#Fitness Gadgets 2024

[techtoio]

Best Fitness Gadgets to Boost Your Workout Routine

Introduction

Staying fit and healthy has never been more important, and with the right fitness gadgets, you can take your workout routine to the next level. These innovative devices not only help you track your progress but also keep you motivated and engaged. In this article, we’ll explore some of the best fitness gadgets available today, how they work, and why they might be the perfect addition to your fitness arsenal. Read to continue link

[techdriveplay]

2024 Father’s Day Ultimate Gift Guide for Every Type of Dad

Father’s Day is just around the corner, and finding the perfect gift to celebrate the special dad in your life can be a challenge. Whether he’s a whiskey connoisseur, a tech enthusiast, or a fan of outdoor adventures, there’s something out there that will make his day extra special. In this TDP Father’s Day Gift Guide, we’ve curated a selection of top-tier gifts that cater to every type of dad,…

[healthfitness10]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Thinking the unthinkable

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Time and again, I find myself thinking about radium suppositories: specifically, I get to thinking about the day that the consensus shifted from "radium suppositories are great" to "stop putting radioisotopes up your ass."

The thing is, people really liked radium-based quack remedies. They drank radium-infused water, smeared radium cream on their faces and bodies, and yes, rammed radium suppositories up their assholes:

https://maximumfun.org/episodes/sawbones/radium-girls/

The fact that this made whatever ailed you sicker didn't deter the radium true believers: if you're getting sicker, then you must need more radium.

When I think about the debate over radium, I imagine that the people who understood that radium was really bad for you must have run up against critics who told them they were being unreasonable. "You can't tell people to stop using radium. Tell them to use suppositories with less radium. Tell them to use them less frequently. But you can't just tell people, 'stop putting radium up your asshole.' They won't take you seriously."

About 20 years ago, I started pitching various institutions that reviewed consumer tech policy on the idea that they should reject any product that had DRM. After all, DRM didn't just restrict how you used a gadget today, it provided a facility for nonconsensually, irreversibly field-updating that gadget to add new restrictions tomorrow. How could a reviewer in good conscience say, "Go ahead and buy this device if you need this feature," if they knew that at any time in the future, the gadget's maker could take that feature away and leave the buyer with no recourse?

Here's the warning I (half-seriously) suggested magazines run alongside such products:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

No one took me up on my offer. Over and over again, magazine editors, managers of nonprofit review outlets, and indie gadget reviewers told me that it was unrealistic to publish a roundup of, say, this year's portable music players with the recommendation, "Just don't buy any of these. None of them are fit for purpose."

In other words: No one wanted to publish, "The correct amount of radium to stuff up your asshole is zero."

But the correct amount of rectal radium for you to administer is "none" and the correct car for you to buy today is none of the cars:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

This isn't the first time the correct automotive recommendation was "don't buy any of these cars." Back before seatbelts came standard in cars, the correct car was "don't buy a car." Sometimes, the correct answer is "none of the above." Even if that makes you sound unserious, the alternative is that you counsel people to put radium up their asses in a bid to seem "reasonable."

Today, DRM-infected products are routinely downgraded and bricked:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/5/24236237/ftc-software-tethering-letter-consumer-reports-ifixit

Even when companies face public uproar over these disastrous decisions and vow to reverse them, they can't, because these downgrades are one way:

https://www.stereocheck.com/news/music/unfortunately-you-cant-revert-to-the-old-sonos-app-anymore/

That's bad enough when it's your smart speakers, but what about when the company bricks your wheelchair:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

Or your $100,000 exoskeleton:

https://paulickreport.com/news/people/paralyzed-jockey-michael-straight-wants-to-keep-walking-but-manufacturer-wont-repair-exoskeleton

The reality is that we're living at the end of a catastrophic experiment in deregulation and its handmaidens, corruption and regulatory capture, and there are lots of "normal" things that we just need to stop doing. Not do less of them – just stop.

Like, the correct amount of collusion between realtors representing sellers and realtors representing buyers is zero:

https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2024-03-19/realtor-rules-just-changed-dramatically-heres-what-buyers-and-sellers-can-expect

We got that one right, but there's plenty more that we're still engaged in this pathetic, denialist bargaining over. What's the correct degree to which White House officials should cycle back into working at the industries they oversaw? Zero. How many times should such a person come back to work at the White House? Again: zero:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-09-19-next-administration-can-stop-ethics-scandals/

When the Biden admin dropped its executive order on ethics just hours after the inauguration, they trumpeted that it "went further than any other towards slowing the revolving door and limiting conflicts of interest while in office":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-ethics-commitments-by-executive-branch-personnel/

And it did. But it was also full of loopholes, because banning these conflicts of interest altogether was viewed as politically unserious, so the correct amount of radium up the administration's asshole was set at non-zero. The result? Well, it's about what you'd expect:

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/what-the-hell-is-anita-dunn-even-allowed-to-work-on/

Congress hasn't updated consumer privacy law since 1988, when it took the bold step of…banning video-store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you took home. Since then, a coalition of commercial surveillance companies and the cops and spies who treat their data-lakes as massive, off-the-books anaerobic lagoons of warrantless surveillance data has prevented the passage of any new privacy protections for Americans.

The result? Stalkers, creeps, spies (both governmental and corporate), identity thieves, spearphishers and other villainous scum are running wild, endangering every American's financial, physical and political wellbeing. The correct amount of commercial data-brokerage for America is zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

In other words, we should order every data-broker, every tech giant, every consumer electronics company and app vendor to delete all their surveillance data. All of it. The correct amount of radium in that asshole is – as with every other orifice zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

From the perspective of the radium pitchmen, the most shocking thing about the past four years has been antitrust enforcers – like Lina Khan, Rohit Chopra, and Jonathan Kanter – who refused to bargain about how much radium we needed to stick up our butts. Fearless of being branded as "unserious" and "unreasonable," they seriously, reasonably said the right amount is none, actually.

None. Which is why they're so mad at Khan and co. Which is why they're so bent on getting Kamala Harris to fire Khan – despite the fact that this would burn precious political capital in the senate. Some people just love the feeling they get from a radium suppository – especially the suppository salesmen:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-09-19-lina-khan-doesnt-need-to-be-confirmed-again/

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

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/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction/a>

Image: Museum of the Health Sciences https://www.uab.edu/amhs/

[iceclew]

Did I spent all my f*cking free time and last week on drawing like a mad man? Yes I did. Was is Kaiju OC ref sheets only? Yes it was. And did I draw not one, not two, not three but actually four at a time? Yes I did.

