#Lower Cost Internet

[ausetkmt]

ATT OFFERS LOW COST INTERNET for those who lost their ACP

Access from AT&T is a low cost home internet service available to eligible limited income AT&T Internet and AT&T Fiber households who participate in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for California residents, National School Lunch Program, or with a household income below 200% of federal poverty guidelines.

If you are approved for the federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and would like to apply your ACP benefit to Access from AT&T, you do not need to submit this application. Please call us at 855.220.5211 (English) or 855.220.5225 (Español) to discuss your options and order service. Have your National Verifier application ID available.

To learn more and apply to the federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) please visit GetInternet.gov. The federal government’s National Verifier determines eligibility.

You MUST complete and submit this application with supporting documentation if:

You are approved for ACP but will not be applying your ACP benefit to Access from AT&T. OR

You want to apply directly with AT&T for the Access from AT&T program without the ACP benefit.

Access from AT&T is a low cost home internet service available to eligible limited income AT&T Internet and AT&T Fiber households who participate in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for California residents, National School Lunch Program, or with a household income below 200% of federal poverty guidelines.

All households that qualify for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and apply the benefit to AT&T Internet or AT&T Fiber service are also eligible for Access from AT&T. Eligible households who apply the ACP benefit to Access from AT&T internet service can receive internet at no charge with AT&T Internet plans (768KB-100MB) and with AT&T Fiber (100MB only).

Speeds on AT&T Internet depend on the maximum speed available at your location. Visit https://www.att.com/internet/availability to check the speed available at your location.

Your application will not be considered submitted unless the required supporting documents are supplied.

By checking this box, you indicate that you have in your possession a copy of the SNAP participant’s SNAP card with participant name shown or the SNAP participant’s SNAP card without participant name shown accompanied by a government issued ID with name and photo (front of card) or a copy of the SNAP participation or benefits letter from a local SNAP office with the SNAP participant’s name on it and you wish to proceed with the online application process.

By checking this box, you indicate that you are a California resident, that you have a copy of the original SSI benefits award letter or a current benefits verification letter with the SSI recipient’s name on it in your possession, and that you wish to proceed with the online application process.

By checking this box, you indicate that you have in your possession a copy of the most recent letter / document stating your child is receiving FREE or REDUCED LUNCH as part of the National School Lunch Program, and you wish to proceed with the online application process.

By checking this box, you indicate that your household income is 200% or less than the federal poverty guidelines, and you have a current copy of SSA1099, W-2 or Social Security statement of benefits that you can submit, and that you wish to proceed with the online application process.

Low cost internet service for qualifying households

Have you already submitted an application for Access from AT&T program? Check status of your application

[gracejones]

Finally another ‘W’! Was approved for low cost internet through a federal program 😭

[awkward-teabag]

We can blame Google, yes.

It's not a bad format in technical terms (smaller file size, both lossy and lossless, transparency, can be animated) as an option but file size doesn't make a difference we're talking maybe a few megabytes when the same websites using webp also flood you with images and/or videos.

But it's patented and Google was protective of it so it didn't see much adoption so kind of fell by the wayside. JPG and PNG are so ingrained, to get users to adopt an alternative en masse, you have to give up control of the format which Google didn't.

Windows OS also didn't support viewing webp for years and required (requires?) downloading an optional update to do that so the result was an image file that wasn't viewable on the most popular OS or be editable in the most popular image editing software for years.

Paintshop pro was probably the fastest "big" one and it added support a year after the format was released. Krita in 2015, GIMP in 2018, Photoshop 2022, Blender 2022, Clip Studio Paint 2024. Webp was released in 2010.

It's not the juggernaut it once was but an image format going 12 years before getting Photoshop support is a death knell when this isn't some small research group, it's Google and they definitely could have worked with Adobe to get support out there sooner if they cared to.

what the hell even is a webp image. i dont care fuck why cant you play nice and just be a png. asshole image

[phantomrose96]

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

[ms-demeanor]

So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)

Ryzen 7

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

8GB absolute minimum

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

256GB SSD

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

14" Lenovo - $670 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD

15.6" HP - $540 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

14" Dell - $710 - 12th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

SFF HP - $620 - 10th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

SFF Lenovo - $560 - Ryzen 7 5000 series, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Dell Tower - $800 - 10th-gen i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Billionaire-proofing the internet

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

During the Napster wars, the record labels seriously pissed off millions of internet users when they sued over 19,000 music fans, mostly kids, but also grannies, old people, and dead people.

It's hard to overstate how badly the labels behaved. Like, there was the Swarthmore student who was the maintainer of a free/open source search engine that indexed files available in public sharepoints on the LAN. The labels sued him for millions and millions (the statutory damages for digital copyright infringement runs to $150,000 per file) and, when he begged for a settlement, said that they would accept his life's savings, but only if he changed majors and stopped studying Computer Science.

No, really.

What's more, none of the money the labels extracted from teenagers, grandparents (and the dead) went to artists. The labels just kept it all, while continuing to insist that they were doing all this because they wanted to "protect artists."

One thing everyone agreed on was how disgusted we all were with the labels. What we didn't agree on was what to do about it. A lot of us wanted to reform copyright – say, by creating a blanket license for internet music so that artists could get paid directly. This was the systemic approach.

Another group – call them the "individualists" – wanted a boycott. Just stop buying and listening to music from the major labels. Every dollar you spend with a label is being used to fund a campaign of legal terror. Merely enjoying popular music makes you part of the problem.

You can probably guess which group I was in. Leaving aside the futility of "voting with your wallet" (a rigged ballot that's always won by the people with the thickest wallet), I just thought this was bad tactics.

Here's what I would say when people told me we should all stop listening to popular music: "If members of your popular movement are not allowed to listen to popular music, your movement won't be very popular."

We weren't going to make political change by creating an impossible purity test ("Ew, you listen to music from a major label? God, what's wrong with you?"). I mean, for one thing, a lot of popular music is legitimately fantastic and makes peoples' lives better. Popular movements should strive to increase their members' joy, not demand their deprivation. Again, not merely because this is a nice thing to do for people, but also because it's good tactics to make participation in the thing you're trying to do as joyous as possible.

Which brings me to social media. The problem with social media is that the people we love and want to interact with are being held prisoner in walled gardens. The mechanism of their imprisonment is the "switching costs" of leaving. Our friends and communities are on bad social media networks because they love each other more than they hate Musk or Zuck. Leaving a social platform can cost you contact with family members in the country you emigrated from, a support group of people who share your rare disease, the customers or audience you rely on for your livelihood, or just the other parents organizing your kid's little league game.

