#Rent an iPhone 11

[william8130]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Canada shouldn’t retaliate with its US tariffs

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.

Five years ago, Trump touted his "big, beautiful" replacement for NAFTA, the "free trade agreement" between the US, Mexico and Canada. Trump's NAFTA-2 was called the USMCA (US-Mexico-Canada Agreement) and it was pretty similar to NAFTA, to be honest.

That tells you a couple things: first, NAFTA was, broadly speaking a good thing for Trump and the ultra-wealthy donors who backed him (and got far richer as a result). That's why he kept it intact. NAFTA and USMCA are, at root, a way to make rich people richer by making poorer people poorer. Trump's base hated NAFTA because they (correctly) believed that it was being used to erode wages by chasing cheaper labor and more lax environmental controls in other countries. Neither NAFTA nor USMCA have any stipulations requiring exported goods to be manufactured by unionized workers, or in factories with robust environmental and workplace safety rules.

The point of NAFTA/USMCA is to goose profits by despoiling the environment, maiming workers, stealing their wages, paying them less, all while poisoning the Earth. Trump's "new" NAFTA was just the old NAFTA with some largely cosmetic changes so that Trump's base could be (temporarily) fooled into thinking Trump was righting the historic wrong of NAFTA.

However, there was one part of USMCA that marked a huge departure from NAFTA: the "IP" chapter. USCMA bound Canada and Mexico to implementing brutal new IP laws. For example, Mexico was forced to pass an anti-circumvention law that makes it a crime to tamper with "digital locks." This means that Mexican mechanics can't bypass the locks US car companies use to lock-out third party repair. Mexican farmers can't fix their own tractors. And, of course, Mexican software developers can't make alternative app stores for games consoles and mobile devices – they must sell their software through US Big Tech companies that take 30% of every sale:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Shamefully, Canada had already capitulated to most of these demands. Two Canadian Conservative Party politicians, Tony Clement and James Moore, had sold the country out in 2012, throwing away 6,138 negative responses to a consultation on a new DRM law (on the grounds that they were "babyish" views of "radical extremists"), siding instead with the 54 cranks and industry shills who supported their proposal:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

When Canadian politicians are pressed on why these anti-interoperability policies are good for Canada, they'll say that it's a condition of free trade, and the benefits of being able to export Canadian goods to the US without tariffs outweigh the costs of having to pay rents to American companies for consumables (like car parts or printer ink), repair, and software sales.

Sure, when Canadian software authors sell iPhone apps to Canadian customers, the payments take a round trip through Cupertino, California and return 30% short. But Canadian consumers get to buy iPhones without paying tariffs on them, and the oil, timber, and minerals we rip out of the ground can be sent to America without tariffs, either (oh, also, a few things that are still manufactured in Canada can do this, too).

Enter Trump, carrying a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods, which he has vowed to impose on his first day in office. Obviously, this demands a policy response. What should Canada do when Trump tears up his "big, beautiful" trade deal and whacks Canadian exporters? One obvious response is to impose a 25% retaliatory tariff on American exporters:

https://mishtalk.com/economics/canada-says-it-will-match-us-tariffs-if-trump-launches-trade-war/

After all, Canada and the US are one another's mutual largest trading partners. American businesses rely on selling things to Canadians, so a massive tariff on US goods will certainly make some of Trump's business-lobby backers feel pain, and maybe they'll talk some sense into him.

I think this would be a huge mistake. The most potent political lesson of the past four years is that politicians who preside over rising prices – regardless of their role in causing them – will swiftly feel the wrath of their voters. The public is furious about inflation, whether it comes from transient covid supply chain shocks, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, or cartels using "inflation" as cover for illegal, collusive price-gouging.

Canadians are very reliant on American imports of finished goods. That's another legacy of NAFTA: it crashed Canada's manufacturing sector. Canadian manufacturing companies treated the US as a "nearshore" source of non-union labor and weak environmental and safety rules, and shipped Canadian union jobs to American scabs. Canada's economy is supposedly now all about "services" but what we really export is stuff we tear out of the Earth.

Countries that are organized around resource extraction don't need fancy social safety nets or an educational system capable of producing a high-tech workforce. All you need to extract resources is a hole in the ground surrounded by guns, which explains a lot about shifts to the Canadian political climate since the Mulroney years.

Since Canada is now substantially reorganized as an open-pit mine for American manufacturers, cutting off American imports would drive the prices of everyday good sky-high, and would be political suicide.

But there's another way.

Because, of course, Canada – like any other country – has the capacity to make all kinds of things, including high-tech things. Sure, it's unlikely that Canada will launch another Research in Motion with a Blackberry smart-phone that will put the iPhone and Android in the shade. The mobile duopoly has the market sewn up, and can use predatory pricing, refusal to deal, and other anticompetitive tactics to strangle any competitor in its cradle.

But you know what Canada could make? A Canadian App Store. That's a store that Canadian software authors could use to sell Canadian apps to Canadian customers, charging, say, the standard payment processing fee of 5% rather than Apple's 30%. Canada could make app stores for the Android, Playstation and Xbox, too.

There's no reason that a Canadian app store would have to confine itself to Canadian software authors, either. Canadian app stores could offer 5% commissions on sales to US and global software authors, and provide jailbreaking kits that allows device owners all around the world to install the Canadian app stores where software authors don't get ripped off by American Big Tech companies.

Canadian companies like Honeybee already make "front-ends" for John Deere tractors – these are the components that turn a tractor into a plow, or a thresher, or another piece of heavy agricultural equipment. Honeybee struggles constantly to get its products to interface with Deere tractors, because Deere uses digital locks to block its products:

https://honeybee.ca/

Canada could produce jailbreaking kits for John Deere tractors, too – not just for Honeybee. Every ag-tech company in the world would benefit from commercially available, professionally supported John Deere jailbreaking kits. So would farmers, because these kits would restore farmers' Right to Repair their own tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

Speaking of repair: Canadian companies could jailbreak every make and model of every US automobile, and make independent, constantly updated diagnostic tools that every mechanic in the world could buy for hundreds of dollars, rather than paying the five-figure ransom that car makers charge for their own underpowered, junk versions of these tools.

Jailbreaking cars doesn't stop with repair, either. Cars like the Tesla are basically giant rent-extraction machines. If you want to use all the "features" your Tesla ships with – like access to the full charge on your battery – you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in subscription fees over the life of the car, and when you sell your car, all that "downloadable content" is clawed back. No one will pay extra to buy your used Tesla just because you spent thousands on manufacturer upgrades, because they're all downgraded when you sign over the pink slip.

But Canadian companies could make jailbreaking kits for Teslas that unlock all the features in the car for a single low price – and again, they could sell these to every Tesla owner in the world.

Elon Musk doesn't invent anything, he just takes credit for other people's ideas, and that's as true of bad ideas as it is for good ones. Musk didn't invent the extractive Tesla rip-off: he stole it from inkjet printer companies like HP, who have used the fact that jailbreaking is illegal to turn printer ink into the most expensive fluid in the world, selling for more than $10,000/gallon.

Canadian companies could sell jailbreaking kits for inkjet printers that disconnect them from "subscription" services and disable the anti-features that check for and reject third party ink. People all over the world would buy these.

What's standing in the way of a Canadian industrial policy that focuses on raiding the sky-high margins of American monopolists with third-party add-ons, mods and jailbreaks?

Only the IP laws that Canada has agreed to in order to get tariff-free access to American markets. You know, the access that Trump has promised to end in less than a week's time?

Canada should tear up these laws – and not impose tariffs on American goods. That way, Canadians can still buy cheap American goods, and then they can save billions of dollars every year on the consumables, parts, software, and service for those goods.

This is hurting American big business where it hurts – in the ongoing rents it extracts from Canadians through IP laws like Bill C-11 (the law that bans jailbreaking). Canada could become a global high-tech export powerhouse, selling "complementary" goods that disenshittify all the worst practices of US tech monopolists, from car parts to insulin pumps.

