Law of Robotics is concerned; a robot must only protect its own existence when doing so wouldn’t violate the First or Second Laws, so he prioritizes the safety and orders of others over taking care of himself), and he’s very small, weak, and fragile, so he kinda needs the extra power in most fights. When he does this, he’s DAMN OVERPOWERED but in a cool fun way that rules for him. Otherwise, when he’s just relying on his own natural abilities, his fighting style mostly consists of running and dodging very fast and being a very hard to hit target. His charging cable is retractable and kinda resembles a tail.

Personality-wise, Hibiki is damn earnest. He’s nothing if not compassionate, albeit stubborn and often blunt without meaning to. He’s gullible and tends to trust others too easily if they display even a shred of kindness to him, but if they give even an inkling of evidence they are even slightly “evil” in his eyes, he’ll feel betrayed and it’ll be very goddamn difficult to regain his trust after that. He doesn’t really emote all that much, but he’s very easily emotionally affected by things, and he is especially a huge crybaby; crying is often his default response to any particularly strong emotion, especially since his coolant tanks are busted so it tends to just leak out of his tear ducts. He’s easy to manipulate, especially through reverse psychology or by making him think he’s being underestimated or patronized, in which case he’ll stubbornly try to prove himself. People tend to underestimate and dismiss him all the damn time for a variety of reasons and he is so sick of it. Most of the time though, he’s a skittish, frantic, jumpy bundle of nerves.Hibiki is super autistic about insects, especially beetles, especially rhinoceros beetles. They are his favorite thing in the world and when presented with an opportunity to do so, he will absolutely infodump about them–and then worry he’s being annoying or wasting your time or boring you and shut himself up, but he really just wants to talk about how much he loves bugs. On the flip side, he is for no good goddamn reason absolutely terrified of repairs and maintenance; it’s the same type of thing as a kid being scared to go to the doctor. He’s extremely squeamish about tech gore (he’d think a modern smartphone with a cracked screen is gory) and would rather just duct tape himself up than let anybody come at him with a screwdriver.

That said, the only thing that bothers him about human blood and gore is the thought of a human getting hurt, and in that case he’s far more likely to scold them for being reckless and letting themself get hurt than freak out over how disturbing it is. He has been called “scary good” at first aid despite not being a medical robot; he always keeps a suspiciously well-stocked first aid kit in his backpack [as well as juice and snacks for humans who might be hungry or close to fainting] and is always enthusiastic to get to play field medic when someone is hurt. He thinks doctors and nurses for humans are some of the most admirable people on the planet, but mechanics and engineers and basically anyone who works with computers or machines is scary and not to be trusted. Another thing he hates is sleep, mostly due to constant nightmares; he absolutely refuses to go into sleep mode to recharge and will either stay online the whole time he’s plugged in or just use energy drinks and recharging candy designed specifically for androids.

Currently, following the events of the [as of yet non-existent] pilot episode, Hibiki lives in an abandoned warehouse with its two squatters; Tex Tulsa, a stern yet fatherly construction android who doesn’t seem to have a lot of work to do lately, and Cain Cohen, a standoffish and rude human runaway from the sticks who came to the city with nothing but a baseball bat, skateboard, and intention to live a life he can be happy with. They’re the closest thing to a family Hibiki has.

his spotify playlist

#OC #dwn024 #Hibiki Himura

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tnsfrbc · 1 year ago

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Electronics Corporation of India Limited Recruitment 2023 💯 Central government job 2023 JOB NOTIFICATION & APPLY LINK http://www.ecil.co.in/

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raincode-archives · 1 year ago

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Chapter 4 Loading Screen Trivia

Note: Currently, I do not know which of these trivia may be general game trivia or Chapter 4 exclusives (if there is any). And there may be trivia I'm currently missing that I will add later on, if I find any more.

World Detective Organization (WDO) An extra-legal, extra-privileged organization devoted to eradicating the world's unsolved mysteries.

Detective Deed An identification card. These are granted by the World Detective Organization.

Master Detective Among the detectives belonging to the World Detective Organization, this is a detective with a specialized power called Forensic Forte that aids in their investigative activities.