Hypothetically, you could organize all these people to leave at once, go somewhere else, and re-establish all your social connections. Practically, the "collective action problem" of doing so is nearly insurmountable. This is what platform owners depend on – it's why they know they can enshittify their services without losing users. So long as the pain of using the service is lower than the pain of leaving it, the companies can turn the screws on users to make their lives worse in order to extract more profit from them. This is why Musk killed the block button and why Zuck fired all his moderators. Why bear the expense of doing something nice for users if they'll still stick around even if you cut a ton of headcount and/or expensive compute?

There's a way out of this, thankfully. When social media is federated, then you can leave a server without leaving your friends. Think of it as being similar to changing cell-phone companies. When you switch from Verizon to T-Mobile, you keep your number, you keep your address book and you keep your friends, who won't even know you switched networks unless you tell them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

There's no reason social media couldn't work this way. You should be able to leave Facebook or Twitter for Mastodon, Bluesky, or any other service and still talk with the people you left behind, provided they still want to talk with you:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

That's how the Fediverse – which Mastodon is part of – works already. You can switch from one Mastodon server to another, and all the people you follow and who follow you will just move over to that new server. That means that if the person or company or group running your server goes sour, you aren't stuck making a choice between the people you love who connect to you on that server, and the pain of dealing with whatever bullshit the management is throwing off:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/23/semipermeable-membranes/#free-as-in-puppies

We could make that stronger! Data protection laws like the EU's GDPR and California's CCPA create a legal duty for online services to hand over your data on demand. Arguably, these laws already require your Mastodon server's management to give you the files you need to switch from one server to another, but that could be clarified. Handing these files over to users on demand is really straightforward – even a volunteer running a small server for a few friends will have no trouble living up to this obligation. It's literally just a minute's work for each user.

Another way to make this stronger is through governance. Many of the great services that defined the old, good internet were run by "benevolent dictators for life." This worked well, but failed so badly. Even if the dictator for life stayed benevolent, that didn't make them infallible. The problem of a dictatorship isn't just malice – it's also human frailty. For a service to remain good over long timescales, it needs accountable, responsive governance. That's why all the most successful BDFL services (like Wikipedia) transitioned to community-managed systems:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/10/bdfl/#high-on-your-own-supply

There, too, Mastodon shines. Mastodon's founder Eugen Rochko has just explicitly abjured his role as "ultimate decision-maker" and handed management over to a nonprofit:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/mastodon-becomes-nonprofit-to-make-sure-its-never-ruined-by-billionaire-ceo/

I love using Mastodon and I have a lot of hope for its future. I wish I was as happy with Bluesky, which was founded with the promise of federation, and which uses a clever naming scheme that makes it even harder for server owners to usurp your identity. But while Bluesky has added many, many technically impressive features, they haven't delivered on the long-promised federation:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

Bluesky sure seems like a lot of fun! They've pulled tens of millions of users over from other systems, and by all accounts, they've all having a great time. The problem is that without federation, all those users are vulnerable to bad decisions by management (perhaps under pressure from the company's investors) or by a change in management (perhaps instigated by investors if the current management refuses to institute extractive measures that are good for the investors but bad for the users). Federation is to social media what fire-exits are to nightclubs: a way for people to escape if the party turns deadly:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/14/fire-exits/#graceful-failure-modes

So what's the answer? Well, around Mastodon, you'll hear a refrain that reminds me a lot of the Napster wars: "People who are enjoying themselves on Bluesky are wrong to do so, because it's not federated and the only server you can use is run by a VC-backed for-profit. They should all leave that great party – there's no fire exits!"

This is the social media version of "To be in our movement, you have to stop listening to popular music." Sure, those people shouldn't be crammed into a nightclub that has no fire exits. But thankfully, there is an alternative to being the kind of scold who demands that people leave a great party, and being the kind of callous person who lets tens of millions of people continue to risk their lives by being stuck in a fire-trap.

We can install our own fire-exits in Bluesky.

Yesterday, an initiative called "Free Our Feeds" launched, with a set of goals for "billionaire-proofing" social media. One of those goals is to add the long-delayed federation to Bluesky. I'm one of the inaugural endorsers for this, because installing fire exits for Bluesky isn't just the right thing to do, it's also good tactics:

https://freeourfeeds.com/

Here's why: if a body independent of the Bluesky corporation implements its federation services, then we ensure that its fire exits are beyond the control of its VCs. That means that if they are ever tempted in future to brick up the fire-exits, they won't be able to. This isn't a hypothetical risk. When businesses start to enshittify their services, they fully commit themselves to blocking anything that makes it easy to leave those services.

That's why Apple went so hard after Beeper Plus, a service that enhanced iMessage's security by making conversations between Apple and Android users as private as chats that were confined to Apple users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor

It's why Elon Musk periodically freaks out and suspends users who list their Mastodon userids in their Twitter bios:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/15/elon-musk-suspends-mastodon-twitter-account-over-elonjet-tracking/

And it's why Meta will suspend your account if you link to Pixelfed, a Fediverse-based alternative to Instagram:

https://www.404media.co/meta-is-blocking-links-to-decentralized-instagram-competitor-pixelfed/

Once upon a time, we had a solid way of overcoming the problem of lock-in. We'd reverse-engineer a proprietary system and make a free, open alternative. We've been hacking fire exits into walled gardens since the Usenet days, with the creation of the alt.* hierarchy:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/altinteroperabilityadversarial

When the corporate owners of Unix started getting all weird about source-code access and user-modifiability, we didn't insist that Unix users were bad people for sticking with a corporate OS. We reverse-engineered Unix and set all those users free:

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

The answer to Microsoft's proprietary SMB network protocol wasn't a campaign to shame people for having SMB running on their LANs. It was reverse-engineering SMB and making SAMBA, which is now in every single device in your home and office, and it's gloriously free as in speech and free as in beer:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/samba-versus-smb-adversarial-interoperability-judo-network-effects

In the years since, a thicket of laws we colloquially call "IP" has grown up around services and products, and people have literally forgotten that there is an alternative to wheedling people to endure the pain of leaving a proprietary system for a free one. IP has put the imaginations of people who dream of a free internet in chains.

We can do better than begging people to leave a party they're enjoying; we can install our own fucking fire exits. Sure, maybe that means that a lot of those users will stay on the proprietary platform, but at least we'll have given them a way to leave if things go horribly wrong.