Detailed Ref sheets of the Queens Squad below let's gooooo ... ᕕ(⌐■_■)ᕗ

I'm gonna show you in the order I drew it, you may realize I did change the style a bit. And they don't have surnames, I just gave 'em a random letter., lol

y/o = Char is .... years old y/o.s. in D.F. = .... years of service in Defence Force C.P. (w/#7)= Combat Power (with No 7 weapon equipped)

Meggiiiee :o She's a char I came up with in...like 2015 ╥﹏╥ (I'm old) and it was a char in the Legend of Korra-Universe. I sorta transferred her story into the kaiju-verse, and well... I love her a lot :D Also not me struggling with drawing guns/sniper rifles ... :) I wanted to give her a cool gadget but messed up xD Her name wasn't Megumi at first, but I had to change it to fit the japanese Kaiju-verse.

Anouk aka. Anu-chan :3 Yeah, also LOK-verse. She's from 2012 ಥ_ಥ (I'm oooold). Used to be a ice/waterbender, but I redid her skillset completely.. I just didn't feel it in this verse. She should get a special prompt too, but I forgot didn't do that as well :)

Panpanpan :O Pan is the oldest OC, but at the same time the newest I came up with (early 2024). I feel like OCs very often do have at least a little resembles with yourself, whether it's looks or personality. Pan is the character who most resembles me in both :D (very much because it's the newest, lol) But she's a bit over the top nice.

Kari ma gurl c: It's so weird, but I sorta forgot most of my OC's names... ╭( ๐ _๐)╮I mean Pan didn't have a name at first, and for the rest of 'em I had to look up old files, older work on dA and so on.. I hope I am right with 'Kari', I literally am not sure anymore :D Also a char I did early 2024, and it was initially for the BNHA-verse.

*struggles to find more words*

uuh... well... I'mma leave this here now..( 〃．．)

[seo-julie]

Natsu Kanna - The Child Mechanical God Ep 2

Characters: Kanna, Makoto, Keito, Kanata Release: 25/7/2024 Proofreading: leen Translation: seo-julie

Season: Spring Location: Seisoukan courtyard

✧

Kanna: Sigh… Senpai, you don't know anything, do you?

This is the latest sleeping device I developed, and I call it “Sleep Peacefully Anywhere-kun”.

Keito: What's with that name? It sounds something like that of an unsuccessful comedian's name.

Makoto: (Hasumi-senpai, your straight man¹ act is prompt and precise… I need to learn a thing or two from you.)

Kanna: The name doesn't matter. It's not like I'm the one naming it. 

Based on the latest ergonomics research, this bed is perfectly constructed so that anyone can get a good night's sleep instantly.

In addition, there is also a function that increases the effectiveness of recovering from fatigue by several dozen times. If you doubt it, would you like to give it a try?

It seems like both of you couldn't sleep, just like me. If you use “Sleepy-kun (abbreviation)”, then you'd be in a dream in no time. 

Makoto: Ah, I might be a little interested.

Hehe. I buy all those latest gadgets even when I'll probably use them only once and then throw them into the closet.

Kanna: As long as there are such curious customers, my job will not disappear.

Makoto: Job? If you're at Seisoukan, doesn't that mean you're an idol as well?

Kanna: For the time being, yes. But my main job is something else.

Kanna: Calling myself an inventor might sound shady, but that’s what I do. 

Makoto: Ah, I think I've heard of it somewhere. I see, you're that "Deus Ex Machina²", aren't you?

Keito: What is with that name? It sounds like a name made up by someone with chuunibyou. 

Makoto: (As expected! Your straight man act is so good, please let me call you master!)

Keito: Why are you looking at me with such sparkling eyes…?

Kanna: I didn't come up with that nickname for myself. "Deus Ex Machina" is not a very promising name. 

Keito: A mechanical god…? Are you actually an ingeniously crafted robot that looks like a human?

Makoto: Ahaha, he does give off that same vibe.

Kanna: …People often said that.

Anyways. Everyone, why don't you try using this bed for a while?

As an apology for causing you both concern, I'll give you two a good night's sleep.

Makoto: Ah, as I said earlier, I'm interested~♪ Do I just lie down here? And sleep peacefully until morning?

Keito: H-hey, wait, Yuuki, don't be so careless now–

Kanna: Alright.

Keito: Woah!?

(W-what? I was suddenly pushed from behind…!?)

Makoto: W-whaa, please don't crash on me, Hasumi-senpai! This bed was probably made to fit only one person!?

Kanna: –Good night, seniors.

Please sleep in peace. This way, you'll forget all the troubles of reality.

Location: Makoto's Dorm

Makoto: ……

(Ah, huh? I, was I sleeping? Was it all just a dream?)

(That was such a strange dream… But, yeah, it had to be a dream. It was so unrealistic.)

(I had a weird conversation with a weird kid under the moonlight. It's a dream, and no matter who you talk to, they'll all say, 'So what?' Such a trivial story.)

Ahaha. I must be having all these unrealistic dreams because I play these games all the time. Stop having weird delusions, I need to face reality–

Keito: Yuuki! Are you there?

Makoto: W-whoa, what a surprise!? H-Hasumi-senpai? Is there anything I can help you with?

Keito: Do you remember what happened last night?

Makoto: Yes?

Keito: I wonder if that was a dream after all… A dream is a dream, my memory is getting hazy and I can't remember much anymore.

Didn't we see a strange machine and child last night? 

Makoto: Um… No but, it was a dream, right? But, huh, did Hasumi-senpai have the same dream as well?

Location: Seisoukan courtyard

Kanna: …

(Sigh~... Looks like by interfering with their cranial nerves, I was able to erase their memories, but it seems like there was something I forgot to subtly erase.)

(Not yet, it's not yet perfect.)

(If the results are lower than what the developer expected, if the product does not perform the desired functions, then it is an utter failure…)

(...Just like me.)

(Commercialization would be difficult. There's still room for improvement.)

Kanata: Hm~m h~m?

Kanna: Is there something troubling you?

Kanata: ? Yes, well, you know, I like taking “cold baths³”. But this, “season” is a bit too cold and I'm afraid I might catch a “cold”–

Kanna: I see. Well then, why don't you try this invention.

This is called, “Kettle that Makes Everything Hot-kun”.

(Humans find things that are alike in only appearance to be ominous.)

