#Urban Platform

[mostlysignssomeportents]

But HP is still in business. Apple is still in business. Google is still in business. Microsoft is still in business. IBM is still in business. Facebook is still in business.

We don’t have those controlled burns anymore. Yesterday’s giants tower over all, forming a thick canopy. The internet is “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four.”

These tech companies have produced a lot of fire-debt. Over and over, they erupt in flames—in this short decade alone, every one of our tech giants has experienced a privacy scandal that should have permanently disqualified it from continuing to enjoy our patronage (and I do mean every one of them, including the one that spends millions telling you that it’s the pro-privacy alternative to the others).

Privacy is just one way that these firms are enshittifying themselves. There are the ghastly moderation failures, the community betrayals, the frauds and the billions squandered on follies.

We hate these companies. We hate their products. They are always on fire. They can’t help it. It’s the curse of bigness.

Companies cannot unilaterally mediate the lives of hundreds of millions — or even billions — of people, speaking thousands of languages, living in hundreds of countries.

- Let the Platforms Burn: The Opposite of Good Fires is Wildfires

[takeuchiitsuka]

#9142 Copyright © Takeuchi Itsuka. All Rights Reserved.

[lucyslenses]

Evening commute.

Shot on Kodak Portra 400.

[forthepleasureofmylife]

New York City Subway

Photo: Dieter Krehbiel

[bl00d-hail]

random platforms in the park. yesterday healed something in me.

[catbrarian]

⭑.ᐟ — BOOK REVIEW

the people on platform 5 by clare pooley

— RATING: 9/10 • GENRE: urban fiction, lesbian literature • TW: physical attack (once flashback)

— THOUGHTS: this book is a brilliant blend between a social commentary and humour along with lesbian representation. it touches upon topics of ageism, bullying and societal pressures in a gentle manner. its overall a feel good read with lovable characters and a happy ending. the book has its own darkness and depth adding on its layer among several. people will feel relatable and understood along its way.

— read an excerpt 📑

— read for a longer review 🗞️

[bloseroseone]

What is Urban Fantasy? Definition with Examples

Urban fantasy is a distinct type of fantasy that combines the magical and the contemporary. It is frequently situated in modern cities where paranormal phenomena coexist with normalcy. An intriguing universe where myths from antiquity and contemporary reality mix is created by combining magic, adventure, and the comfortable backdrop of metropolitan areas.

What is Urban Fantasy

Urban fantasy is fundamentally about fusing the fantastical with the everyday. Imagine exploring your city and learning that the coffee shop owner who serves you every morning is a werewolf, or that the police investigator who solves crimes has access to spells from antiquity. Urban fantasy creates a smooth transition between the actual world and the extraordinary, frequently incorporating mythology, folklore, and supernatural creatures into a contemporary context.

Key Characteristics of Urban Fantasy

Urban fantasy typically features:

Contemporary or near-contemporary urban settings: The setting of urban fantasy in contemporary or near-modern cities is one of its main features. Urban fantasy, in contrast to classic fantasy, frequently takes place in busy, well-known places like New York, London, or imaginary cities that are modeled after actual cities....Continue reading

[blackerthings]

thanks to black book tok i read Demon's Dream and been falling down the Elle Kayson / "urban" Black fiction rabbit hole on Kindle ever since...

[nerdgasm-22]

[newyorkthegoldenage]

In 1929, the concept of "landing fields" for air mail and passenger planes atop buildings in congested cities enjoyed a vogue. This sketch proposed one such platform for the top of Penn Station and the adjacent General Post Office.

Photo: Smithsonian Institution

[acircusfullofdemons]

fun fact Arcadia doesn't have stars. this is because it's a singular video game world within an arcade machine. and while a night sky isn't that hard to replicate with those graphics (see: galaga) i don't think it's the type of game to like. show the night sky. yknow?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Frank Wilhoit described conservativism as “exactly one proposition”:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.This is likewise the project of corporatism. Tech platforms are urgently committed to ensuring that they can do anything they want on their platforms — and they’re even more dedicated to the proposition that you must not do anything they don’t want on their platforms.

They can lock you in. You can’t unlock yourself. Facebook attained network-effects growth by giving its users bots that logged into Myspace on their behalf, scraped the contents of their inboxes for the messages from the friends they left behind, and plunked them in their Facebook inboxes.

Facebook then sued a company that did the same thing to Facebook, who wanted to make it as easy for Facebook users to leave Facebook as it had been to get started there.

Apple reverse-engineered Microsoft’s crown jewels — the Office file-formats that kept users locked to its operating systems — so it could clone them and let users change OSes.

Try to do that today — say, to make a runtime so you can use your iOS apps and media on an Android device or a non-Apple desktop — and Apple will reduce you to radioactive rubble.

- Let the Platforms Burn: The Opposite of Good Fires is Wildfires

[takeuchiitsuka]

#8995 Copyright © Takeuchi Itsuka. All Rights Reserved.

[lucyslenses]

bike to belmont.

Shot with Nikon D800.

[forthepleasureofmylife]

New York City Subway

Photo: Dieter Krehbiel

[tilbageidanmark]