After all, there's no virtue in software freedom. The only thing worth caring about is human freedom. The only reason to value software freedom is if it sets humans free.

If I had my way, all those people enjoying themselves on Bluesky would come and enjoy themselves in the Fediverse. But I'm not a purist. If there's a way to use Bluesky without locking myself to the platform, I will join the party there in a hot second. And if there's a way to join the Bluesky party from the Fediverse, then goddamn I will party my ass off.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

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/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/#everybody-samba

[amirawrah]

⭐︎Caught mid-laugh

with MICHAEL OLISE⭐︎

synopsis: To the public, Michael Olise barely speaks. But when Bayern’s training vlog accidentally captures him giggling at you on FaceTime—soft voice, dimples out fans go feral. Turns out, behind all that mystery is a man hopelessly in love… and now the whole world knows. @muglermami

The thing about you and Michael is… people think they know him.

They see the stone-cold game face. The media-trained, one-word press answers. The serious glare that never cracks unless he’s scoring or assisting. Fans have memes about how he probably blinks once a day and only talks to pass the ball.

And then there’s you.

Animated. Loud. Laughs with your whole chest. You speak with your hands. You’ve never been able to hide what you feel, and honestly? You don’t want to.

You’d once asked him, “Do I embarrass you?”

He blinked slow—his signature move—and said, “Nah. You just talk enough for both of us.”

You threw a pillow at his head, and he caught it one-handed, smirking like he wasn’t completely in love.

That’s the thing. Michael Olise in public? Mysterious. Cold. Emotionally unavailable.

Michael Olise with you?

An absolute simp.

He listens to you rant about TikTok drama like it's a tactical team talk. He ties your shoes if he sees they’re loose. He reads the books you recommend and acts like he hated them, but then quotes them back to you during random convos. He sends you voice notes with sleepy “good morning” mumbles, and “love you, be safe” before every shoot you do.

But no one knows.

Because Michael’s private. Has always been. You two post the occasional soft-launch—photos of feet, a mutual blurry selfie, a shadow. Nothing ever too on-the-nose. You were cool with that.

Until the day “The Clip” dropped.

It was meant to be a regular behind-the-scenes clip—pre-training vibes for Bayren's tiktok, just casual footage of the boys arriving, stretching, messing around in the locker room. Classic background music, subtitles, fun energy.

Then came your moment—unintended, barely three seconds long, but enough to end the internet.

The camera had panned past a few players before pausing briefly on Michael, who was leaned against the wall, in full kit, hood up, phone to his ear. He hadn’t noticed the camera yet.

And just in time, the mic caught it

A soft laugh. His laugh.

And then—clear as day, in that low, boyish voice of his,“You’re such an idiot… you know that?”

And he giggled.

Not just a smirk. Not the subtle nose-exhale. A giggle. Full dimples, head-tilt, “I-like-you-more-than-I-admit” kind of giggle.

Then he clocked the camera, side-eyed it, pulled the phone slightly lower and shook his head like don’t even start.

But it was too late.

The comment section? Unhinged.

“WHO IS HE GIGGLING FOR???”

“Michael Olise?? Said that?? With EMOTION??”

“I’ve never heard him speak above a whisper and now he’s in love??”

“Y’all… he said ‘you’re such an idiot’ and laughed like it was the cutest thing ever i’m sick”

“Okay whoever that girl is—protect her at all costs she has a superpower”

“Nah. I can’t even get a guy to double-text back and she’s got Olise giggling???”

Your phone blew up within the hour. Friends sent you the video. Even your coworkers were texting like: “Hey um. Isn’t this your man?”

At first, you were nervous. You asked Michael, “Are you mad?”

He shrugged, laying with his head in your lap while you scrolled through the memes. “Nah. I think they needed to know.”

“Know what?”

He looked up at you with that soft, unreadable expression.

“That I’m happy.”

Your heart thudded.

You bent down to kiss his forehead, and he sighed into your touch like it was home then you laughed.

“They caught you slipping.”

He blinked at you through the screen, all mock-annoyed. “Why do you sound proud?”

“Because I’ve been trying to prove you’re soft for months. Bayern did it for me in HD.”

He rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop smiling. “You are an idiot though.”

You grinned, and he added quietly, “Yeah your favorite one.”

When the next day reached, by then the clip was everywhere.

The FaceTime. The giggle. The “you’re such an idiot” line that had fans writing fanfic and over-analyzing your nonexistent social media presence.

Bayern hadn’t posted anything since, but the damage was already done.

Michael Olise was officially a taken man—and the world was obsessed.

So of course, when Bayern did a sit-down player interview a week later, it was one of the first questions the host brought up.

She smiled innocently. “So, Michael… the fans have been asking—who made you giggle like that in training?”

Michael looked up from adjusting his sleeves. Pause. Blink. The classic Olise hesitation.

The smirk twitched.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“I don’t… giggle.”

The host laughed. “You did, though. We’ve all seen it.”

He bit his lip, looked down like he was debating whether to lie or deflect. But then?

He smiled.

Not the usual little half-smirk. A real one. Dimples and all.

“…Just someone who makes me laugh,” he said simply.

“A girlfriend?” the interviewer prompted.

He paused, then nodded. “Yeah.”

The host grinned. “Is she as funny as you looked in that clip?”

Michael chuckled under his breath. “Funnier. Way too dramatic. But yeah… she’s funny.”

The internet? Screamed.

“‘Too dramatic’ is boyfriend language. I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT.”

“I need that girl to run a TED Talk on how she got Michael Olise to be soft.”

“We better never find her. She deserves peace and a lifetime of giggles.”

You watched the clip on your phone while walking to his place, smiling to yourself the whole way.

You: they asked about me lol Michael: u watched it? You: yeah. you were nervous 😭 Michael: u would be too if the whole world knew how soft i am You: but you are 🥹 Michael: stfu❤️

When he got home that night, he found you in his hoodie, curled up on the couch, watching a movie with popcorn in your lap.

He dropped his bag, walked over, and pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

“People know now,” you teased, tilting your head back to look up at him.

He shrugged. “Let them.”

And with that, Michael Olise sat down next to you, laced his fingers with yours, and quietly let the world see the side of him that only you ever got to see.

The one who giggled.

The one who loved.

The one who’d always been yours.

[robertreich]

The Silent Revolution in American Economics

I don't think you're expecting what I'm about to say, because I have never seen anything like this in fifty years in politics.