(This uncanny feeling… Even so, I too want to overcome it.)

(I'm…)

(Not… a machine.)

Kanata: ? What's wrong~?

Kanna: No… Sorry, it malfunctions sometimes.

Kanna: (As of this moment, not yet.)

(But, I'm sure someday...)

¹ The original word used for this was “tsukkomi”. It's from what I think is a troupe(?) known as boke and tsukkomi. Boke and tsukkomi are loosely equivalent to the roles of "funny man" or "comic" (boke) and "straight man" (tsukkomi) in the comedy duos of western culture. Which is why I have opted to use straight man for the tl. ² Deus ex machina is a Latin calque from Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός (apò mēkhanês theós) “god from the machine”. The term was coined from the conventions of ancient Greek theater, where actors who were playing gods were brought on stage using a machine. ³ The original word used was “mizuabi” which literally translates to “bathing in cold water”.

Directory

[livewireprojects]

Pride Month 2024 Sonic Sketches

Second pic made in Procreate, kinda excited about it

Made a few sketches for pride month, kind of started out with a comic were Silver comes out to his mom as bisexual along with a pic of Blaze after telling her dad then decided to draw everyone at a pride parade & showing their pride

Everyone here is kind of based on my own ideas for the characters especially Mephiles since anything involving him has to do with the version I made for him for post-06 reboot. Also some stuff is in color(Blaze's forehead gem, Cosmo's necklace, Amy's headband, Sonic's hair clip, ghost aura stuff) cause it seemed fitting due to the meanings behind the colors on the pride flag.(Like purple for soul)

Middle row

Like the text says Blaze told her dad & he made her a frog hat to support her. He's a nice/friendly guy that cares a lot, it's unfortunate that Blaze's late mom was so terrible & left with Blaze for her own intentions.

Rouge & Knuckles at pride, I was a little worried about how well I got Rouge's bisexual flag makeup. I eventually fixed up the lipstick & added matching earrings. Knuckles unintentionally looks like a pirate cause I can't draw his hat at angles. So yeah my version of Knuckles & Rouge are bi, Knuckles use to date Sonic(in my ver) & Rouge has some interest in women in the past.(Especially Topaz at one point)

Here's Blaze & Silver, Silver has a bi flag cardigan. Pretty much at some point the two realized together they're bi. They eventually told their parents(well Blaze's mom is gone so she only told her dad) & they luckily have supportive families.

Surge isn't in my Lost Prince stuff but I thought she & Amy were cute together in the fanart people made. I also think Metal was interesting with Amy, at some point gets with her in the future in my Lost Prince AU. Metal at some point stops working for Eggman & tries to make their own identity after a talk with Sonic especially since they were becoming more sentient. Metal wasn't sure what he wanted but eventually figured things out.

Right row

The context of the sign is that this is meant to be Tails, Cosmo(revived as a plant/mobian chipmunk hybrid) & Cream when they're older & in their teens or later. The time skip is mostly cause at the moment Cream is pretty young in present day, Tails is too but he's slightly older. I guess you could say Tails & Cosmo had a puppy love or something then things got serious when they were older when Cosmo returned then later Cream joined them.

Cream is pretty accepting of who she's into, I dunno what Cosmo is into(I guess technically bi since she's dating Tails & later Cream when Cream joined the couple), Tails I think maybe straight but I dunno. At the very least Tails is supportive of his friends & brother.

Context for this is just I wanted to add Vanilla & her late spouse so them from the future. Added Vector cause him & Vanilla are kinda cute so he's her relationship from the future. So Vanilla's late partner is my OC Cake who despite willing to be called a dad by their kids(Cream & at some point Sonic cause I like the idea of the rabbits adopting him) & only them, Cake was nonbinary. The rabbit family is pretty accepting of people.

Decided to bring in Gadget & Zero/Infinite, the guy in the corner is Zero's late dad who I'll explain at a late point

And then there's these three. I'm not entirely sure what my thoughts on Shadow & Mephiles are, at some point I think I realized demisexual felt right for Shadow. Like I said before any of my thoughts on Mephiles are specifically for the version I made of him for post-reboot in Sonic 06. I was originally thinking of giving him the male gay pride flag but given what I've done with him in Lost Prince AU I kinda realized he fits in with demisexual too. While my version of Sonic identifies as male he likes dressing in whatever he wants & isn't exactly gender-conforming.

Sonic mostly dressed up for pride & tied a pride flag to his neck like a cape. For some reason Mephiles is the only one I tried making designs for on his outfit.

Here's a cropped version of the comic. Pretty much Silver & Blaze realized they were bisexual, at some point Silver got the courage to tell his mom & later his dads.*

For some context Silver's mom is male & in a relationship with men*, he's pretty accepting so Silver doesn't need to worry much. However his worries are understandable because of being around Blaze a lot & seeing how her mom treated her. Blaze's mom was strict & caused a lot of issues that Blaze is still recovering from. Blaze left with Silver & Venice at some point leading to meeting her dad & becoming estranged from her mom. Her mom is gone now but as said Blaze is still recovering. Silver's family(along with Blaze's dad) understand & reassure Silver, Venice & Blaze that the three are accepted/safe.

*I dunno if the marriage is legal at best I know Silver's dad & his mom's marriage is legal. Venice's(Venice is Silver's half brother) dad went missing for a few years(Eggman was behind it) & ended up joining the relationship after being rescued/talking things out. Venice's dad was able to be part of the wedding as another groom but I dunno if this counts as official/legal by human standards.(I guess technically official by Mobian standards)

Thought I'd make a version without the color for everyone to see. The text about the frog hat is missing because it was connected to the frame I made for the comic involving Silver & his mom.