Forensic Forte Those exhibiting innate talent for special powers like clairvoyance or mind-reading are trained by the WDO to develop a supernatural investigative ability called Forensic Forte or simply, Forte.

Amaterasu Corporation Many products are in development, some of which cannot be made public.

Amaterasu Peacekeepers A department of Amaterasu Corporation. They serve as a sort of police force within Kanai Ward.

Kamasaki District Crime generally isn't bad here, unless you venture deeper inside, that is.

Riverbank Due to polluted waters, fish are rarely caught.

Kanai Station The only train station in Kanai Ward. It's a magnificent building, but seldom has customers because of the city's isolation.

Kanai Ward Living Condition Perhaps because of the daily rainfall, some people in Kanai Ward don't mind getting wet.

TV Programs Nearly all the TV programs broadcasted in Kanai Ward are sponsored by Amaterasu Corporation.

Popular Sports Parkour is popular among the young men of Kamasaki District. New problems have arisen however, what will all the trespassing and running across the top of food stalls.

Means of Communication Most communications to people outside of Kanai Ward are tapped and monitored by Amaterasu. The phone at the Nocturnal Detective Agency uses a different type of line to prevent eavesdropping.

Pets Because of Kanai Ward's unending rain, indoor pets are popular. At the same time, there is increasing concern of many dogs and cats become feral after being abandoned by irresponsible owners.

Kanai Ward's Electrical Power Because of the perpetual rain, electrical power is derived predominantly from rainwater.

Flavor of Halara's Candy Depends on the mood. The worse the mood, the sweeter the taste; the better the mood, the lighter the taste.

Fubuki's Accessories Fubuki's necklace has a clock motif. The choker is decorated with video playback control symbols.

Vivia's Book Catalog Novels, columns, essays, all sorts of things. There's no particular preference for genre; he reads just to pass time.

Vivia's Garments There are just bandage-like wrappings beneath his coat, so it wouldn't be accurate to call it clothing.

Amaterasu Corporation The megacorporation controlling Kanai Ward. It deals in a wide variety of goods such as industrial products, electronic appliances, as well as pharmaceuticals.

Kanai Ward Currently, Kanai ward is isolated from the rest of the world. Few people enter and leave and very little information goes beyond its walls.

Kanai Tower Lease agreements are available, but the monthly rent costs as much as a luxury car.

Ama-Pal Different versions of Ama-Pal exist, but among the scarce limited edition releases, there is evidently a bear variant with differently colored left and right sides.

Ama-Pay An electronic payment system courtesy of Amaterasu Corporation. It can be used at almost any shop in Kanai Ward, but rumor has it the company collects personal data from each transaction.

Popular Appliances Indoor dryers are very popular in Kanai Ward. Amaterasu Corporation's new "Kagutsuchi" model is quite excellent, capable of drying any type of laundry in just two hours.

Amaterasu's Latest Products A drone car that will autonomously deliver you from departure...to tomorrow. "Amenotorifune." Coming soon from Amaterasu Corporation.

Amaterasu's Latest Products Fall asleep in an instant.... And slumber for eight hours without waking up...no matter what... "Snoozewell," coming soon from Amaterasu Corporation.

Amaterasu Lab Research facilities located in the underground section of the Amaterasu Corporation. Access to the lab is highly restricted, even among Amaterasu personnel.

Amaterasu Security Entry to the premises requires employee IDs, as well as biometric authentication via retinal scans, making it practically impossible for outsiders to infiltrate Amaterasu Corporation.

Blank Week Mystery A phrase considered taboo in Kanai Ward. The meaning of the phrase is unclear

Makoto's Masks The mask is different ever morning, depending on his mood. Sometimes it takes him more than 30 minutes to choose, to the chagrin of the people around him.

About Dr. Huesca He walks around barefoot in the lab. This isn't for anything health-related, he simply feel the time spent putting on shoes and socks is better used on research.

Robot Researcher Akira is his name. He's poured his whole being into Ama-Pal, his life dedicated to its development. His catchphrase: "When my time comes, I want it to be by Ama-Pal's hand."

Fink the Slaughter Artist A hitman predominantly active in Kanai Ward. It's rumored that he'll kill any target, regardless of difficulty, as long as the client can afford it.