For decades I've been sounding an alarm about how our economy has become increasingly rigged for the rich. I've watched it get worse under both Republicans and Democrats, but what President Biden has done in his first term gives me hope I haven't felt in years. It’s a complete sea change.

Here are three key areas where Biden is fundamentally reshaping our economy to make it better for working people.

#1 Trade and industrial policy

Biden is breaking with decades of reliance on free-trade deals and free-market philosophies. He’s instead focusing on domestic policies designed to revive American manufacturing and fortify our own supply chains.

Take three of his signature pieces of legislation so far — the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, and his infrastructure package. This flood of government investment has brought about a new wave in American manufacturing.

Unlike Trump, who just levied tariffs on Chinese imports and used it as a campaign slogan, Biden is actually investing in America’s manufacturing capacity so we don’t have to rely on China in the first place.

He’s turning the tide against deals made by previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican, that helped Wall Street but ended up costing American jobs and lowering American wages.

#2 Monopoly power

Biden is the first president in living memory to take on big monopolies.

Giant firms have come to dominate almost every industry. Four beef packers now control over 80 percent of the market, domestic air travel is dominated by four airlines, and most Americans have no real choice of internet providers.

In a monopolized economy, corporate profits rise, consumers pay higher prices, and workers’ wages shrink.

But under the Biden, the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department have become the most aggressive monopoly fighters in more than a half century. They’re going after Amazon and Google, Ticketmaster and Live Nation, JetBlue and Spirit, and a wide range of other giant corporations.  

#3 Labor

Biden is also the most pro-union president I’ve ever seen.

A big reason for the surge in workers organizing and striking for higher wages is the pro-labor course Biden is charting.

The Reagan years blew in a typhoon of union busting across America. Corporations routinely sunk unions and fired workers who attempted to form them. They offshored production or moved to so-called “right-to-work” states that enacted laws making it hard to form unions.

Even though Democratic presidents promised labor law reforms that would strengthen unions, they didn’t follow through. But under Joe Biden, organized labor has received a vital lifeboat. Unionizing has been protected and encouraged. Biden is even the first sitting president to walk a picket line.

Biden’s National Labor Relations Board is stemming the tide of unfair labor practices, requiring companies to bargain with their employees, speeding the period between union petitions and elections, and making it harder to fire workers for organizing.

Americans have every reason to be outraged at how decades of policies that prioritized corporations over people have thrown our economy off-keel.

But these three waves of change — a worker-centered trade and industrial policy, strong anti-monopoly enforcement, and moves to strengthen labor unions — are navigating towards a more equitable economy.

It’s a sea change that’s long overdue.

[solacescastleglow]

Cultural Capital #1: Intro + The Basics

One of the biggest privileges I had growing up was access to cultural capital. My parents were expat teachers, which meant that we had access to a lifestyle well above what we would've had if we had stayed in Australia. I got to travel, meet people from various cultures, go to private school, and I subconsciously absorbed that lifestyle as an expectation. This has given me a huge advantage, and since I don't believe in gatekeeping, here's how you can gain some of that knowledge.

0. A note

Some of these are things I strongly disagree with, but this is the way it is. One shouldn't have to change oneself to get ahead, but we often do. This is just a list of western upper-middle class cultural signifiers, and my listing them out doesn't diminish your own culture if it is different from this. Your own cultural capital is just as valuable as what I'm going to share. But we do live in a world where you can get benefits from knowing the dominant culture's valued information, so this is a guide to hacking that system.

1. What is cultural capital?

When people move to a certain place, be it a neighbourhood or a workplace, they need to understand the language, references, and customs of the people around them, otherwise they might be treated negatively. This is cultural capital. Your ability to fit in with the dominant class and culture can benefit you in work and social situations. Your education, who you know, how you speak and dress, which cultural references you make and understand, etc. are all class signifiers, and contribute to cultural capital.

2. Free ways to gain cultural capital

Confidence and vibe. I'm not the best at this, and there are plenty of resources out there for learning it that would probably be better than me. What I will say is that people can tell when you're used to settling for less, and that lowers your cultural capital in these spaces.

Go to a library or Google for research. Topics to research include: major religious stories and Greco-Roman myths, art and music history - especially from the 16th-19th centuries, different cultures and global geography, common idioms and expressions in French/Latin, jargon for your field as well as those of art/dance/music/business, fancy brand names (Quick, is a Ferragamo a shoe or a car?)

Read literary fiction and non fiction. Making references to classic novels shows rich people that you're well read, which in their minds translates to education and therefore intelligence (which isn't true but you know). It's also a shared experience, which gives you something to talk about. Use Libby for free audiobooks, and your local library for print books.

Expanding your vocabulary and speaking with care. The more you can articulate yourself, the more likely people will be to listen to you.

Going to public museums or galleries (if they have them where you live). They're almost always free, and are a great way to spend a weekend.

Watching videos, reading scripts, or listening to recordings of theatrical performances. These can be pretty easily found on the internet and give you material to reference when talking someone up.

Study philosophy. If you want something accessible and fun, watch The Good Place. Philosophy Tube makes excellent, thought provoking videos for free, and I'm sure there's more out there. Expanding your thought process and recognising the literature out there about 'deep' topics can help you not only seem smarter, but actually be smarter.

Learning to eat politely in multiple cultures. What do you eat with your hands vs a fork vs chopsticks? For western cuisine, you should know which fork to use, how to pour wine, what you do with your napkin, etc.

General etiquette. Handshakes, when and how to hold a door, you get the gist.

3. Ways that cost money

Cook something from a different culture every [week/month]. Expanding your palate and becoming familiar with things outside of your immediate circle will make you more 'cultured' in the eyes of people who care about that.

Special exhibitions and paid museums and galleries. Sometimes, a museum will cost money, and if it's interesting and within your budget, it's well worth it. Museums are an engaging way to learn more about history and culture, which will give you knowledge you could benefit from having.

Going to the theatre. Seeing a play, musical, opera, or ballet, especially if it references mythology or is iconic in its own right, can expand your views on universal themes like love, life, death, and revenge. It's also just really fun. You don't have to spend a huge amount either; see what's available in your area.

Dressing professionally. This means having a baseline knowledge on clothing terms and what fits you well, buying well made clothes that will outlast trends, and keeping them well maintained. Tailoring should be considered if it's in your budget; nobody likes an ill fitting suit. Some tips: second hand shops are a good place to start, avoid fast fashion, and remember that a 20 year old Chanel piece has more cultural capital than a brand new H&M piece.