[sammyloomis]

2024 completions #1

part 2

back back back again!! gamers gamin'

06/12 update: posting this earlier than the new year because im gonna be rushed off my feet with work so i aint got time for gamin til late janurary :']

doing these is always fun and i know its mainly for myself fghj not sure many people even read these posts when i make em, but theyre fun to look back on!! in 2 parts cause i gamed too hard again smh smh

total games: 30

21/01 - Spider-Man 2 - 7/10

peter and miles return for double the spidey shit and double the big bads. why does anyone even live in this city anymore?? this sure was an insomniac spiderman game!!! like dont get me wrong, none of these games are Bad, theyre kinda middle of the road imo, but theyre still fun so ya cant fault em for that!! my main gripes with this game, as has been with the other 2, is just the overall story and dialogue being kinda boring. also, some of the side missions/collectibles stuff can be a bit of a pain BUT as i said, the combat is still very fun... tho mostly unchanged aside from some new abilities n gadgets

08/02 - Cozy Grove - 8/10

you are a spirit scout who has washed ashore of what seems to be a deserted island. except OOPS wait its not deserted, its haunted, and its YOUR job to help out the wayward souls stuck here into the afterlife if youre looking for a console version of animal crossing this is ur best bet imo!! tons of collectibles to find over the seasons, a bunch of decorations to spruce up the island, and a surprisingly rich story for each character u meet. this game covers some pretty heavy topics for how bright and cozy it looks, it was a pleasant surprise. my main gripes are how repetitive the quests are and how buggy it is; the game freezes a LOT and u have to restart the whole app multiple times just to get going some days. other than that, very fun and relaxing :]

22/02 - Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery - 10/10

you are frog detective, worlds number 2 best detective!! head off on 3 exciting cases and solve the Ultimate mystery - IS there a hat that can fit on frog detectives weird shaped head?? only time will tell im being dead serious about the 10/10 btw. this game is a collection of all 3 games in the series and theyre all super short, but super fun and cute and Funny. like genuinely. i love the low poly art style so much, i think the jokes are great, just the overall vibes are Brilliant, rly cant rec this enough :']

22/02 - Fran Bow - 8/10

fran bow follows the story of a young girl struggling with strange visions and evil entities i mean fran bow is a pretty iconic point n click horror game, idk what else to say abt it that hasnt been said already!! the art style is obviously a highlight, and the writing is iffy in some cases but surprisingly emotional a lot of the time for how messed up the visuals can get. theres a Lot of back and forth which can get a bit tedious, but the puzzles are pretty fun and overall its just a decent game imo

01/03 - Little Misfortune - 6/10

a young girl called misfortune goes on an adventure to find Eternal Happiness after a strange voice begins speaking to her inside her head the spiritual sequel to fran bow!! the vibes are similar for sure but something about this one didnt grab me the same as its predecessor. the character of misfortune can oscillate frequently between cute and annoying for me, as could the voice acting, but theres clearly a lot of heart in this one still :] the world didnt feel As fleshed out as fran bows but still a decent game

07/03 - Castle on the Coast - 7/10

you are a giraffe named george, washed ashore on an island with a castle (on the coast, if you can believe it). after meeting the residents, you gotta platform and collect ur way to the very top to help resolve some bad blood pretty cute n short platformer!! controls are kinda floaty/slippy and its very clearly meant for a younger audience, but its still pretty fun :] low poly art style is always a plus for me and i do always love a good platformer

09/03 - Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel - 9/10

the card game as you know and love it, now digital! i mean. its yugioh fghj if ur a new player its a great way to learn the basics and begin crafting some decks of ur own, if ur a returning player its a fun way to experiment with some new deck ideas and just play, and if u dont wanna play against other people online u can always just take it to a private match and duel there with ur friends :] the ui is sleek, yugioh itself is a fun game. honestly the only bad thing is the other players but u cant do much about that fghjk

15/03 - Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolutions - 6/10

a single player yugioh game where you can duel through iconic scenes from the og anime and beyond kind of the unrefined, solo play version of master duel. its not as good imo, and master duel brought a lot of quality of life upgrades from this one, but if ur after a decent single player yugioh game this ones ur bag :'] this version has 6 different animes to chose from and u can play thru all of them, build ur own decks, etc etc. theres also an online mode but its pretty dead and if u wanna duel real people u might as well just use master duel

19/03 - Chasing Static - 5/10

having just buried his father, chris pulls over to a late night cafe after getting lost in the welsh countryside. while exploring the area, he finds a mysterious bunker and a voice over the radio pretty 'meh' horror game but i rly like the ps1 style graphics, always a plus for me. the actual plot and gameplay is fine, nothing too special, and its Extremely short, but not much else to say :']

20/03 - Steven Universe: Unleash the Light - 8/10

more gems are determined to disturb the peace of era 3 and its once again up to steven and the crystal gems to stop them another steven universe rpg!! apparently this is the 3rd in the trilogy, but the first one was never ported to ps so ive only ever played this one and 2 fghj BUT honestly?? these are rly good rpgs; the art style is gorgeous, the gameplay is fun, obviously the characters are cute too. its just a blast :] the Big Gripe is that its glitchy as hell fghjk you can get stuck in certain areas and be unable to move unless u exit the game, but i still highly recommend for su and rpg fans alike

28/03 - The Addams Family: Mansion Mayhem - 3/10

when a seedy businessman shows up on their doorstep looking to buy and demolish their house, the addams family have to scour the place of artefacts to prove their homes importance .....i mean. its. fine. its ur standard 3d platformer fare, nothing to write home about really. its one of those overpriced ip games that dont take long to beat at All. i only got it for the meme and cause it was on sale and like i say, not bad, but its just kinda meh. the "story" is boring and feels not very addams-y but at this point thats par for the fkn course for anything with their names on it fghj

31/03 - First Class Trouble - 1/10

its a shitty among us clone, and thats all i have to say about this mess this thing has been on my backlog for 2 years and i NEVER. thought id every finish it because its Literally just among us but not fun. all the trophies are online only and specific as Fuck. the only reason i did it is cause i unlocked One (1) trophy when it was free on ps plus with my mates and it was bugging the fuck outta me. so yuh. dont play fghj. p sure the servers are gonna die soon too

07/04 - Burnout Paradise: Remastered - 7/10

burnout paradise has you getting behind the wheel in one of the best racing/stunting/crashing games in the world. try not to wreck your car Too bad MAN. this bad boys been on my backlog for 3 years, holy shit. i bought it because i was nostalgic and i remember playing the original with my brother all the time, so it was defo an experience to go back :'] while it is a very fun game as a whole, it gets repetitive pretty quickly, even with all the new cars you unlock, and some of the online trophies can be a pain to get (2 specifically involving full lobbies) BUT cant deny its an entertaining time

27/04 - LEGO DC Super-Villains - 7/10

the justice league have gone missing and a new band of "heroes" have swept in to take their place. our titualar super villains arent too pleased about this standard lego game fare :'] if i had to pick, im certainly more of a dc fan simply for harley, and lego games are always fun collectathon type deals, so this wasnt half bad!! lego games humour is always a lil hit or miss, but these things are always aimed at younger audiences anyway so eh what can ya do