It's the only kind of trade war that Canadian politicians can win against Americans: the kind where prices for Canadians don't go up because of tariffs; where the price of apps, repair, parts, and upgrades goes way down; and where a new, high-tech manufacturing sector pulls in vast sums from customers all over the world.

Canada can win this kind of war, even against a country as big and powerful as the USA. After all, we did it once before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CK3EDncjGI

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/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

[allylikethecat]

⋆˚࿔ october prompts 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

Today was really busy and now it's after 9pm in my time zone but I got it done!!

²²⁾ a turquoise-tiled pool

“You should put some more sunscreen on,” said George, causing Matty to lift his head up, blinking sleepily from where he had been dozing in the sun, he had the imprint of the terry cloth fabric of his beach towel on his cheek. His pale shoulders had taken on a pink hue and George knew he was going to be sore if he stayed in the sun for much longer without lotion. But Matty was also like a lizard, trying to convince him to come into the shade would be pointless. 

“Can you do it?” Matty whined, “I’m comfortable,” he said and George sighed, setting aside the book he had been reading, hauling himself to his feet and padding across the pool deck to where Matty had dragged his own lounge chair into the sun. The concrete was hot against his bare soles. 

“You’re lucky I love you,” George grumbled, pouring sunscreen into the palm of his hand, and bending over to rub it into the irritated skin of Matty’s shoulders and back. His skin was warm, both from the burn and from the heat of the sun and he flinched when the cold lotion made contact. 

“Sorry,” said George, quickly as he worked the lotion into Matty’s skin. He hummed in acknowledgement, the sound vibrating through George’s fingers.

“Thank you,” said Matty, drawing out the syllable, drunk on sunshine when George had finished. 

“You’re welcome,” said George, unable to resist smacking the curve of Matty’s ass, causing him to yelp, picking his head up once again to glare before George returned to his own lounge chair, in the shade. He picked up his book once again, a thriller that he had seen at nearly every airport bookstore while touring last year but hadn’t had a chance to actually sit down and read despite carrying it through six different countries. 

They had rented a house on the coast, the waves lapping the shoreline, a turquoise-tiled pool in the foreground, the water glittering blue and inviting in the sunshine. George wished he could snap a picture, wished he could remember this moment forever, Matty laying face down in the sun, half asleep as he did his best to cook himself, the water glittering. But they had been adamant in their agreement, no phones this trip. Both of their iPhones were upstairs in the nightstand of the master bedroom, locked away so there wouldn’t be any kind of temptation. 

A picture wouldn’t do it justice anyway, George thought, turning back to his book. A picture wouldn't capture the sound of water moving against the shore, and against the sides of the pool. A picture wouldn’t capture the birds chirping in the distance, the smell of salt and chlorine and sunscreen. A picture wouldn’t capture the warmth of the sun and the heat in Matty’s gaze as he looked over the tops of his sunglasses, inquiring without words if George was interested in going another round. Heat pooled in George’s belly that had nothing to do with the sun. He sat his book down and grinned. 

Day: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |

[christinafuego]

A New Beginning

Oh boy. I have not been on this website in probably over 10 years now. Anyone who is old enough to remember early 2010's internet knows this website. If you're too young to remember, you're probably too young to be absorbing my art. I've long thought about having a blog hosted directly on my website (www.christinafuego.com), however GoDaddy doesn't seem to have the customization settings that they have here. Who even knows if anyone will read this. Tumblr is dead right? And besides, it would be rather narcissistic of me to think anyone dare give a fuck what I have to say.

Being back on here after so many years is comforting to me. 15 years ago a 9 year old Christina would be so fucking proud to see herself at 23 writing this from her own apartment, sitting inches away from her own home recording studio!!! Also typing this on a Macbook laptop.. the ultimate status symbol in my young eyes. (as well as the iPhone of course).

I must have the worst case of imposter syndrome ever. At least 3 times a week I stare around my studio apartment and look in my dresser mirror. I cannot believe there is a grown woman staring back at me in the mirror. Something nobody tells you about getting into your early 20s is that you go through what I am going to call "second puberty". Second puberty started for me at 22, when I first got in the place I am living in now. Basically I am set back to the same level of emotional instability and horniness as being 13. Only this time around being actually sexually active and having more life experience (ie experiencing actual nervous breakdown + years of untreated mental illness which does not even compare to any gripes I may have had from 11-13.)

I'm chalking this up to being the new bitch on the block in regards to this neighborhood I moved to. I moved from a different state, back to a borough of my home city that I have no ties to. I know nobody here. At first, I worked two part time jobs to pay rent, while also releasing multiple singles with no marketing budget. So they're effectively invisible for now. I ended up getting a good enough paying full time job where I can work only one job, however the corporate world is definitely not for me. The work week drains me and I am putting my all into making time for creative and promotional endeavors. At least I have a little money to invest in this shit now??? Where there is a will there is a way and I am a stubborn little bitch. I've got a track record to prove.

I am declaring now that this blog is gonna be 100% raw and unfiltered Christina. I'll be the first to admit it is very hard for me to hop in front of my phone and spout all this off to a camera and put it on TikTok... that's what they want music artists like myself to be now... TikTokers. I am not a TikToker. I am a starving artist who posts on social media only because I have to. In reality I am a socially awkward shy girl who sits in her room writing songs and hiding from the world.

I am hoping to use this to sort of live journal my career and life trials and tribulations.

Lately I feel like I am living in a different decade, century even. Just like everyone else nowadays, I miss the early 2000s. The 2000s period. That perfect sweet spot where we did have computers, but social media and smartphones did not completely overrun our society. People spoke face to face, and they made eye contact when speaking to you. If they wanted to "surf the net", they had to go home and wait 15 minutes for the computer to boot up. I'm tired of driving into Manhattan and seeing people wandering into traffic looking at their phone. I hope everyone who does that gets ran over.

I'm going off on a rant now. What I really mean to say is the current state of our world feels so overwhelming to me that I cannot even force myself to be excited for the future, that includes my own. Since about 2022, I have hardly absorbed any NEW media. For me, it's been about discovering old shit that's only new to me cause I'm actually a fucking baby.

Why does it feel like the color has been drained out of our world over the last 20 years? Why is minimalism even a thing? When did the music industry (THE HIPHOP INDUSTRY) become any and every loser with 10k+ followers dropping songs out of nowhere? I am the youngest old head you will probably ever meet. It does bug me that none of those people have a knowledge of the history of this genre, or a passion for the craft. Does it make me sick? Yes. Do I feel envy? Hell no. I believe in myself and my talents and much like Plankton plotting on how to get Krabs' secret formula, I am plotting on how to crack the code and the algorithm to make me a fucking mega star.

That's enough ranting for now. Maybe check out my other social media pages and website if you give a shit? Also follow me on here as well, anything helps!

-A girl writing raps in her room

[financialliteracyandopportunity]

WISDOM FROM RICH DAD.

From the book Rich DAD Poor DAD, by Robert Kiyosaki

1. Don’t work for money:

Rich don’t work for money. If you work for money, your mind will start thinking like an employee. If you start thinking differently like a rich man, you will see things differently. Rich works on their asset column, every dollar in their asset column is their hard-working employee.

2. Don’t be controlled by emotions:

Some people’s lives are always controlled by the two emotions of fear and greed. Fear keeps people in this trap of working hard, earning money, working hard, earning money, and hoping that it will reduce their fear. Secondly, most of us have the greed to get rich quickly. Yes, many people become rich overnight, but they have no financial education. So educate yourself and don’t be greedy or fearful.

3. Acquire assets:

Don’t buy liabilities on your way to financial freedom. People buy liabilities and think these are assets, but they are not. Many people buy luxuries first, like big cars, heavy bikes, or big houses to live in. But the rich buy assets and their assets buy luxuries. The rich buy houses and rent them, and they pay them for their Lamborghinis. The poor or middle class buy luxuries first, and the rich buy luxuries last.

4. Remember the KISS principle:

KISS stands for keeping it simple, and stupid. Don’t be too overloaded your mind when you are going to start your way to financial freedom. Things are simple and keep them simple. The simple thing to remember is assets put money in pocket and liabilities take money out of pocket. Always buy assets so they put money into your pocket.