Grooming. Smelling good, looking put together, and having good hygiene will help you immensely. A perfume that suits you is well worth the money, but don't be afraid of dupes if it's not in your budget.

Travelling. This is by far the most expensive thing on this list, but having those new experiences will completely change your viewpoint in a way that other people can recognise.

4. Signifiers that take a long time/effort

Accents. This matters more in some places than in others, but being able to fake a 'posher' accent gets you privilege in certain contexts. My school taught us only in RP English, but the social circles were run by the US military families, so I have a more neutral accent by default. I can also switch between the two, which gives me an advantage here in Australia, where proximity to an RP accent signifies wealth.

Learning a language. Knowing English automatically gives you a ton of cultural capital, since that's the lingua franca for most fields nowadays. But if English is your first language, knowing more than one means education. The unfortunate double standard is that if English is your second language, you need a third to be considered educated, usually a European language.

Straight teeth. This one is up to luck for some people, but having straight teeth usually means you have the money to straighten them. It also takes years and hurts. In my opinion, it's only worth it if your teeth are causing medical problems in your life, in which case you might as well straighten them while you're at it.

Getting a specialised degree in something. Don't worry about seeming silly (arts, humanities) or cold (business, sciences) when choosing a degree. Someone will be weird about it no matter what you pick, so pick one you like.

---

Remember, this is specifically for fitting in with the culture I grew up in and around (rich people). There is nothing wrong with the way you are now. This is just for people who are considering adapting to an environment where behaving like this allows for social mobility.

[mwthesims3]

ICYA BLÅHRKY

The Scandinavian shark plushie, and famous internet trans ally, it's BLÅHRKY! Get one yourself for only §50 (Mega Edition costs §85)!

I've been unable to use my PC for the last four months (it d!ed lulz), and as soon as I got it back working (now w/ a graphic card!) the first thing I did was to set up all my things and go back to work on my Sims projects (slowly bc I still have Uni stuf to do).

I then decided to work on a small project of converting @madameriasims4's Blahrky Collection to Sims 3. Atm I only managed to convert the decorative items, still need to figure out how to make the toy version functional. I decided to use the lower-poly LODs as a way to make them more Maxis-match and game-friendly.

CASt-able, 3 channels, 18 swatches (two stencils). As both of them use the Pets giraffe plushie as a base, they have a 1x1 route map. Weirdly enough in-game it says they require Late Nigth, so it's a good idea to have it installed (even tho they might work w/ just base game)

D0WNL0AD HERE!

[chic-a-gigot]

The Delineator, no. 4, Vol. XLVIII. Autumn Number. October 1896. Published by the Butterick Publishing Co. London & New York. Colored Plate 22. Figures D45 & 46. Reception Dresses. Internet Archive, uploaded by Albert R. Mann Library

Figure D 45. — LADIES’ DINNER DRESS.

Figure D 45. — This illustrates a Ladies’ Princess dress. The pattern, which is No. 8621 and costs 1s. 6d. or 35 cents, is in thirteen sizes for ladies from twenty-eight to forty-six inches, bust measure, and may be seen again on page 428 of this magazine.

This is one of the handsomest and newest styles in Princess gowns and shows a charming method of combining rich materials for ceremonious wear. In this instance Nile-green brocaded silk is united with black velvet and chiffon in a most effective manner, and spangled passementerie, plaited chiffon and ribbon contribute the decoration. The adjustment is made with great precision by side-front seams reaching to the shoulders, under-arm and side-back gores and a curving center seam and the closing may be made at the center of the back or along the left shoulder and under-arm seams, as preferred. The dress flares broadly at the foot in front and falls in deep flutes at the sides and back. The neck is square in front and in V shape at the back and a puff ornament of chiffon gathered at the ends and under a jewelled buckle at the center crosses the neck in front; a Bertha frill of plaited chiffon outlines the neck and passes under velvet revers on the front and back. The short puff sleeves flare handsomely and are completed with a band of spangled passementerie. A band of similar trimming covers each side-front seam of the dress to the top of a flounce of plaited chiffon that is arranged in festoon style with ribbon bows above bands of spangled passementerie at the foot.

Contrast, which is so powerful an element in good dressing, may be brought into play in this handsome mode. Judicious yet unpretentious colors and materials may be chosen without a too prodigal outlay. Becoming shades of silk, chiffon over silk, or the richer faille silks with delicate foliage or floral designs are liked for the most dressy occasions, while for ordinary wear broadcloth, canvas, wool crépon and the new novelty goods are commended. Colored embroideries, jet and spangled passementeries, chiffon and lace are all available for decoration.

Figure No. D 46. — MISSES’ PARTY DRESS.

Figure D 46. — This illustrates a Misses’ dress. The pattern, which is No. 8654 and costs 1s. 3d. or 30 cents, is in seven size for misses from ten to sixteen years of age, and may be seen in three views on page 454 of this number of The Delineator.

A most attractive combination of embroidered chiffon over taffeta silk and velvet overlaid with lace net is here pictured in the dress, and flowers, lace edging and ribbon provide the dainty decoration. A well-fitted lining closed at the back renders the surplice waist trim and comfortable. A Y facing of the velvet overlaid with lace net is seen on the lining between the surplice fronts, which have pretty fulness drawn in gathers at the shoulders and lower edges and cross in regular surplice fashion, a floral spray following the front edge of the overlapping front. The back is smooth across the shoulders and has gathered fulness at the bottom, and under-arm gores separate it from the fronts. A ribbon belt surrounds the waist and terminates in a bow at the left side of the front. Bretelles of velvet overlaid with lace net and bordered with a frill of lace edging droop over the short puff sleeves and a ribbon stock bowed stylishly at the back completes the neck.

The seven-gored skirt is gathered at the back and ripples gracefully below the hips and at the back, its shaping causing it to flare prettily at the bottom in front. A ruffle of the chiffon follows the lower edge of the skirt and a pretty effect is given by the floral decoration consisting of three sprays, each of which starts from under a ribbon bow and crosses the front-gore of the skirt diagonally.

There are a host of diaphanous fabrics from which to choose when making evening dresses for young girls. Plain varieties are quite as dainty as the embroidered and printed tissues. Lovely party dresses of silk, chiffon, dotted Swiss or nainsook may also be made up in this style in such colors as are known to be becoming. Flowers, ribbon, lace edging, spangled or jewelled passementerie and velvet are available for ornamentation.