04/05 - Overwatch 2 - 5/10

one of the most famous fps shooter games out there, do i rly need to explain overwatch to you?? no your eyes do NOT deceive you, i did in fact 100% overwatch 2. not Completely on my own merit, i had the help of a boosting group, but still!!!! twas a journey :'] i never played overwatch in its heyday so i cant speak to how it Used to be, but from what ive played now its just... not rly for me. i like the characters a bunch, and the world/story building is interesting, but thats not rly the focus of the game itself tho i wish it was

07/05 - Control - 9/10

jesse faden inadvertently becomes the new director of the federal bureau of control aftering finding the previous one dead seemingly from a self inflicted gunshot. overtaken by entities called the Hiss, jesse fights to reclaim the Oldest House, while also searching for her long lost brother WHEW!! love this one holy SHIT. big big BIG scp vibes, the way this game handles its horror and aesthetic is brilliant and exactly my cup of tea. tbh i found the actual gameplay the least interesting part fghj i would've spent the whole time going around collecting files and reports just to read them if i could :'] that being said, combat and traversal feel Awesome, every new ability is so fun to use. great stuff!!

10/05 - Carrion - 9/10

you are an unholy, fleshy, offal abomination, free from ur confines within a secret underground facility. time to escape. and kill everyone on the way out :] honestly ive been wanting to play this for ages so im glad i finally could! just as fun as i expected, visually amazing i Love the pixel art style paired with this rly disgusting Thing ur controlling dfghj its incredibly satisfying to just grab people up and start ripping them to shreds. u unlock new abilities as u progress and encounter stronger enemies as u go, but the feeling of being some unstoppable force never rly goes away (positive). p short game, but very fun!!

13/05 - Coffee Talk 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly - 7/10

coffee talk 2 takes place a while after the first game, introducing a couple of new faces and reconnecting with old ones this games just p pleasant to play :'] like the first one, its a kind of a barrista/visual novel type deal where people come in and u make them drinks/listen to their stories/etc etc. the musics lovely, the arts p nice, but like the first one i feel like its all a bit surface level. i never Really feel like i connect with any of these characters, even the returning ones, but its still a pretty game and theres not much else to say about it fghj

18/05 - A Way Out - 5/10

two guys, brought together by a mutual goal, escape prison and begin a journey to exact revenge on the man who ruined their lives tbh i didnt actually finish this game since the plat pops Wayyy before the end and i already knew how it ended so... yeah fghj i only played this for a platinum bingo event im doing rn and needed a co-op game to do so here we are :'] that being said, its an interesting story with interesting mechanics!! defo fun to play with a friend if ur looking for a short impactful story to get thru together

23/05 - NORCO - 10/10

kay, finally coming home after her mother passes away from cancer, learns that she had been doing some investigating in the nearby swamps and begins trying to figure out what she was looking for a sci-fi southern gothic point-n-click game that BLEWWW me away dude. holy shit this story is so SO good, i loved every second of it. its such an interesting setting with worldbuilding to match, gorgeous art, haunting soundtrack AUGH cannot recommend this one enough

01/06 - Heavy Rain - 2/10

the origami killer kidnaps ethan mars' remaining son and he must go on a set of trials to get him back. and other stuff happens too i guess. bad. its just bad dfgh. lets try to start with a positive tho; the actual concept is pretty cool and the mystery/crime stuff is alright, but the writing and characters are fkn boring and annoying and gross. i hated ethan as a main character, i thought he was so annoying, the plot twist makes no sense, and all the female characters are so clearly written by a man who hates women. yuck.

01/07 - Pesterquest - 10/10

you're a lean, mean, friend making machine and the ceasless call of platonic relations beckons you even now!!! time to befriend some regular degular teens (and aliens) okay so HUGE preface on this game you kinda.... Have to have read homestuck to understand literally any of it. im a homestuck fan, and ive never read the epiloges or the "sequel" and even I was lost on some points, but REGARDLESS i fkn loved this so much. its just ur run-of-the-mill visual novel, but i genuinly had such a fun time revisiting these characters and seeing them again that i dont even care dfghj and great art too!!

04/07 - Hiveswap Friendsim - 7/10

you have just crash landed on a strange alien planet. your bones are broken, you're lost and alone, you're hungry and thirsty. only one thing can save you now... FRIENDSHIP!!!! so i think i was supposed to play this one before pesterquest dfghj but i got too excited to see characters i already knew again :'] ANYWAY this game acts as a little introduction to some characters you can meet in the ill-fated homestuck point and click adventure game, hiveswap. while i didnt find this one as engaging as pesterquest, it was still an interesting insight into alternian life!! which im all about. i doubt it ever will, but i wonder if they'll ever port hiveswap to console... a man can dream

09/07 - Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy - 5/10

apollo justice, an up-and-coming defence attorney, begins his journey at the wright anything agency so i wanna start with a good thing off the bat because my opinion of this collection kinda plummeted towards the end. i rly like the 3d models, i think they capture the same level of character that the og 2d ones did and add new dimensions to everyone. everything else tho... hh idk man, i just rly didnt vibe with these at all, which sucks. i feel like it was just ret con after ret con after character assassination. big L tbh

23/07 - Grotto - 8/10

in the middle of the woods, in the heart of a mountain, lives a soothsayer. a startamer. using the constellations, you must provide the people who visit you with answers to their most pressing questions the art style of this game kinda drew me in, and the story ended up surprising me with how dark and interesting it is!! you end up making a lot of descisions that seem to have no good options, or giving people an answer that they end up misinterpreting for the worse due to ur limited options. for playing such a limited perspective, you get such a clear, vivid picture of whats happening outside your little cave. really interesting stuff

27/07 - Broken Age - 8/10

vella and shay are two teenagers with seemingly totally unrelated lives. they long for change, for freedom, and to do that they must break the traditions forced onto them from birth a point-n-click adventure with a surprisingly star studded cast!! and i didnt even know this was made by the same people who made psychonauts until i started it up :'] which means the art and humour were brilliant! honestly super fun, engaging characters and fun puzzles, and the way these two finally converge was honestly so brilliantly done, i did Not expect it at all

31/07 - Horizon Zero Dawn - 9/10

aloy grew up an outcast her whole life and its only when her past comes knocking does she finally begin to get some answers to her life long questions. also theres a bunch of huge killer robots :] this ones been on my backlog for so damn long, im so happy i finally got around to finishing it!! the combat in this is so addicting, i played it for like a week straight going for all the side quests n upgrades n such. the story was fkn brilliant, i feel like it balanced the the sci-fi elements really well with all the more fantasy stuff, and theres even some horror aspects that i really enjoyed!! im docking a point for glinthawks tho. FUCK glinthawks.