5. Know the difference between assets and liabilities:

Assets are anything that puts money in your pocket, like stocks, bonds, real estate, mutual funds, rental properties, etc. Liabilities are anything that pulls money out of your pocket, like your house, your car, debt, etc. People think their home is their biggest asset, but it is not. A house is an asset when it generates money like when you rent a house, it generates money, and when your life in that house becomes a liability.

6. Don’t be a financial illiterate:

A person can be highly educated and become successful in their profession, but financially illiterate. Financial education is very important for any individual. Our schools and colleges did not teach us financial education. Many financial problems arise as a result of a lack of financial education. Start learning financial education and I suggest you read the book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad".

7. Increase your Wealth:

Wealth is defined as a person's ability to survive for a certain number of days in the future, or how long they could survive if they stopped working today. Consider your wealth and whether you would survive if you stopped working today for a year.

8. Mind your own business:

If you have a job, keep your job and start a part-time business and work it. Use the time that you spend on your iPhone, parties, or any other activity, to build your business. Never leave your job until you build your own business. Don’t struggle all of your life for someone else. Start your own business and grow your business.

9. Train your mind:

Your biggest asset is your mind. Many individuals watch opportunities with their eyes, but if you train your mind, you can see opportunities with your mind. If you train your mind well, it can create enormous wealth.

10. Learn technical skills:

Your financial IQ will be raised by learning these four technical skills:

Accounting is defined as the ability to read numbers. If you want to build an empire, then this is an essential skill. By learning this skill, you will be able to understand the strength and weaknesses of a business.

Investing: It is the science of making money.

Understanding markets: It is the science of supply and demand.

The Law: A person who has knowledge of the law of tax advantages and corporations can get rich faster than others.

11. Find opportunities that everyone else missed:

"Great opportunities are not seen with your eyes. They are seen with your mind. "

You can see many more opportunities with your mind than many people miss with their eyes. It is not rocket science, you just need to train your mind.

12. Learn to manage risk:

Investment is not risky, not knowing the investment is risky. If you want to reduce the risk, then increase your knowledge. This knowledge will not come by going to college, it will come by reading books or sitting with people who know the investment.

13. Learn management:

The main management skills are:

Management of cash flow

Management of system

Management of people

Sales and marketing are the most essential skills. The ability to sell and the ability to communicate with another human being, be it a customer, employee, fiancé, friend, or child, is a basic skill of personal success.

14. Manage fear:

“Failure inspires winners. Failure defeats losers.”

Everyone has a fear of losing money.

[florajones8130]

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[wpaffiliatepressplugin]

The Science of Incentives: Structuring Rewards in Your Affiliate Program

People don’t work for free. Whether it’s a job, a side hustle, or an affiliate program, everyone wants to know, what’s in it for me?

Incentives aren’t just about the money; they’re about psychology. Research shows that the right reward structure can increase performance by up to 44%. But the wrong incentives? They can kill motivation faster than a Netflix series cancellation.

So, how do you build an affiliate program that keeps people engaged and selling? Let’s break down five incentive structures that actually work, backed by science.

How to Create Rewards for Your Affiliate Program

1. Performance-Based Tiers:

A basic flat commission might seem fair, but it’s not motivating. Why? Because it doesn’t reward growth.

If you working a job where no matter how hard you worked, you made the same paycheck as someone barely trying. You’d lose interest, right? That’s exactly why performance-based tiers work in affiliate marketing.

How It Works:

Affiliates start at a base commission rate (e.g., 20%).

As they hit certain milestones, they move up in commission percentage.

Example:

1-10 sales: 20% commission

11-30 sales: 25% commission

30+ sales: 30% commission

Amazon Associates does this with their tiered commission system. Their affiliates earn more for selling more, keeping them engaged long-term.

The Science Behind It: This taps into what psychologists call the Goal Gradient Effect, people work harder as they get closer to a reward.

Pro Tip: If you’re using an affiliate platform like AffiliatePress, you can easily set up dynamic commission rates based on performance.

2. The Power of Cash + Non-Cash Rewards

Money is great, but it’s not the only motivator. Studies show that non-cash incentives can be 24% more effective than cash alone.

Why? Because cash is forgettable. A $500 bonus might go straight into rent, but an all-expenses-paid trip? That’s a flex people won’t stop talking about.

How to Structure It:

Offer cash rewards for steady performance (e.g., $50 for every 10 sales).

Include non-cash incentives for special achievements (e.g., “Sell 50 units and get the latest iPhone”).

Run seasonal prize promotions (e.g., “Top seller in December wins a MacBook”).

This mix keeps everyone engaged, some chase money, others chase experiences.

3. Referral Multipliers

Most programs focus only on sales, but what if affiliates could also earn from recruiting new affiliates?

This is where Referral Multipliers come in. Instead of a flat bonus for referrals, affiliates get a percentage of their recruit’s commissions.

How It Works:

Affiliate A recruits Affiliate B.

Every time B makes a sale, A gets 5% of B’s commission passive income.

The more affiliates A brings in, the more compound earnings they make.

This taps into network effects, just like Uber’s driver referral program, which paid top referrers six-figure bonuses.

Psychology Behind It: People are more motivated when rewards don’t require constant effort, this is known as passive reward theory.

4. Scarcity & Time-Limited Bonuses

Affiliate programs that run the same reward system year-round become boring. But add a limited-time offer, and suddenly, engagement spikes.

Scarcity increases perceived value, a concept proven by Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman.

How to Implement It:

Offer double commissions for 48 hours during product launches.

Create a “Weekend Hustle Challenge” with extra payouts.

Give early-bird bonuses for affiliates who hit a goal before a deadline.

Time limits force people to act fast, which means higher conversions for your affiliate program.

5. Gamification

Selling shouldn’t feel like a chore. Gamification taps into our natural love for competition and rewards, which is why companies using gamification see a 47% higher engagement rate.

Ways to Gamify Your Affiliate Program:

Leaderboards: Show top affiliates weekly, no one wants to be at the bottom.

Achievement Badges: Reward milestones (e.g., “First 10 sales” badge).

Mystery Bonuses: Randomly drop bonus commissions to keep people checking in.

Real-Life Example: Nike’s Run Club app uses badges, streaks, and competition to keep users hooked, same strategy applies to affiliate programs.

Final Thoughts

Your affiliate program is only as good as its rewards. If you want affiliates to stay engaged, you need a strategy.

To recap, the best incentives are:

The more you sell, the more you earn.

Money is great, but experiences drive loyalty.

Get paid for recruiting affiliates.

FOMO boosts engagement.

Make selling fun, not boring.

Affiliate marketing is a game and the right incentives decide who wins.

[planesspoken]

Guy who goes to movie theater, claims to have rented the place out

It works better when nobody is there, which is more and more frequent these days but I’ve seen it done with as many 10, 20 people in the audience. Still fun to say.

Alternate Ending:

I like the leather seating but my feet don’t touch the ground. I haven’t had an iPhone that fit my hand since the 8 we’re on 16. Now I’m at the movie theater asking for a booster seat. I’m getting jacked up. Now I can’t answer my constituency why I’d rather walk on the treadmill instead of lifting weights. Suddenly you seats are my problem. Throw in some regular seats balance it out.

Usher!

Get a shoe shine.

Now I don’t have court side seats to pro sporting events. I’m getting litigated for not walking outside, may have to live my afterlife as a complete shut in. I come hear for 90 minute respite and I have to sit in these ginormous seats. Fast forward 15 minutes I’m getting analyzed for in feet, tea and meet complex.

It’s Inri feet simplification.

It’s clearly an inferiority complex, plane as day.

I don’t have an iCal. I haven’t hit rock bottom. You’re being investigated for tanking your business. I’m in trouble because you’re in trouble. I’m catching biometric heat because I’m not making smart decisions with my hands, I’m paying $11 for a matinee. All because…., do you guys got beer?

McGuffins.

Tanking.

One H away from a hit.

Take care of your Joes.