Yomi's Cane Yomi's cane transforms into a whip and can be used to strangle people he isn't fond of.

Shinigami's Secret Depending on Shinigami's emotional state, not only can horns and a tail sprout out, but her entire body can take on a fiery form.

Amazing Physique Number One of the WDO may look wizened, but beneath his robe is a muscle-bound body, compared to that of a youth's. It's littered in scars following encounters with a variety of criminals.

Invention Detective A Master Detective whose Forte allows for on-the-spot assembly of inventions useful for an investigation. This detective was not summoned to Kanai Ward.

#mdarc #master detective archives rain code #rain code #raincode #rain code archives #makoto kagutsuchi #dr huesca #yomi hellsmile #shinigami #number one

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scotianostra · 6 months ago

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Happy birthday Scottish TV host and entertainer Craig Ferguson born in Glasgow, on May 17th, 1962.

Ferguson was born in Stobhill Hospital and brought up not far from where I now live in nearby Cumbernauld. He admits to growing up "chubby and bullied" At age sixteen hen left Cumbernauld High School and began an apprenticeship to be an electronics technician at a local factory of American company Burroughs Corporation.

In the early 1980s, Ferguson drummed in punk bands for a few years before a bartending job led him to Michael Boyd, the artistic director of the Tron Theatre. Boyd talked Ferguson into giving acting a shot, which Ferguson soon did, finding the comedy prong of the art too compelling to ignore.

Ferguson soon created an outrageous—and successful—stage character called Bing Hitler. On top of the local success he was experiencing, Ferguson used the experience as a backdrop from which to move into mainstream acting roles.

Craig Ferguson’s first TV appearance came on an episode of the sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf in 1988, and it was enough to get Ferguson to head overseas to the United States for his first role on American TV. The part was playing a teacher in the pilot episode of High (1989), which starred Gwyneth Paltrow and Zach Braff. The pilot wasn’t picked up, though, and Ferguson headed back to Scotland.

Once back in the UK, Ferguson found that roles came sporadically before he landed his own BBC show The Ferguson Theory in 1994 While the sketch comedy show put the funnyman front and centre, it only lasted five episodes.

When Theory was no more, Ferguson packed his bags once again for America. But this time he’d find a lot more success waiting for him than he did years before. When Ferguson joined The Drew Carey Show as Nigel Wick in 1996, his run lasted several seasons and led to the actor becoming a known quantity in the world of U.S. television.

Ferguson’s busy life on TV and the big screen got a lot busier in January 2005, when he took over the late-night comedy series The Late Late Show. Once it found its footing, Ferguson’s show was another hit, earning its first Emmy nomination a year into its run. Mixed in with his work on the show were several high-profile big-screen roles, often voice-over work, in movies like How to Train Your Dragon, Winnie the Pooh and Brave.

Ferguson, who became an American citizen in 2008, is also an author, publishing Between the Bridge and the River and American on Purpose.

On 28 April 2014, Ferguson announced he would be leaving The Late Late Show at the end of 2014, with the final episode airing on 19th December that year.

Ferguson is a recovering alcoholic, sober since 18th February 1992, another Scot who has dealt with his depression, he admits to having considered suicide before giving up the bottle.

In 2017 he released a six-episode web show with his wife, Megan Wallace Cunningham, titled Couple Thinkers. For two seasons from 2021, Ferguson hosted the American game show The Hustler, which airs on ABC.

In 2022, an adaptation of Ferguson's film Saving Grace (2000) was announced as a stage musical in which Ferguson will portray a "villainous banker". It was adapted by April De Angelis from Ferguson's and Mark Crowdy's screenplay, with music by fellow Scot KT Tunstall. In October 2022, the musical was confirmed to run for a limited twelve performances at Riverside Studios from 22 November until 4 December 2022 as an "intimate first run.

The rumor mill has been buzzing that Craig is thinking about returning to the talk show ranks In a recent interview he said;

“I have meetings next week in Los Angeles for a show,” Ferguson said, calling from New England while on vacation with his family. “I’m considering doing a show but I just don’t want to do one every day. I like doing a talk show, but not enough to do it every single day.”

#scotland #scottish #history #actor #comedian #entertainer #happy birthday

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