06/08 - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - 8/10

a man wakes up in a junkyard about to watch a woman get shot by an assassin. he has to help her but theres only one problem: hes dead. using his new ghostly powers, "sissel" must discover the truth behind his death and the strange events taking place tonight, before he disappears forever a game that id been super excited to play for how much it was hyped up by literally everyone i mentioned it to :'] the mechanics are simple but super satisfying, very rube goldberg machine, and the story is a tantalising mystery that unfolds at a great pace with plot twists and reveals happening at just the right moments to keep you engaged

10/08 - Cat Quest 3 - 9/10

the third installment of the cat quest rpg games takes on the open ocean, as our main lil cat buddy and their ghostly guide search the purribean for the north star treasure!! listen, i fkn Loveeeee the cat quest games and i recommend them to anyone who will listen and i mean that from the bottom of my heart. this one continues the trend of fun combat, an excessive amount of cat puns, and a surprisingly in-depth story that carried over from previous games. my big gripe is that this game is short as hell and it feels like even outside the story, there isnt as much to do as there is in the past games. still incredibly fun :]

27/11 - Bioshock: Remastered - 7/10

after your plane crashes in the middle of the ocean, you wind up in an underwater city called rapture where things seem to have gone completely tits up the gamer is back after 3 months with a game almost 4 years in the making on my backlog :'] not sure if this'll be the last game i have the time to complete this year but hopefully i got time for one more at least!! so theres a reason it took me so long to finish this one, its just cause it never rly clicked with me :[ which sucks cause its a rly cool premise with a ooky spooky atmosphere which is totally my vibe. ive been adamant i wouldnt play the rest (mainly because i thought the remasters would have the online trophies but, to my surprise, they dont) so time will tell if i keep on goin with this series

[techtoio]

The Complete Guide to Wearable Tech: Smartwatches and Fitness Trackers

Introduction

Wearables have changed the way we interact with digital space. Today, smartwatches and activity trackers have grown into indispensable assistants in matters of health management, communication, and productivity boost. And now, this all-in guide helps you to learn everything about new devices to make a competent choice regarding the one to use. Read to continue...

[ethoryweek]

Ethory Week 2024 Prompts!

How it works: Create a post for one or both of the prompts for each day, or skip a day if you feel like it! This blog will reblog every post made in the #ethoryweek and #ethoryweek2024 tags on the day of each prompts. Here are the prompts:

Day 1, January 14th - Comic Con or Concert

Where are Ethan and Rory going to hang out or on a date? Are they dressing up and going to panels? Or are they dressing up and seeing their favorite artists live?

Day 2, January 15th - Sleepover or Night Out

What do these two do when they're hanging out at night? Would they rather get comfortable in their PJs or dress up for a night on the town?

Day 3, January 16th - Pep Rally or After School Clubs

What would Ethory find more exciting at school? A pom flinging, devil costume wearing Pep Rally? Or a logical laser chess battle after school?

Day 4, January 17th - Free Day

Take this day to share any Ethory fan works that don't fit into any prompts! Go wild, skys the limit!

Day 5, January 18th - Vampire or Seer

Ethan and Rory aren't your typical teens, so how do their Vampirsm and Visions interfere or benefit their love lives?

Day 6, January 19th - Board Games or Movies

What would they enjoy doing together more? Some classic board games or classic action movies? What's their favorite games or board pieces?

Day 7, January 20th - Ghost Hunting or Pranks

What do Rory and Ethan enjoy watching/doing more? Hunting ghosts or pulling pranks? What are their favorite gadgets for catching the supernatural or pulling off the perfect practical joke?

Ask box is open if you have any questions!

[demonstream]

#gaming

#shortscomedy

#YouTubeShorts

#Viral

#Trending

#FYP (For You Page)

#Explore

#WatchNow

#MustWatch

#New

#DailyShorts

#ShortsComedy

#ShortsFunny

#ShortsJokes

#ShortsHumor

Gaming Hashtags:

#Gaming

#Gamers

#VideoGames

#GamerLife

#GamingCommunity

#Gameplay

#GamingNews

#GamingSetup

#GameOn

#GamingChannel

#ShortsMusic

#MusicShorts

#NewMusic

#MusicVideo

#StudyTime

#SmartLearning

#QuickLearn

#DailyLearning

#LearnEveryday

#LearningMadeEasy

#StudyShorts

#EduShorts

#LearnWithMe

#LearningIsFun

#Fitness

#Workout

#Gym

#Health

#FitnessMotivation

#FitLife

#GetFit

#Exercise

#BodyBuilding

#FitnessGoals

#Travel

#TravelVlog

#Wanderlust

#TravelGram

#Adventure

#ExploreTheWorld

#TravelDiaries

#TravelAddict

#TravelLife

#TravelGoals

#youtube

#youtuber

#subscribe

#like

#viral

#trending

#video

#youtubechannel

#youtubevideos

#youtubecommunity

#gaming

#gamers

#gameplay

#livestream

#youtubegaming

#twitch

#xbox

#playstation

#pcgaming

#esports

#fashion

#beauty

#makeup

#style

#skincare

#fashionstyle

#lifestyle

#makeuptutorial

#beautytips

#fashionaddict

#foodie

#cooking

#recipes

#tasty

#chef

#homemade

#foodlover

#delicious

#foodporn

#yummy

#tech

#technology

#gadgets

#innovation

#technews

#smartphone

#techreview

#techtips

#techyoutuber

#mobile

#gaming #2024

#2025

#lego #asmrgaming #ringdinger #dishapatani #moniroy #tseries #freefire #velorant #samayraina #indiasgotlatent #karanaujla #diljitdosanjh #darkhumor

#blackmythwukonggameplay

#BlackMyth

#WukongGame

#ActionRPG

#GamingNews

#MythologyGames

#ChineseMythology

#BlackMythGameplay

#WukongGameplay

#BossFights

#EpicGamingMoments

#GameWalkthrough

#NextGenGaming

#GamingCommunity

#PCGaming

#ConsoleGaming

#GamingLife

#TwitchGaming

#YouTubeGaming

#Gaming2024

#GameTrailers

#ActionAdventure

#NewGames

#unrealengine5

#bts

#pewdiepie

#asmr

#billieeilish

#babyshark

#oldtownroad

#music

#badabun

#blackpink

#fortnite

[hypnolordx]

A year in review.