[william8130]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Petard (Part I)

Few things are more wrong than "if you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Companies sell you out when they can, which is why John Deere tractor milks farmers for needless repair callouts and why your iPhone spies on you to provide data to Apple's surveillance advertising service:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

When a vendor abuses you, that's not punishment for you being a cheapskate and wanting to use services for free. Vendors who screw you over do so because they know they can get away with it, because you are locked in and can't shop elsewhere. The ultimate manifestation of this is, of course, prison-tech. A duopoly of private equity-backed prison-tech profiteers have convinced prisons and jails across America to get rid of calls, in-person visits, mail, parcels, libraries, and continuing ed, and replace them all with tablets that charge prisoners vastly more than people in the free world pay to access media and connect with the outside. Those prisoners are absolutely paying for the product – indeed, with the national average prison wage set at $0.53/hour, they're paying far more than anyone outside pays – and they are still the product.

Capitalists, after all, hate capitalism. For all the romantic odes to the "invisible hand" and all the bafflegab about "efficient market hypothesis," the actual goal of businesses is to make you an offer you literally can't refuse. Capitalists want monopolies, they want captive audiences. "Competition," as Peter Thiel famously wrote, "is for losers."

Few lock-in arrangements are harder to escape than the landlord-tenant relationship. Moving home is expensive, time-consuming, and can rip you away from your job, your kid's school, and your community. Landlords know it, which is why they conspire to rig rents through illegal price-fixing apps like Realpage:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/27/ai-conspiracies/#epistemological-collapse

And why they fill your home with Internet of Shit appliances that pick your pockets by requiring special, expensive consumables, and why they tack so many junk fees onto your monthly rent:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/01/housing-is-a-human-right/

Tenants aren't quite as locked in as prisoners, but corporations correctly understand that you can really fuck with a tenant over a long timescale without losing their business, and so they do.

Ironically, monopolists love each other. I guess if you loathe competition, a certain kind of cooperation comes naturally. That's why so many landlords have forged unholy alliances with internet service providers, who – famously – offer Americans the slowest speeds at the highest prices in the rich world, trail the world in infrastructure investment, and reap profits that put their global cousins in the shade.

Many's the apartment building that comes with a monopoly ISP that has a deal with your landlord. Landlords and ISPs call this "bulk billing" and swear that it reduces the cost of internet service for everyone. In reality, tenants who live under these arrangements have produced a deep, unassailable record proving that they pay more for worse broadband than the people next door who get to choose their ISPs. What's more, ISPs who offer "bulk billing" openly offer kickbacks to landlords who choose them over their rivals – in other words, even if you're paying for the product (your fucking home), you are still the product, sold to an evil telco.

Under Biden, the FCC banned the practice of ISPs paying kickbacks to landlords, over squeals and howls of protests from industry bodies like the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), National Apartment Association (NAA), and Real Estate Technology and Transformation Center (RETTC). These landlord groups insisted – despite all the evidence to the contrary – that when your landlord gets to choose your ISP, they do so with your best interests at heart, getting you a stellar deal you couldn't get for yourself.

This week, Trump's FCC chair Brendan Carr – who voted for the ban on kickbacks – rescinded the rule, claiming that he was doing so to protect tenants. This is obvious bullshit, as is evidenced by the confetti-throwing announcements froom the NMHC, NAA and RETTC:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/fcc-chair-nixes-plan-to-boost-broadband-competition-in-apartment-buildings/

Reading Jon Brodkin's Ars Technica coverage of Carr's betrayal of millions of Americans, I was reminded of a short story I published in 2014: "Petard: A Tale of Just Desserts," which I wrote for Bruce Sterling's "12 Tomorrows" anthology from MIT Tech Review. It's a fun little sf story about this same bullshit, dedicated to the memory of Aaron Swartz:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262535595/twelve-tomorrows-2014/

Realizing that there were people who were sounding the alarm about this more than a decade ago was a forceful reminder that Trumpism isn't exactly new. The idea that government should serve up the American people as an all-you-can-eat buffet for corporations that use tech to supercharge their predatory conduct has been with us for a hell of a long time. I've written a hell of a lot of science fiction about this, and sometimes this leads people to credit me with predictive powers. But if I predicted anything with my story "Radicalized," in which furious, grieving men murder the health industry execs who denied their loved ones coverage, I predicted the present, not the future:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/

Likewise in my story "Unauthorized Bread," which "predicted" that landlords would use "smart" appliances to steal from their poorest, most vulnerable tenants:

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

It's not much of a "prediction" to simply write a story in which "Internet of Things" companies' sales literature is treated as a straightforward idea and writing about how it will all work.

The same goes for "Petard." The most "predictive" part of that story is the part where I take the human rights implications of internet connections seriously. Back then (and even today), there were and are plenty of Very Serious People who want you to know that internet service is a frivolity, a luxury, a distraction:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell

They deride the idea that broadband is a human right, even after the pandemic's lesson that you depend on your internet connection for social connections, civic life, political engagement, education, health and employment:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/30/medtronic-stole-your-ventilator/#fiber-now

Writing sf about this stuff isn't predictive, but I like to think that it constitutes an effective rebuttal to the people who say that taking digital rights seriously is itself unserious. Given that, I got to thinking about "Petard," and how much I liked that little story from 2014.

So I've decided to serialize it, in four parts, starting today. If you're impatient to get the whole story, you can listen to my podcast of it, which I started in 2014, then stopped podcasting for four years (!) before finishing in 2018:

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_278

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_292

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_293

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_294_-_Petard_04

#

It's not that I wanted to make the elf cry. I'm not proud of the fact. But he was an elf for chrissakes. What was he doing manning — elfing — the customer service desk at the Termite Mound? The Termite Mound was a tough assignment — given MIT's legendary residency snafus, it was a sure thing that someone like me would be along every day to ruin his day.

"Come on," I said, "cut it out. Look, it's nothing personal."

He continued to weep, face buried dramatically in his long-fingered hands, pointed ears protruding from his fine, downy hair as it flopped over his ivory-pale forehead. Elves.

I could have backed down, gone back to my dorm and just forgiven the unforgivably stupid censorwall there, used my personal node for research or stuck to working in the lab. But I had paid for the full feed. I needed the full feed. I deserved the full feed. I was 18. I was a grownup, and the infantalizing, lurking censorwall offended my intellect and my emotions. I mean, seriously, fuck that noise.

"Would you stop?" I said. "Goddamnit, do your job."

The elf looked up from his wet hands and wiped his nose on his mottled raw suede sleeve. "I don't have to take this," he said. He pointed to a sign: "MIT RESIDENCY LLC OPERATES A ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY TOWARD EMPLOYEE ABUSE. YOU CAN BE FINED UP TO $2000 AND/OR IMPRISONED FOR SIX MONTHS FOR ASSAULTING A CAMPUS RESIDENCE WORKER."

"I'm not abusing you," I said. "I'm just making my point. Forcefully."

He glared at me from behind a curtain of dandelion-fluff hair. "Abuse includes verbal abuse, raised voices, aggressive language and tone –"

I tuned him out. This was the part where I was supposed to say, "I know this isn't your fault, but –" and launch into a monologue explaining how his employer had totally hosed me by not delivering what they'd promised, and had further hosed him by putting him in a situation where he was the only one I could talk to about it, and he couldn't do anything about it. This little pantomime was a fixture of life in the world, the shrugs-all-round nostrum that we were supposed to substitute for anything getting better ever.

Like I said, though, fuck that noise. What is the point of being smart, 18 years old and unemployed if you aren't willing to do something about this kind of thing. Hell, the only reason I'd been let into MIT in the first place was that I was constitutionally incapable of playing out that little scene.

The elf had run down and was expecting me to do my bit. Instead, I said, "I bet you're in the Termite Mound, too, right?"

He got a kind of confused look. "That's PII," he said. "This office doesn't give out personally identifying information. It's in the privacy policy –" He tapped another sign posted by his service counter, one with much smaller type. I ignored it.

"I don't want someone else's PII. I want yours. Do you live in the residence? You must, right? Get a staff discount on your housing for working here, I bet." Elves were always cash-strapped. Surgery's not cheap, even if you're prepared to go to Cuba for it. I mean, you could get your elf-pals to try to do your ears for you, but only if you didn't care about getting a superbug or ending up with gnarly stumps sticking out of the side of your head. And forget getting a Nordic treatment without adult supervision, I mean, toot, toot, all aboard the cancer express. You had to be pretty insanely desperate to go elf without the help of a pro.

He looked stubborn. I mean, elf-stubborn, which is a kind of chibi version of stubborn that's hard to take seriously. I mean, seriously. "Look, of course you live in the Termite Mound. Whatever. The point is, we're all screwed by this stuff. You, me, them –" I gestured at the room full of people. They all been allocated a queue-position on entry to the waiting room and were killing time until they got their chance to come up to the Window of Eternal Disappointment in order to play out I Know This Isn't Your Fault But… before returning to their regularly scheduled duties as a meaningless grain of sand being ground down by the unimaginably gigantic machinery of MIT Residency LLC.

"Let's do something about it, all right? Right here, right now."

He gave me a look of elven haughtiness that he'd almost certainly practiced in the mirror. I waited for him to say something. He waited for me to wilt. Neither of us budged.

"I'm not kidding. The censorwall has a precisely calibrated dose of fail. It works just enough that it's worth using most of the time, and the amount of hassle and suck and fail you have to put up with when it gets in the way is still less than the pain you'd have to endure if you devoted your life to making it suck less. The economically rational course of action is to suck it up.

"What I propose is that we change the economics of this bullshit. If you're the Termite Mound's corporate masters, you get this much benefit out of the shitty censorwall; but we, the residents of the Termite Mound, pay a thousand times that in aggregate." I mimed the concentrated interests of the craven fools who'd installed the censorwall, making my hands into a fist-wrapped-in-a-fist, then exploding them like a hoberman-sphere to show our diffuse mutual interests, expanding to dwarf the censorware like Jupiter next to Io. "So here's what I propose: let's mound up all this diffuse interest, mobilize it, and aim it straight at the goons who put you in a job. You sit there all day and suffer through our abuse because all you're allowed to do is point at your stupid sign."

"How?" he said. I knew I had him.

#

Kickstarter? Hacker, please. Getting strangers to combine their finances so you can chase some entrepreneurial fantasy of changing the world by selling people stuff is an idea that was dead on arrival. If your little kickstarted business is successful enough to compete with the big, dumb titans, you'll end up being bought out or forced out or sold out, turning you into something indistinguishable from the incumbent businesses you set out to destroy. The problem isn't that the world has the wrong kind of sellers — it's that it has the wrong kind of buyers. Powerless, diffused, atomized, puny and insubstantial.

Turn buyers into sellers and they just end up getting sucked into the logic of fail: it's unreasonable to squander honest profits on making people happier than they need to be in order to get them to open their wallets. But once you get all the buyers together in a mass with a unified position, the sellers don't have any choice. Businesses will never spend a penny more than it takes to make a sale, so you have to change how many pennies it takes to complete the sale.

Back when I was fourteen, it took me ten days to hack together my first Fight the Power site. On the last day of the fall term, Ashcroft High announced that catering was being turned over to Atos Catering. Atos had won the contract to run the caf at my middle school in my last year there, every one of us lost five kilos by graduation. The French are supposed to be good at cooking, but the slop Atos served wasn't even food. I'm pretty sure that after the first week they just switched to filling the steamer trays with latex replicas of grey, inedible glorp. Seeing as how no one was eating it, there was no reason to cook up a fresh batch every day.

The announcement came at the end of the last Friday before Christmas break, chiming across all our personal drops with a combined bong that arrived an instant before the bell rang. The collective groan was loud enough to drown out the closing bell. It didn't stop, either, but grew in volume as we filtered into the hall and out of the building into the icy teeth of Chicago's first big freeze of the season.

Junior high students aren't allowed off campus at lunchtime, but high school students — even freshmen — can go where they please so long as they're back by the third period bell. That's where Fight the Power came in.

WE THE UNDERSIGNED PLEDGE

TO BOYCOTT THE ASHCROFT HIGH CAFETERIA WHILE ATOS HAS THE CONTRACT TO SUPPLY IT

TO BUY AT LEAST FOUR LUNCHES EVERY WEEK FROM THE FOLLOWING FOOD TRUCKS [CHECK AT LEAST ONE]:

This was tricky. It's not like there were a lot of food trucks driving out of the loop to hit Joliet for the lunch rush. But I wrote a crawler that went through the review sites, found businesses with more than one food truck, munged the menus and set out the intersection as an eye-pleasing infographic showing the appetizing potential of getting your chow outside of the world of the corrupt no-bid edu-corporate complex.

By New Year's Day, 98 percent of the student body had signed up. By January third, I had all four of the food-trucks I'd listed lined up to show up on Monday morning.

Turns out, Ashcroft High and Atos had a funny kind of deal. Ashcroft High guaranteed a minimum level of revenue to Atos, and Atos guaranteed a maximum level to Ashcroft High. So, in theory, if a hundred percent of the student body bought a cafeteria lunch, about twenty percent of that money would be kicked back to Ashcroft High. They later claimed that this was all earmarked to subsidize the lunches of poor kids, but no one could ever point to anything in writing where they'd committed to this, as our Freedom of Information Act requests eventually proved.

In return for the kickback, the school had promised to ensure that Atos could always turn a profit. If not enough of us ate in the caf, the school would have to give Atos the money it would have made if we had. In other words: our choice to eat a good lunch wasn't just costing the school its expected share of Atos's profits — it was having to dig money out of its budget to make up for our commitment to culinary excellence.

They tried everything. Got the street in front of the school designated a no-food-trucks zone (we petitioned the City of Joliet to permit parking on the next street over). Shortened the lunch-break (we set up a Web-based pre-order service that let us pick and pre-pay for our food). Banned freshmen from leaving school property (we were saved by the PTA). Suspended me for violating the school's social media policy (the ACLU wrote them a blood-curdling nastygram, and raised nearly $30,000 in donations of $3 or less from students around the world once word got out).

Atos wouldn't let them re-negotiate the contract, either. If Ashcroft High wanted out, it would have to buy it's way out. That's when I convinced the vice-principal to let me work with the AP Computer Science class to build out a flexible, open version of Fight the Power that anyone could install and run for their own student bodies, providing documentation and support. That was just before Spring Break. By May 1, there were 87 schools whose students used Ftp to organize Atos alternative food-trucks for their own cafeterias.

Suddenly, this was news. Not just local news, either. Global. Atos had to post an earnings warning in their quarterly report. Suddenly, we had Bloomberg and Al Jazeera Business camera crews buttonholing Ashcroft High kids on their way to the lunch-trucks. Whenever they grabbed me, I would give them this little canned speech about how Atos couldn't supply decent food and were taking money out of our educational budgets rather than facing the fact that the children they were supposed to be feeding hated their slop so much that they staged a mass walkout. It played well with kids in other schools, and very badly with Atos's shareholders. But I'll give this to Atos: I couldn't have asked for a better Evil Empire to play Jedi against. They threatened to sue me — for defamation! — which made the whole thing news again. Stupidly, they sued me in Illinois, which has a great anti-SLAPP law, and was a massive technical blunder. The company's US headquarters were in Clearwater, Florida, and Florida is a trainwreck in every possible sense, including its SLAPP laws. If they'd sued me in their home turf, I'd have gone bankrupt before I could win.

They lost. The ACLU collected $102,000 in fees from them. The story of the victory was above the fold on Le Monde's site for a week. Turns out that French people loathe Atos even more than the rest of us, because they've had longer to sharpen their hate.

Long story slightly short: we won. Atos "voluntarily" released our school from its contract. And Fight the Power went mental. I spent that summer vacation reviewing Github commits on Ftp, as more and more people discovered that they could make use of a platform that made fighting back stupid simple. The big stupid companies were whales and we were their krill, and all it took was some glue to glom us all together into boulders of indigestible matter that could choke them to death.

I dropped out of Ashcroft High in the middle of the 11th grade and did the rest of my time with homeschooling shovelware that taught me exactly what I needed to pass the GED and not one tiny thing more. I didn't give a shit. I was working full time on Ftp, craiglisting rides to to hacker unconferences where I couchsurfed and spoke, giving my poor parental units eight kinds of horror. It would've been simpler if I'd taken donations for Ftp, because Mom and Dad quickly came to understand that their role as banker in our little family ARG gave them the power to yank me home any time I moved out of their comfort zone. But there was the balance of terror there, because they totally knew that if I had accepted donations for the project, I'd have been financially independent in a heartbeat.

Plus, you know, they were proud of me. Ftp makes a difference. It's not a household name or anything, but more than a million people have signed up for Ftp campaigns since I started it, and our success rate is hovering around 25 percent. That means that I'd changed a quarter-million lives for the better (at least) before I turned 18. Mom and Dad, they loved that (which is not to say that they didn't need the occasional reminder of it). And shit, it got me a scholarship at MIT. So there's that.

#

Network filters are universally loathed. Duh. No one's ever written a regular expression that can distinguish art from porn and no one ever will. No one's ever assembled an army of prudes large enough to hand-sort the Internet into "good" and "bad" buckets. No one ever will. The Web's got 100-odd billion pages on it; if you have a failure rate of one tenth of one percent, you'll overblock (or underblock) (or both) 100,000,000 pages. That's several Library of Congress's worth of pointless censorship — or all the porn ever made, times ten, missed though underfiltering. You'd be an idiot to even try.

Idiot like a fox! If you don't care about filtering out "the bad stuff" (whatever that is), censorware is a great business to be in. The point of most network filters is the "security syllogism":

SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

I HAVE DONE SOMETHING.

SOMETHING HAS BEEN DONE.

VICTORY!

Hand-wringing parents don't want their precious offspring looking at weiners and hoo-hahs when they're supposed to be amassing student debt, so they demand that the Termite Mound fix the problem by Doing Something. The Termite Mound dispenses cash to some censorware creeps in a carefully titrated dose that is exactly sufficient to demonstrate Something Has Been Doneness to a notional weiner-enraged parent. Since all the other dorms, schools, offices, libraries, airports, bus depots, train stations, cafes, hotels, bars, and theme parks in the world are doing exactly the same thing, each one can declare itself to be in possession of Best Practices when there is an unwanted hoo-hah eruption, and culpability diffuses to a level that is safe for corporate governance and profitability. #MissionAccomplished.

And so the whole world suffers under this pestilence. Millions of times every day — right at this moment — people are swearing at their computers: What. The. Fuck. Censorware's indifference to those minute moments of suffering is only possible because they've never been balled up into a vast screaming meteor of rage.

#

"Hey there, hi! Look, I'm here because I need unfiltered Internet access to get through my degree. So do you all, right? But the Termite Mound isn't going to turn it off because that would be like saying 'Here kids, have a look at this porn,' which they can't afford to say, even though, seriously, who gives a shit, right?"

I had them at 'porn," but now I had to keep them.

"Look at your tenancy agreement: you're paying twenty seven bucks a month for your network access at the Termite Mound. Twenty seven bucks — each! I'll find us an ISP that can give all of us hot and cold running genitals and all the unsavory religious extremism, online gaming, and suicide instructions we can eat. Either I'm going to make the Termite Mound give us the Internet we deserve, or we'll cost it one of its biggest cash-cows and humiliate it on the world stage.

"I don't want your money. All I want is for you to promise me that if I can get us Internet from someone who isn't a censoring sack of shit, that you'll come with me. I'm going to sign up every poor bastard in the Termite Mound, take that promise to someone who isn't afraid to work hard to earn a dollar, and punish the Termite Mound for treating us like this. And then, I'm going to make a loud noise about what we've done, and spread the word to every other residence in Cambridge, then Boston, then across America. I'm going to spread out to airports, hotels, train stations, buses, taxis — any place where they make it their business to decide what data we're allowed to see."

I whirled around to face the elf, who leapt back, long fingers flying to his face in an elaborate mime of startlement. "Are you with me, pal?"

He nodded slightly.

"Come on," I said. "Let 'em hear you."

He raised one arm over his head, bits of rabbit fur and uncured hides dangling from his skinny wrist. I felt for him. I think we all did. Elves.

He was a convincer, though. By the time I left the room, I already had 29 signups.

#

All evil in the world is the result of an imbalance between the people who benefit from shenanigans and the people who get screwed by shenanigans. De-shenaniganifying the world is the answer to pollution and poverty and bad schools and the war on some drugs and a million other horribles. To solve all the world's problems, I need kick-ass raw feeds and a steady supply of doofus thugs from central casting to make idiots of. I know where I can find plenty of the latter, and I'm damn sure going to get the former. Watch me.

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/2025/01/30/landlord-telco-industrial-complex/#captive-market

[mint-moon25]

HDG - BANKS

HDG - GIRLS - BOYS - KOREAN - SEOUL

TOLD - WHO - HELPED - ME - CARRY

THE - BAGS - THE - LAST - TIME

LINING - UP

ISLAM - 4 WIVES

SALAD - GOOD - THEIR - OBSESSION

CHEESE - PIZZA

HUNGRY - SO - WENT

SHARING - MY - NEW - CASE - WORKER

DIDN'T - KNOW - CITY - OF - MIAMI WHO

NEW - PAYER - IS - 4 - REST - OF - RENT

JOANA - BLK - WOMAN - SPANISH

SPEAKING - STOLE - MY - PURSE - AND

REST - OF - WHERE - 2 - SLEEP

STOLE - MY - UNLIMITED - FREE - BUS

AND - TRAIN - SO - SHE - CAN - FIND

ME - QUICKER

BEFRIENDING - ME - 2 - LET - ME KNOW

NOT - GIVING - 70% - OF - MY - SSI - THAT

IS - OVER - $700 - 2 - CAMILLUS - HOUSE

2 - B - HOMELESS

PSYCHIATRIST - MALE - HARRASSING ME

THE - OTHER - DAY - WITH - DEPAKOTE

MIAMI - POLICE - AND - THEM - AGREE

HOMELESS - AMERICANS

NO - MONEY - JOBLESS - SSI - RECEIVERS

ARE - MENTALLY - ILL

THEY - BELIEVE - THEY - SHOULD - B - YES

DRUGGED

HOMELESS - HOBOS - ON - SW 2 ST

NEAR - SW 2 AV

OWNER - OF - SMALL - SPUNKY - GUARD

MALE - DOG - ALL - THESE - WEIRDOS

FEMALE - PRUNE - BAG - SAGGING YES

BREASTS - ALL - ARE - ON - DEPAKOTE

SUPER - VIOLENT

SUPER - STRONG

LIKE - 5 MEN - AS - 1 PERSON

DEMONIC - STRENGTH

MARVEL's - 'AVENGERS'

SCARLET - FOUGHT - HULK HOGAN

JUST - SLIGHTLY - LESS - STRONG

THEN - GREEN - MAN

THEY'RE - ON - DEPAKOTE

BECAUSE - MIAMI - POLICE - SAID

HOMELESS - NEEDS - 2 B - DRUGGED

NEEDS - 2 B - MORE - OBEDIENT

DEMONIC - STRENGTH - VIOLENT

YELLING - AND - MORE

HE - WAS - YESTERDAY - STRONGLY

TELLING - ME - WHAT - 2 - BUY YES

NEXT

SAID - 'NO' - YELLED - THEY'RE - EXPENSIVE

AMAZON - PRIME

01) SAMSUNG S 22 - $240.95 - 128 GB

02) USA - APPLE - iPHONE 11 - $231.99 - 64 BG

WHAT's - EXPENSIVE - ABOUT - THAT

SAMSUNG - NOW - $1,999.99 - LIKE - LONG

AGO - ALWAYS - THAT

I - SAID - CAPITAL ONE - BANK - IS - BEST

CAPITAL ONE, N.A.

USES - HIGHEST - TECHNOLOGY

HE - TOLD - ME - AGE 59 - HE - KNOWS

WHAT - 2 - DO

GO - 2 - BANK - SHOW - ID - AND - SAY

ROBBED

TOLD - HIM - MUST - HAVE - ADDRESS

4 - NEW - CARDS

CAPITAL ONE - NOT - BANK - JUST - A

CAFE - WITH - ATMs - NO - CARD

NEEDED - JUST - SMARTPHONE

WELL - HE - SAID - WHEN - STOLEN?

BUY - ANOTHER

STORAGE - UNIT - HAS - 1 SMARTPHONE

RESERVED - STOLEN - USE - THAT - AND

BUY - ANOTHER - SIMPLE

NO - CARD - NEEDED

2 - ENTER - AFTER - HOURS - ANY CARD

WILL - DO - WITH - MAGNETIC - STRIP

HE - SAID - 'NOT - INTO - THAT'

SCARED - ME - ABOUT - HOW - EXPENSIVE

SAMSUNG - AND - APPLE - ARE

AMAZON - PRIME - SAYS - NOT

INDIA - GIRL - GAVE - ME - SO - MUCH INFO

FAST - WAS - THE - BEST - CONVERSATION

GAVE - HER - HIGH - FEEDBACK

10L - AMAZON - HUB - LOCKER

WATERPROOF - THESE - WORK

PUT - ON - OUR - SIDE - AT BACK

8 INCH - TOP

19 INCH - LENGTH

MEMORY - $13.99

GETTING - SOON 2 - AND - PINK 2

GETTING - INFLATABLE - PILLOW

Lia None of My Business, 230806

for anon

[sporadicarbitergardener]

October 4, 2023

Today I woke up around 11:24 am . Nothing in mind particuraly came out.

My mindset last night could not stop feeling the way it was feeling because memories were swarming as well. Also got a werid old Land lord that use to date Jenifur Haynes and I use to date her son . HEr son lived at the Landlords actually house and now that man is harrasing my own blood family members because he is nosey can't mind his business and is looking for people to harras becasue even n May of this year when we all sat by the pool even his apartmnet tenants actually saved my fathers data as well because well. Everyone started noticing that John Durio was being werid as well. He even told me to go sell my body to pay him "rent". Because he doesn't actually understand the real danages behind porsitution either and that is a field of work I can never actually get into because right now even from a dsitance I can see that he is harrasing people I know and also talking to peope he has no business tl;aking to becasue John Durio never really knew how to mind his business because in a werid way he has love in his heart for me and hmy daughter but he even looked me in my face and said that "it's strictly business." Not understanding that one. you don't harass a girls family or get involve yourself into someting that has nothing to do with you because its werid , looks scary and no actuall telling on what kind of mind set this man really has because he even took a type C wire withthe end piece ofr an Iphone, the kind you can actually because he was stealing data information he has no business stealing and giving out to other becasue its a violation of privacy rights and also its signs of a possible demented sick mind frame of a man because the way he processed everything . His traits showed "family" ways of things but he is even taking advantage of his tenants feelings as well . Jen jen haynes also had a camera added to her apartment beause no tellling what kind of shit was said even behind my back because on some honesty that man could't eever mind his own business instead he took my child placed her witrh her father whwenhe had no business doing so , Not really sure how to feel about anything because most likely even my ex boyfriends daughter I use to watch most likely is going through the shit as well. When she use to come up to me at 4500 Lefkoe when I use to pay rent and live there one time baby sitti g in July while ttrying to figure out why why she walkied up to me sayng that " I want to go see jesus". Ananlyzing the words that came out of her mouth and having past experience with the same issues from April 22, 2018 I can tell she sees the same fighting I saw because welll shes hurt. When she came to me and siad that it wasn't my palce to aslk questions because at her "home"> Her momma is doing the best she can a well because she knows how it feels to be beaten as well. I told her to remember jesus Mrecy becasue this year feels like its the time to attack and over tax and even get back at women and use their data for profit and use them against ppeople that is having hard times in life because some time people judgge the worth or the rights of mother by even how they look and that is a sick and scary way of things on how they are going on about the shit because I feel fooled to ever thing I was doing the right thing by letting her father see her outside the court room because I felt like I could trust him becasue back in the day we made a promise. To never let our daughter feel what we been through or to attack the other parent for their mistakes. THat is also why I am missing court because even in January of this year of 2023 at the Dickeys in Harrahan he was bringing pills with him with a mutual friend of ours and kept trying to feed them to me because he knew something wasn't right on the other side as well. He was also trying to help me keep my mouth shut

[florajones8130]

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STYLE & FASHION

Diana Ross Sings ‘Happy Birthday’ To Beyoncé In A Stunning Black Sequin Dress

Two icons were on stage together - and we loved every minute! 

Written byLauren E. Williams

Published onSeptember 5, 2023

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Duration Time7:11START CASTINGSETTINGSFullscreen

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Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty

Diana Ross graced the Renaissance World Tour stage in Los Angeles to celebrate Beyoncé’s birthday. And the moment will live rent-free in our heads.

Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour stops in LA have been filled with non-stop surprises, celebrities and fashion slays. So, as the multihyphenate singer culminated the SoFi Stadium performances on her birthday, fans expected even more jaw-dropping moments and iconic cameos. And that is precisely what the BeyHive got.

RELATED: The Best Celebrity Looks At Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour Stop In LA

According to viral videos from the final performance, former Supreme Diana Ross walked on stage around 11:00 p.m. She wore a black sequin dress in a style that has become her signature. The gown was long, sparkly, dramatic, and adorned with a black feather shrug. Diana’s curls flowed with every graceful move she made.

After exclaiming, “Hello, LA!” Diana reportedly sang “Love Hangover” and led the sold-out SoFi Stadium crowd in a rendition of “Happy Birthday” to Beyoncé. The “Love On Top” singer ran on stage to meet her, giving us the iconic moment we needed. Known for her numerous outfit changes, the Renaissance leader wore her now infamous custom Loewe embellished bodysuit. 

RELATED: Check Out Beyonce’s Best Stage Performance Outfits Of All Time

Following the birthday wishes, the 42-year-old thanked Diana for paving the way for her. Beyoncé gushed, “Thank you so much; you are so amazing. This is the legendary Diana Ross. I would not be me without you. Thank you so much for all of your sacrifice, your beauty, and your grace. Thank you for opening the doors for me.”

Diana was one of several celebrities in attendance for the Virgo’s birthday groove. Kendrick Lamar performed, and other celebrities spotted included Zendaya, Normani, Brandy, Adele, Lizzo, Justin and Hailey Bieber, Katy Perry, Kate Hudson, Kim and Khloé Kardashian, and Chris Rock.

The BeyHive is also talking about Blue Ivy’s mother’s heartfelt speech following her birthday wishes. In viral videos, she said she is proud of every “moment, stretch mark and FUPA.” 

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Beyoncé also thanked her family, including her husband, Jay-Z, and mother, Tina Knowles, and sent a shout out to her former group Destiny’s Child, who fans hope are going on a reunion tour to celebrate their 25th anniversary.

There are iconic moments in music that we always tend to remember. And Sept. 4 with Beyoncé, Diana, and other celebrity surprises will definitely be one of them.

DON’T MISS…

Birthday Bey: 21 Times Beyonce Slayed Us To Fashion Smithereens

Is There A Destiny’s Child Reunion In The Works?