[centrally-unplanned]

Let's see if I have one more election take in me:

I am deeply sympathetic to Sam Kriss's rage against the Democratic corpo-political shibboleth, and not just because we are both deeply enmeshed in the grand tradition of dissident Oxbridge-style cantankerous internet rants. He is right that Kamala was a weak candidate, for one. But more importantly, I still feel what he feels deep down. I remember the starry idealism of my halcyon youth, of believing that conviction, that vision, that the zeal only a platform birthed from authentic principles, tempered by struggle and sweat, would carry the day over crass, paint-by-polling-numbers incrementalism. When he describes Harris thusly:

"She’s a machine politician. She wants power, but not for any particular reason. It’s just that life is a game, and the point is to reach the highest level."

I see my own reaction to her when she first stepped into the 2020 limelight, and low-key hating her for it. I feel his heart, for it is my heart.

But it is not my brain. Because I am not a teenager anymore, and his critique is fucking bullshit.

He says all this stuff like:

The reason Kamala Harris lost is the same as the reason she was the candidate to begin with: the Democratic Party is allergic to democracy.

And how the electorate is seen as but ants from inside the towers of the Machine, like the Dems just invented "not running a primary" this time as a lark. As opposed to neither party in America ever having primaries against incumbent presidents! Because they are normally popular, and it would be a waste of everyone's time to do that! Could you imagine, launching a real primary against Obama in 2012? And possibly sabotaging his brand a bit for absolutely nothing? It is a reasonable policy, particularly when incumbents used to have an advantage for being so. Now they clearly don't, Biden was unpopular and too old, and the Dems took too long to realize it. A costly mistake, but it is a purely strategic error. Big orgs have inertia, and the Dems fucked up. It has nothing to do with an "allergy to democracy".

And Kriss can go off summarizing how the Harris campaign was offering voters nothing:

But for some unaccountable reason, among the general public, ‘Kamala: You Already Like Her!’ was not the brilliant pitch it seemed to be. [...] Another option would be to actually offer something to the voters.

Which sounds neat, but he made it up! I remember Kamala's actual campaign speeches, ads, and platforms, which she repeated so monotonically in her tightly-scripted campaign appearances: protect abortion rights, expand the welfare state, provide better child care support, lower the cost of housing. And most importantly, she ran on Biden's record of a strong economy and promised to deliver more of it. What does even mean for this to not be a real platform? Beyond not having some synthesized, totalizing "Critique" of modernity that packages it all into a beautiful, systematizing little box.

Because I promise you, voters synthesize jack shit. None of this is why Harris lost - voters have made that pretty clear:

You can find other data ofc, this or that point varies, but the story is not opaque. They didn't like Biden! They didn't like his inflation. They didn't like immigration, or they didn't like his liberalism, and they thought Kamala was too similar. She had too much policy baggage. And she wasn't charismatic enough to dig herself out of that hole - no disagreement from me on that front.

Though even then, by that we mean she lost an election by ~3-4% margins after getting subbed in at the 4th quarter while down by ~8% in the polls. That ain't bad!

None of the voters who matter share Kriss's sensibilities, and he cannot hide his disappointment in that. So he pretends that Donald Trump, the guy who promised 20% tariffs on everything to fight inflation, is giving them a real vision:

That’s what Trump did: he offered an enemy to blame and the prospect of doing violence to them

I don't know man, I think swing voters just don't like the last four years and think 2019 was better. I don't think the promises of orgastic violence against democrats are why Trump won! Actually a bit of an unforced error on his part.

But since Kriss presumes to value democracy, that thesis can't hold - so the lack of reality delivering on what his vision for democracy should be is displaced onto Harris's mistakes. The voters can never fail you. You can only fail to elevate them with the right candidate. Which, tactically? Sure, why not. But you can leave the moralism at the classroom door.

This ties into our dreaded media discourse debate, so it is time to bring in another explainer, by Michael Tomasky:

The line-by-line isn't interesting here; instead I want to focus on this quote:

Weren’t they bothered that Trump is a convicted felon? An adjudicated rapist? Didn’t his invocation of violence against Liz Cheney, or 50 other examples of his disgusting imprecations, obviously disqualify him? And couldn’t they see that Harris, whatever her shortcomings, was a fundamentally smart, honest, well-meaning person who would show basic respect for the Constitution and wouldn’t do anything weird as president? The answer is obviously no—not enough people were able to see any of those things. At which point people throw up their hands and say, “I give up.”

To which the immediate reply is: my dude, what are you talking about??

A 56 percent majority of Americans say Trump is probably guilty of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results through false claims of voter fraud, including 40 percent who believe he is “definitely guilty.” Republicans are less united than Democrats. Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats believe Trump is guilty, while nearly 7 in 10 Republicans think he is innocent. Among independents, nearly twice as many think Trump is guilty as think he is innocent.

You know how when you ~13 years old, and you have that friend who is just old enough to start taking Dungeons & Dragons books filled with splash art of succubi into the bathroom with him, but not yet old enough to get that "talking to girls" is an acquired skill? And they are blatantly, openly salivating over the first chick in the 7th grade class who discovered what power the combination of a camisole and a push-up bra holds over the male gaze? And she just completely ignores his faltering attempts at ~casual conversation~, so his brain script-cycles through its backlog of tween sitcom plots until it lands on, "Hey, what if I confess to her? Then she will know about my feelings!"

And you have to pull him aside and gently explain that, bro. She knows. That is not your problem.

Kriss is too intelligent a thinker to not understand this, but our dear Tomasky - and so many like him - has stuck his 14-year-old head in the sand over this. Swing voters know Trump is a scumbag! They know he lost the election, they know he raped a few women in his day, they know he is a serial fraudster. Even a bunch of those Republicans who, in polls, go "oh it's all a Dem conspiracy"? They know too; they just have the decency to lie about it. How could they not? Every media outlet in the country has been repeating it for a fucking decade! I might think voters are morons but even I won't stoop this low; they have eyes and ears, they aren't illiterate.

They just don't care.

Not enough at least, not enough to make it the only thing they consider. And here is the rub, here is the grand mistake Kriss & Tomasky are making - they are at least somewhat right to not care. The height of the Democratic privilege is that they get to play this card because they don't have to deal with it being turned against them. Kamala is a political chameleon but she is a decent person. She would never take a bribe from a foreign government, she would never assault a coworker, she would never, ever, deny a free and fair election.