Anyway, for this week we're taking a look back at 2024 art-wise, which much like the year itself had a lot of ups and downs, but it was nice to look back at all the art from month to month.

(Credit to Kronobas for the template)

From month to month we have:

Jan: "A Night with a Mesmer Doll 2"

Feb: "The Fitness Mindset"

Mar: "Super Maids"

Apr: "Tsubaki" (Manip, 1 of 6)

May: "A Mother's Day Gift"

Jun: "Valerie" (Sketch)

July: "Chibi Fembot Dina" (Sketch Comic)

Aug: "Amber and Ash" (Sketch)

Sept: "Shock Doodle"

Oct: "Goth vs. Aliens Finale"

Nov: "A Hypnotic New Gadget" (Alex ver.)

Dec: "Good Squirrel"

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

[techdriveplay]

What Are the Top Tech Gifts for 2024?

As technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, finding the perfect gift for the tech enthusiasts in your life can be a challenge. Whether it’s the latest in wearable tech, innovative gadgets, or smart home devices, the market is brimming with options that cater to every interest and need. Here’s a comprehensive guide to what are the top tech gifts for 2024. Statistics and Market…

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 19/01/2024

Fragile Snowman (Remastered)

Season 3 Featured on: Inspector Gunner 2 With Critic

Ripped by MtH, IAmMelloYello, Chaze the Chat

Following up directly on yesterday's post, one of the most notable events that happened during Season 3, one that was covered with a lot of love by the SiIvaGunner team in MAGFest 2019: SiIvaGunner Presents - High Quality Ripping, was the Nostalgia Critic takeover. Somehow, despite running the blog for half a year's time at this point, I still haven't ever gotten to touch on this event, despite being one of the more fondly remembered parts of the Season. And, well, there IS kind of a reason for that?

See, what initially started as an event celebrating old YouTube reviewers in general (hence Inspector Gadget's presence during it and in the album), transitioned into a purely-Nostalgia Critic event - but rather than celebrating Doug Walker's legacy in particular, the takeover took a different approach. Playing on Walker's gimmick as a reviewer in particular, the event was focused specifically on being a "nostalgia"-event - in other words, aiming to specifically bring us in the audience back to the days of Season 1 through every rip uploaded. This theme wasn't quite as...immediately apparent as many other takeovers, be it with rips like Totally Shaaking Out Right Now in the Harlem Shakeover, or Fell From a High Place (Reprise) during the Minecraft music event. Because while those events pretty radically changed to a core theme, this nostalgia-themed event instead saw the channel return to a status quo it once had - reuploads of several prior-lost Season 1 rips, new rips that were intentionally simplistic and often off-key, and an overall focus on the kinds of jokes that were all the rage in Season 1.

It was a genuinely really fun time, yet it was simultaneously hard to think of a fitting rip to represent it all with - in my eyes, it's one of those events that only truly worked in the moment, surrounded by all these rips that formed a cohesive whole. But Fragile Snowman (Remastered) is as close as it gets, I think - a loving remake of a true classic of Season 1. I've talked before of just how much I love it when rips of all sorts get dug back up for another shot at live with Violet Snow Memories from earlier this year, and this event was really the first time that we ever got a concentrated dose of that feeling throughout an entire takeover - and despite the rip of today's post only being two years old at that point, the nostalgia for it had already set in for me.

As described by Chaze the Chat in the aforementioned MAGFest panel, a big part of the fun with Season 1 was its sense of...spontaneousness, that you never really knew what to expect due to there simply not being much of any expectations set up by prior channel history in the first place. And as a result, we got a lot of rips much like the original Fragile Snowman - a mashup between Snowman as featured in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Fragile by Tech N9ne. There's a lot of rips like this even today, mashing up more chill video game music with hip-hop music that doesn't necessarily have much memetic quality, and while a lot of them can slip through the cracks of the SiIvaGunner audience, Fragile Snowman really did stick - enough to warrant two remasters made of it, with Fragile Snowman (Remastered) being the final stop the rip's made thus far.

There's so many small things fixed and tweaked in this final remastered version, yet it still sounds exactly as you'd imagine a mashup between the two songs to sound - which is, really, the best tell for it being an excellent remaster. The Nostalgia Critic takeover, while less bombastic and loud than many other events, was one that most every SiIvaGunner fan loved specifically because it focused on something we were ALL fans of - SiIvaGunner itself - and reminded us of just how far we'd come in just two short years. All these years later, there was indeed another event somewhat similar to this Nostalgia Critic takeover that happened just recently in Season 7, but...that's a story for another time.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Quinque gazump linkdump

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

It's Saturday and any fule kno that this is the day for a linkdump, in which the links that couldn't be squeezed into the week's newsletter editions get their own showcase. Here's the previous 23 linkdumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Start your weekend with some child's play! Ada & Zangemann is a picture book by Matthias Kirschner and Sandra Brandstätter of Free Software Foundation Europe, telling the story of a greedy inventor who ensnares a town with his proprietary, remote-brickable gadgets, and Ada, his nemesis, a young girl who reverse engineers them and lets their users seize the means of computation:

https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann/index.en.html

Ada & Zangemann is open access – you can share it, adapt it, and sell it as you see fit – and has been translated into several languages. Now, there's a cartoon version, an animated adaptation that is likewise open access, with digital assets for your remixing pleasure:

https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann//movie

Figuring out how to talk to kids about important subjects is a clarifying exercise. Back in the glory days of SNL, Eddie Murphy lampooned Fred "Mr" Rogers style of talking to kids, and it was indeed very funny:

https://snl.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Robinson

But Mr Rogers' rhetorical style wasn't as simple as "talk slowly and use small words" – the "Fredish" dialect that Mr Rogers created was thoughtful, empathic, inclusive, and very effective:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/09/the-nine-rules-of-freddish-the-positive-inclusive-empathic-language-of-mr-rogers/

Lots of writers have used the sing-songy fairytale style of children's stories to make serious political points (see, e.g. Animal Farm). My own attempt at this was my 2011 short story "The Brave Little Toaster," for MIT Tech Review's annual sf series. If the title sounds familiar, that's because I nicked it from Tom Disch's tale of the same name, as part of my series of stolen title stories:

https://locusmag.com/2012/05/cory-doctorow-a-prose-by-any-other-name/

My Toaster story is a tale of IoT gone wild, in which the nightmare of a world of "smart" devices that exert control over their owners is shown to be a nightmare. A work colleague sent me this adaptation of the story as part of an English textbook, with lots of worksheet-style exercises. I'd never seen this before, and it's very fun:

http://ourenglishclass.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/09/bravetoaster.pdf

If you like my "Brave Little Toaster," you'll likely enjoy my novella "Unauthorized Bread," which appears in my 2019 collection Radicalized and is currently being adapted as a middle-grades graphic novel by Blue Delliquanti for Firstsecond:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Childlike parables have their place, but just because something fits in a "just so" story, that doesn't make it true. Cryptocurrency weirdos desperately need to learn this lesson. The foundation of cryptocurrency is a fairytale about the origin of money, a mythological marketplace in which freely trading individuals who struggled to find a "confluence of needs." If you wanted to trade one third of your cow for two and a half of my chickens, how could we complete the transaction?