MADAMENOIRE: Diana Ross Is The Boss Of Legend And Legacy

Sent from my iPhone

[asherwelles]

Basics

Full Name: Asher Warren Welles

Birthday: July 6th

Age: 37

Zodiac Sign: Cancer

Religion: Non-Denominational

–Religious Level (1-10): 1

Birthplace: Los Angeles, California at the Welles Mansion [x]

Current Residence: Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California. Renting a bachelor pad. (and may one day get evicted)

Height: 5' 11"

Hair Color: Dark brown

Eye Color: Slate blue

Sexuality: Bisexual

Love/Romantic Preference: Biromantic

Relationship Status: Single / Formerly arranged to marry Astrid Winters / Picks up stray contracts

Languages Known: English, French, Spanish

Details

Car: Ducati Streetfighter V4 Lamborghini [x] (formerly had a Laborghini Aventador in orange before crashing it shortly after being given it for his 16th birthday [x])

Phone: iPhone 14 Pro in black

Music Genres: Neo Soul, EDM Trance

Wardrobe: Luxury Streetwear (casual). Jackets: [x] [x] Jeans: [x] [x] Shirts: [x] [x] Shoes: [x]

Estimated Net Worth: formerly, the family's net worth was estimated to be close to or at $1B. All was liquidated jointly via Prometheus' claims and his father's embezzlement. Currently, Asher is reliant on his director salary which is equivalent to $175,000 (which is stretched due to his inability to budget). He has a habit of running tabs and being late to pay.

Ransom Value: Up to Atticus, so probably not a whole lot!

Accent: Standard American

Bloodlines + Connections

Full list of immediate family [x]

Atticus Winters | Captor

Astrid Winters | Owes him something but he doesn't know what, just trust him

Aria Winters | almost sister-in-law but won't go away

Lina Papen | distant cousin. only family he has left

Katie Wright | childhood pal (thought she was a total square growing up but just said it behind her back. now she's the only one from back then who's nice to him.)

Stella Roberts | unfortunate accident | deceased contract

Beth Walker | Feminazi (but still a 9/10)

Levels

Drinking (1-10): 5. Mainly can be found with an overpriced energy drink like Xyience. At a club, he'll order a Moscow Mule or a few shots. Top shelf liquor only.

Swearing: 4

Smoking status: 4. (uses a Juul)

Drugs: 2 (could go for some party drugs now and then)

Cooking proficiency: 1 (knows how to use a microwave sometimes)

Intelligence: 8

Emotional/Social Intelligence: 7 and dwindling

Creativity: 7 and dwindling

Temper: 5 (if he wasn't a coward... that's the only thing holding him back. Otherwise, he's just a former spoiled brat who never grew out of the habit but can't back it up with money.)

[wanderlustwayadventures1]

21 Day Europe Adventure September 2023

On 9/1 we took a 7pm Aer lingus direct flight from JFK to fly directly to Dublin Ireland. With a 8 yo I thought I would give a night time flight to try sleeping on the plane so we could gain an extra day of site seeing.

The plan was to get to the airport early so we didn’t have to rush, but we got there too early and had to wait an hour before checking in our bags in and able to go thru security. Once we go thru security we where able to get dinner inside.

Insider tip: bring water bottles to grab filter water from the airport at no extra charge!

We grab burgers because we didn’t get dinner until 9pm. The plan was to go to sleep on the plane but due to so many babies crying we were unable to sleep. Def was not excepting this! Lesson learned! My son manage to sleep for 3 hours, he was so happy playing with the plane’s features, it kept him very entertained with games and movies. However I did download lots of shows and movies on Disney plus and Netflix’s on his iPad as a backup. He did not even asked for his iPad which was a plus during the flight!

ARRIVAL

When arrived the next morning ( 8 hours ) it was 8am in Ireland but 4am in est time zone. We went directly to the car rentals in the airport assuming that our rental would be there. To my surprise it wasn’t. I was able to get wifi and get into my emails where I read the instructions from the rental. It instructed us to go to terminal 1 shuttle area and to call when we arrived so that a shuttle would pick us up. Since I could only use my data with my esim I purchase online via Airalo I could not make calls. I tried using my google voice but since it was not a US number I could not call the number. I had to ask one of the airport works to call for us, which they did and we were able to let them know we where waiting.

Once our shuttle came were where taken 5 mins away to a rental location where we waited to pay the balance our our rental. I was sure that our rental came with insurance but it didn’t. We were given a choice to leave a credit card with a 1,000 euros block or to add insurance for 500 euros. Since this was my first time driving on the left side we opt for the 500 euro option so we would be covered. Luckily we did not have any accidents just a few scares along the way 😀.

Here’s what the rental cost 10 days 9/2-9/11

$787 deposit( $164.47 ) plus insurance $651 total $1438

As we where waiting we found out that the apple play was not working properly so we had to wait for a different car. After 3 hours they where able to get us a car with a working gps, which I’m not a fan off but it would be good for a backup Incase my gps lost connection. To my surprise the usb iPhone connectors worked and the car was able to connect to apple play but found that it drained my esim data to quickly.

Trick: One trick I learned was to place my phone on airplane mode once I got the directions so that the data from the esim would not drain so quickly. I was able to do 10 days off 3gb.

Trip Start:

1st Hotel, Day 1 Glashaus Hotel right outside of Dublinin Tallaght. The hotel was extremely comfortable, clean and had access to transit. The hotel is very well located near a mall and an Aldi to purchase gallon of waters. Luas train is a 1 minute walk away and makes getting to Central Dublin quick and inexpensive. Since we had a rent a car we did not take the transit but we could see it right outside of our hotel room. The hotel did provided onsite parking.

We had arrived an hour early then checkin so we left our luggage there and went into the restaurant to have a late lunch. The food was delicious!

Although breakfast was not included we where able to purchase it after 9am at the restaurant right in the hotel. We checked out early, the first day was going to be a long drive. We checked out at 7am and headed to Northern Ireland.

Day 2 Here where our stops:

Stop 1: Malahide Castle

Stop 2: Breakfast at Cafe Provence Malahide

Stop 3: Titanic Belfast The Titanic Experience is the world’s most authentic retelling of the iconic story. The self-guided tour extends over nine interactive galleries where you discover the sights, sounds, smells and stories of the ship, as well as the people and city that made her.

Close by Titanic Belfast, two important titans of naval history are on view. SS Nomadic is the last remaining White Star Line ship in the world and was built alongside Titanic in 1911 to ferry passengers to the great liner from shore. A self-guided tour is included in your ticket to Titanic Belfast.

Lunch at the Titanic Hotel Belfast right beside Titanic Belfast. This luxury hotel is located in the old Harland and Wolff Headquarters and Drawing Offices and is filled with Titanic heritage.

Stop 4: Causeway hotel

If you'd like to explore the Giant’s Causeway, you can’t stay any closer than the Causeway Hotel. During your stay, you can discover this UNESCO World Heritage site for free – all from the comfortable base of this Grade II listed hotel. enjoy this dramatic landscape from the comfort of the Causeway Hotel – offers 28 suite rooms, all with views of the Atlantic Ocean, or with a private terrace to enjoy the sun setting in this magical landscape.

We checked into our hotel at 8pm booked dinner reservations for 8:45pm. The brought our bags to our room and we freshened up and went down to dinner then went to bed directly after dinner so that we could wake up at 7am to do an early morning hike to the causeways.

Day 3 Northern Island 7 am hike to the causeways

Tip: The earlier you go the better opportunity you get for photo ops. Less crowds!

The Giant's Causeway lies at the foot of the basalt cliffs along the sea coast on the edge of the Antrim plateau in Northern Ireland. It is made up of some 40,000 massive black basalt columns sticking out of the sea. The dramatic sight has inspired legends of giants striding over the sea to Scotland. Geological studies of these formations over the last 300 years have greatly contributed to the development of the earth sciences.

Stop 1 carrick a rede rope bridge

Stop 2 Ballintoy harbour

Stop 3 Bushmills Inn for lunch in the town of Bushmills.

Stop 4 Dunluce Castle / castle rock

stop 5 Mussenden Temple

stop 6 Dark hedges

stop 7 back to Causeway Hotel

Day 4 breakfast at the causeway hotel

Then we headed to the UNESCO MUSEUM: The Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast site was inscribed as a World Heritage Site (WHS) by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1988.

Took the trail down the causeway for one last view!

Below is a map of the places we visited while we stayed at the causeway hotel. The last image is a map of our hotels while we road tripped around Ireland!

My first blog was 3 whole days and the morning of our 4th day. Please go to the next blog post for part 2 of our Ireland Adventure Road Trip…. Day 4 continues with our lunch stop in The town of Derry/Londonderry and afternoon tea ashford castle!