Which means you don't have to choose between voting for a rapist and voting for someone who is going to shove a bullshit interpretation of the 14th amendment down your throat via a stacked court to ban abortion nationwide, forever. Pro-life people think abortion is genocide against babies! Why are you surprised they aren't voting for the pro-baby-genocide person because she is nice? How sure are you that you would do the same when that is reversed? I guess those boycott-Harris-because-of-Gaza people got some cred, but I think we all agreed they were dumb, right?

This is the rub of why outsiders always have so much difficulty understanding how people like Berlusconi, Trump, Le Pen, etc, get so much vote share - they have no stake in the political struggle beyond the vague idea of democratic norms. It is easy to say "Italy, choose a non-crook!" when you don't have to live with the policy programme of the other guy. From the inside the price of those principles is far, far harder. It isn't shocking that most choose not to pay it.

This isn't to give voters like a moral pass - Trump's conduct is truly disqualifying, I would vote Republican if the shoe was on the other foot in this case. My point instead is that they generally won't as a simple fact of life, and blaming them is futile. If you have wound up in a situation where the political system has taken its pool of hundreds of millions of potential candidates and narrowed it down to two for the voters, and one of them has "launched a coup but will say go to hell to the inflation guy" as a bundled package, someone fucked up and it isn't the voters.

You need political elites to do their part in the system - Republicans never should have let Trump be their candidate in 2016. Open primaries with no organizational thumbs on the scale are a mistake, actually, allowing arbitrary minorities to generate subpar candidates. The decision to let Biden run again was, fundamentally, born from the same impulse - the Democratic Party had no leadership capable of telling him no, because they outsourced that job to "primaries". The Dems are not "allergic" to democracy; democracy is allergic to too much of itself.

But the cat is out of the bag now! These changes happened for a reason after all. Which I won't dig into here - I will keep my point as focused as something as sprawling as this can be. Voters will not save you, and you should not be disappointed when they don't. It was never their job.

[frtools]

I might be shutting down the site soon. The cost every month is starting to become a burden, especially now that I have a 7000 euro expense coming next year.

The site costs me about 90 to 95 euro each month to keep up and running smoothly and there haven't been donations for a very long time to help out. Now I can lower the cost by hosting everything locally on my home internet but it isn't equipped for the kind of traffic frtools experiences until I get fiber early next year. Nor will my internet be suitable for US visitors due to the distance, my current host has all images mirrored in a US data center to ensure fast loading through a CDN (Content Delivery Network).

I've not made a final decision yet. This was definitely a fun and very worthwhile project to have done, I learned a lot of things that has furthered me in my career.

If you want to ensure the site stays available then I urge you to toss me a ko-fi or a patreon as any donation helps offset the expenses : )

https://ko-fi.com/perryvanvelzen

https://www.patreon.com/frtools

[one-eyed-want]

Page 53

I'll be posting the pages from this book in order, 3x a week. But the full book is already for sale! Be sure to pick up a copy if you'd like to read it as intended instead of seeing it leak out slowly onto the internet.

Buy the full color 244 page graphic novel:

Buy Direct

Buy on Amazon (slightly lower print quality but with lower cost and free prime shipping etc)

Buy the Ebook

[ms-demeanor]

I apologize, do you know anything about "rugged" laptops? I'm an ADHD college student who has a lot of difficulty with spacial awareness and stuff so I have trouble with delicate laptops that break if you set them down too hard and I'd like something that can handle basic coding requirements (R studio, Jupiter Notebook, etc), and preferably can stream video for classes as well, though that's less of a requirement. I emergency ordered a cheap lower-spec used rugged laptop from eBay because my laptop isn't working, but I was wondering if a.) you think the whole thing is a gimmick and there's an easier way to get what I need and b.) if it's not a gimmick which ones actually do what they need to. Thanks!

Rugged/Ruggedized laptops are absolutely not a scam, they are incredible, it's just that the ones that are actually rugged are incredibly expensive.

I have a small collection of used Panasonic Toughbooks that are absolutely positively not functional as modern computers but work great for slowly connecting to the internet and running a word processor or programming radios. They are literally used lineman's computers and are supposed to be able to survive falling off a telephone pole. They're dustproof, so they're great to use in the desert. If I tried to edit raw image files on them they would go on strike. I'm pretty sure I could use one as a hammer.

You CAN get used or refurbished ruggedized laptops that are useable; here's a site that sells them. BUT. BUT. You're still going to be paying a high price for computers that are slower and more limited than a cheaper, more delicate computer.

So basically you're combining two separate needs here and they're not playing together great. A rugged laptop can be a great thing to have if you're the kind of person who drops your phone ten times a day (me!) But it's going to be slower and more cumbersome than a lot of what is on the market and it's going to cost a lot.

Honestly in your situation I'd probably focus on getting better performance specs out of a thinner, cheaper, lighter laptop and maybe maximize performance at the lowest price possible if you know you're a laptop destroyer (there's a reason my phones are always whatever's cheapest and in a protective case; I drop them so frequently and so creatively that I can't afford to have nicer phones).

Either that or throw power into a desktop and get a chromebook or something similarly cheap to carry around campus and have your real working computer live on a flat surface that never moves.

If you're trying to find a middle ground, business-class computers can take a bit more abuse than the flimsiest cheapie student computers because they're meant to last and are expected to move around. ThinkPads are my fallback rec for a bunch of reasons, and "sturdiness" is one of those reasons, but a business desktop is not going to tolerate being dropped. So it depends on what level of sturdy you need.

From an ADHD management perspective, you might want to consider your habits around how/where the computer gets moved; don't put it in a backpack if you're likely to drop your backpack on the ground when you get to class. Don't put it on the arm of a chair if you'll forget and knock it off the chair. Don't put it on your bed if you'll forget and sit on it. Make very specific landing spaces and very specific rules for how it gets moved and where it can go (my laptop can only go in one specific backpack and only if it's totally turned off; my laptop cannot be moved when open, i need to shut it before I carry it someplace; my laptop is not allowed on the bed or the center of the couch, it is only allowed on my desk or on the arm of the couch; I tend to set my laptop down hard so I don't set it down on my desk, it gets set on a stand. Etc, etc, etc)

Hopefully that's at least somewhat helpful. I wish that real rugged computers were more affordable and had better performance specs; if you can find one that will perform to your needs and you can function with linux, you may be able to get a toughbook or something like that for under a thousand dollars but you'll sacrifice processing power to get one that old. Good luck, I'm sorry!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Shifting $677m from the banks to the people, every year, forever

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

"Switching costs" are one of the great underappreciated evils in our world: the more it costs you to change from one product or service to another, the worse the vendor, provider, or service you're using today can treat you without risking your business.

Businesses set out to keep switching costs as high as possible. Literally. Mark Zuckerberg's capos send him memos chortling about how Facebook's new photos feature will punish anyone who leaves for a rival service with the loss of all their family photos – meaning Zuck can torment those users for profit and they'll still stick around so long as the abuse is less bad than the loss of all their cherished memories:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

It's often hard to quantify switching costs. We can tell when they're high, say, if your landlord ties your internet service to your lease (splitting the profits with a shitty ISP that overcharges and underdelivers), the switching cost of getting a new internet provider is the cost of moving house. We can tell when they're low, too: you can switch from one podcatcher program to another just by exporting your list of subscriptions from the old one and importing it into the new one:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/#read-receipts-are-you-kidding-me-seriously-fuck-that-noise

But sometimes, economists can get a rough idea of the dollar value of high switching costs. For example, a group of economists working for the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau calculated that the hassle of changing banks is costing Americans at least $677m per year (see page 526):

https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_personal-financial-data-rights-final-rule_2024-10.pdf

The CFPB economists used a very conservative methodology, so the number is likely higher, but let's stick with that figure for now. The switching costs of changing banks – determining which bank has the best deal for you, then transfering over your account histories, cards, payees, and automated bill payments – are costing everyday Americans more than half a billion dollars, every year.

Now, the CFPB wasn't gathering this data just to make you mad. They wanted to do something about all this money – to find a way to lower switching costs, and, in so doing, transfer all that money from bank shareholders and executives to the American public.

And that's just what they did. A newly finalized Personal Financial Data Rights rule will allow you to authorize third parties – other banks, comparison shopping sites, brokers, anyone who offers you a better deal, or help you find one – to request your account data from your bank. Your bank will be required to provide that data.

I loved this rule when they first proposed it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/10/getting-things-done/#deliverism

And I like the final rule even better. They've really nailed this one, even down to the fine-grained details where interop wonks like me get very deep into the weeds. For example, a thorny problem with interop rules like this one is "who gets to decide how the interoperability works?" Where will the data-formats come from? How will we know they're fit for purpose?

This is a super-hard problem. If we put the monopolies whose power we're trying to undermine in charge of this, they can easily cheat by delivering data in uselessly obfuscated formats. For example, when I used California's privacy law to force Mailchimp to provide list of all the mailing lists I've been signed up for without my permission, they sent me thousands of folders containing more than 5,900 spreadsheets listing their internal serial numbers for the lists I'm on, with no way to find out what these lists are called or how to get off of them:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/22/degoogled/#kafka-as-a-service

So if we're not going to let the companies decide on data formats, who should be in charge of this? One possibility is to require the use of a standard, but again, which standard? We can ask a standards body to make a new standard, which they're often very good at, but not when the stakes are high like this. Standards bodies are very weak institutions that large companies are very good at capturing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

Here's how the CFPB solved this: they listed out the characteristics of a good standards body, listed out the data types that the standard would have to encompass, and then told banks that so long as they used a standard from a good standards body that covered all the data-types, they'd be in the clear.

Once the rule is in effect, you'll be able to go to a comparison shopping site and authorize it to go to your bank for your transaction history, and then tell you which bank – out of all the banks in America – will pay you the most for your deposits and charge you the least for your debts. Then, after you open a new account, you can authorize the new bank to go back to your old bank and get all your data: payees, scheduled payments, payment history, all of it. Switching banks will be as easy as switching mobile phone carriers – just a few clicks and a few minutes' work to get your old number working on a phone with a new provider.

This will save Americans at least $677 million, every year. Which is to say, it will cost the banks at least $670 million every year.

Naturally, America's largest banks are suing to block the rule:

https://www.americanbanker.com/news/cfpbs-open-banking-rule-faces-suit-from-bank-policy-institute

Of course, the banks claim that they're only suing to protect you, and the $677m annual transfer from their investors to the public has nothing to do with it. The banks claim to be worried about bank-fraud, which is a real thing that we should be worried about. They say that an interoperability rule could make it easier for scammers to get at your data and even transfer your account to a sleazy fly-by-night operation without your consent. This is also true!

It is obviously true that a bad interop rule would be bad. But it doesn't follow that every interop rule is bad, or that it's impossible to make a good one. The CFPB has made a very good one.

For starters, you can't just authorize anyone to get your data. Eligible third parties have to meet stringent criteria and vetting. These third parties are only allowed to ask for the narrowest slice of your data needed to perform the task you've set for them. They aren't allowed to use that data for anything else, and as soon as they've finished, they must delete your data. You can also revoke their access to your data at any time, for any reason, with one click – none of this "call a customer service rep and wait on hold" nonsense.

What's more, if your bank has any doubts about a request for your data, they are empowered to (temporarily) refuse to provide it, until they confirm with you that everything is on the up-and-up.

I wrote about the lawsuit this week for @eff@mastodon.social's Deeplinks blog:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/no-matter-what-bank-says-its-your-money-your-data-and-your-choice

In that article, I point out the tedious, obvious ruses of securitywashing and privacywashing, where a company insists that its most abusive, exploitative, invasive conduct can't be challenged because that would expose their customers to security and privacy risks. This is such bullshit.

It's bullshit when printer companies say they can't let you use third party ink – for your own good:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-ceo-blocking-third-party-ink-from-printers-fights-viruses/

It's bullshit when car companies say they can't let you use third party mechanics – for your own good:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

It's bullshit when Apple says they can't let you use third party app stores – for your own good:

https://www.eff.org/document/letter-bruce-schneier-senate-judiciary-regarding-app-store-security

It's bullshit when Facebook says you can't independently monitor the paid disinformation in your feed – for your own good:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/05/comprehensive-sex-ed/#quis-custodiet-ipsos-zuck

And it's bullshit when the banks say you can't change to a bank that charges you less, and pays you more – for your own good.

CFPB boss Rohit Chopra is part of a cohort of Biden enforcers who've hit upon a devastatingly effective tactic for fighting corporate power: they read the law and found out what they're allowed to do, and then did it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis

The CFPB was created in 2010 with the passage of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, which specifically empowers the CFPB to make this kind of data-sharing rule. Back when the CFPA was in Congress, the banks howled about this rule, whining that they were being forced to share their data with their competitors.

But your account data isn't your bank's data. It's your data. And the CFPB is gonna let you have it, and they're gonna save you and your fellow Americans at least $677m/year – forever.

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/2024/11/01/bankshot/#personal-financial-data-rights