In the "money story" fairy tale, we spontaneously decided that we would use gold, for a bunch of nonsensical reasons that don't bear even cursory scrutiny. And so coin money sprang into existence, and we all merrily traded our gold with one another until a wicked government came and stole our gold with (cue scary voice) taaaaaaxes.

There is zero evidence for this. It's literally a fairy tale. There is a rich history of where money came from, and the answer, in short is, governments created it through taxes, and money doesn't exist without taxation:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

The money story is a lie, and it's a consequential one. The belief that money arises spontaneously out of the needs of freely trading people who voluntarily accept an arbitrary token as a store of value, unit of account, and unit of exchange (coupled with a childish, reactionary aversion to taxation) inspired cryptocurrency, and with it, the scams that allowed unscrupulous huxters to steal billions from everyday people who trusted Matt Damon, Spike Lee and Larry David when they told them that cryptocurrency was a sure path to financial security:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/15/your-new-first-name/#that-dagger-tho

It turns out that private money, far from being a tool of liberation, is rather just a dismal tool for ripping off the unsuspecting, and that goes double for crypto, where complexity can be weaponized by swindlers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/13/the-byzantine-premium/

We don't hear nearly as much about crypto these days – many of the pump-and-dump set have moved on to pitching AI stock – but there's still billions tied up in the scam, and new shitcoins are still being minted at speed. The FBI actually created a sting operation to expose the dirtiness of the crypto "ecosystem":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/10/24267098/fbi-coin-crypto-token-nexgenai-sec-doj-fraud-investigation

They found that the exchanges, "market makers" and other seemingly rock-ribbed institutions where suckers are enticed to buy, sell, track and price cryptos are classic Big Store cons:

http://www.amyreading.com/the-9-stages-of-the-big-con.html

When you, the unsuspecting retail investor, enter one of these mirror-palaces, you are the only audience member in a play that everyone else is in on. Those vigorous trades that see the shitcoin you're being hustled with skyrocketing in value? They're "wash trades," where insiders buy and sell the same asset to one another, without real money ever changing hands, just to create the appearance of a rapidly appreciating asset that you had best get in on before you are priced out of the market.

This scam is as old as con games themselves and, as with other scams- S&Ls, Enron, subprime – the con artists have parlayed their winnings into social respectability and are now flushing them into the political system, to punish lawmakers who threaten their ability to rip off you and your neighbors. A massive, terrifying investigative story in The New Yorker shows how crypto billionaires stole the Democratic nomination from Katie Porter, one of the most effective anti-scam lawmakers in recent history:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/14/silicon-valley-the-new-lobbying-monster

Big Tech – like every corrupt cartel in history – is desperate to conjure a kleptocracy into existence, whose officials they can corrupt in order to keep the machine going until they've maximized their gains and achieved escape velocity from consequences.

No surprise, then, that tech companies have adopted the same spin tactics that sowed doubt about the tobacco-cancer link, in order to keep the US from updating its anemic privacy laws. The last time Congress gave us a new consumer privacy law was 1988, when they banned video store clerks from disclosing our VHS rental history to newspapers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

By preventing confining privacy law to the VCR era, Big Tech has been able to plunder our data with impunity – aided by cops and spies who love the fact that there's a source of cheap, off-the-books, warrantless surveillance data that would be illegal for them to collect.

Writing for Tech Policy Press, the Norcal ACLU's Jake Snow connects the tobacco industry fight over "pre-emption" to the modern fight over privacy laws:

https://www.techpolicy.press/big-tech-is-trying-to-burn-privacy-to-the-ground-and-theyre-using-big-tobaccos-strategy-to-do-it/

In the 1990s, Big Tobacco went to war against state anti-smoking laws, arguing that the federal government had the right – nay, the duty – to create a "harmonized" national system of smoking laws that would preempt state laws. Strangely, politicians who love "states' rights" when it comes to banning abortion, tax-base erosion and "right to work" anti-union laws suddenly discovered federal religion when their campaign donors from the Cancer-Industrial Complex decided that states shouldn't use those rights to limit smoking.

This is exactly the tack that Big Tech has taken on privacy, arguing that any update to federal privacy law should abolish muscular state-level laws, like Illinois's best-in-class biometric privacy rules, or California's CPPA.

Like Big Tobacco, Big Tech has "funded front groups, hired an armada of lobbyists, donated millions to campaigns, and opened a firehose of lobbying money," with the goal of replacing "real privacy laws with fake industry alternatives as ineffective as non-smoking sections."

Whether it's understanding the origin of money or the Big Tobacco playbook, knowing history can protect you from all kinds of predatory behavior. But history isn't merely a sword and shield, it's also just a delight. Internet pioneer Ethan Zuckerman is road-tripping around America, and in August, he got to Columbus, IN, home to some of the country's most beautiful and important architectural treasures:

https://ethanzuckerman.com/2024/08/29/road-trip-the-company-town-and-the-corn-fields/

The buildings – clustered in within a few, walkable blocks – are the legacy of the diesel engine manufacturing titan Cummins, whose postwar president J Irwin Miller used the company's wartime profits to commission a string of gorgeous structures from starchitects like the Saarinens, IM Pei, Kevin Roche, Richard Meier, Harry Weese, César Pelli, Gunnar Birkerts, and Skidmore. I had no idea about any of this, and now I want to visit Columbus!

I'm planning a book tour right now (for my next novel, Picks and Shovels, which is out in February) and there's a little wiggle-room in the midwestern part of the tour. There's a possibility that I'll end up in the vicinity, and if that happens, I'm definitely gonna find time for a little detour!

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: