#apps to sell stuff locally

[dailycass-cain]

So you want to preorder the NEW Batgirl #1 coming to a comic shop near you on November 6?

Well, hopefully, this can help you attain that preorder. So you're doing your part to make sure this series lasts.

The first step is to find your local comic shop. Use a search engine for that most heavenly of place that has comics.

Or if you already know search them online (they might have an online shop), an app, call the store, or visit it in person.

Now I'm using my experience from the shops I visit in the midwestern area. So this could be different in the region you're in the US (or Canada). I have no idea on the best way to attain this book outside the country save Canada. So anyone who can answer that pls chim in here.

I mean, possibly, you could buy it on their website (or their eBay shop) and MAYBE they have international shipping. Then again, if you have a US friend maybe they can do this all for you?

Preorders will begin next month. If you go in person you could put your order in. If you know those who work at the LCS they might think of you and put that in your pull list.

I know one LCS in my area, he is thoughtful enough to sometimes keep a variant that has Cass for me knowing that Wed I pull up I'll nab it. Cause he knows my weakness. That, and Rian Gonzales variants.

Likewise, the other LCS I went too. There was a clerk there who'd put stuff in my pull that she knew I'd like.

But there's always that chance they might not do any of this. So it's best to just do this person next month to guarantee your preorder.

Now let's talk about variants. Some shops if they sense there's "blood in the water" when preordering will order more comics. More comics mean more chances to get the variants (i.e. the Artgerm or Jeff Dekal ones).

There are only two variants that might be problematic to attain that I can foresee.

The holo variant from Artgerm one. Unless there's a comic convention near you that same weekend there's a good chance these might sell pretty fast. It is Artgerm after all.

Unless, your LCS is part of a "larger" chain. So one of my LCSs is a Graham Crackers which is a HUGE midwestern comic shop. So there's a really good chance I'll be able to attain all my variants.

HOWEVER....

The other LCS I go to, while they are my primary pull list really don't dabble much too much in variant covers.

This is because they're trying to make a profit and they don't see being able to make one. At least that's what I was told back when I had Batgirls on my pull.

If they do. It would be two or three copies. Like the last AAPI Batgirls variant. Said my shop owner did secure me a copy even without me asking them because they knew of my interest in Cass.

I've noticed since they "enacted" that policy they do order more of the "hotter" comics. Like I noticed a few Birds of Prey, Batman, and X-Men variants in one visit not too long ago.

Still, I know attaining the 1:25 Skylar Patridge will be next to impossible from them. They don't order 25 copies of a comic (unless it's Batman or Spider-Man).

For that, I'd recommend a larger comic shop chain (or if you know your LCS. They might order enough and you can reserve said copy via them next month).

If not...

Again, I'd recommend a larger chain with their web shop or if they have one via eBay. I've nabbed all the variants I want because Graham Crackers is HUGE in the Midwest.

If you know your shop will have more than 25 copies of Batgirl #1 please preorder the 1:25 by Patridge next month if possible.

Or wait until their website opens orders (usually a week prior to release on a Thursday.

If not... There's always a chance if there's a comic around that period (or a bit after) they might have it to purchase. However, you so won't be paying the original cost of it. 😬

Now here's my overall impression of the release. DC itself doesn't think this comic might sell. I mean they're only doing a 1:25 only for this series. That's it.

That already is 🚨 because we aren't getting a 1:50 like we did with Batgirls #1.

That is why I HIGHLY stress PLEASE PREORDER THIS COMIC! DO NOT WAIT UNTIL NOVEMBER 6th! Show your love for this character by preordering the heck out of it! Add this to your pull list!

Please do your part!

That said, please go crazy and nab these covers and variants. They ain't kidding when the last Cass solo was over 14 years ago (I'm counting Batgirl Vo1. 2). You've voiced your want. DC heard it. This is you honoring that want.

Cause if not...

Well, I can't say cause in all honesty? The old DC regime is gone. They ain't side scheming or pushing something else behind the scenes. Just this might be it for Cass when it comes to an ongoing solo.

Why I say please do your part. Hopefully, this helps and if not someone better than me can advise you better (and they reply via this post). But this is me doing my best with the knowledge I know.

[dduane]

I just saw from your comment on the shrinkflation post that you’re also lactose intolerant with IBS. So listen. This weekend I made Nutella-stuffed chocolate chip cookies, and in doing so realised Nutella is a HUGE trigger for me. It’s been years since I ate it so it came as a total surprise. And the cookies were Amazing, so this is just crushing.

Anyway I see your post and I think, you’ve probably been doing this a while, I’ve seen on other posts that you like chocolate, perhaps you have also encountered this issue and have found a Nutella replacement that’s actually good?

Help me Obi Wan.

I wish I could be sure to be of some genuine help here, as IBS seems to be one of those Every Person Their Own Test Tube things. I may get good mileage out of a strategy, but yours may seriously vary.

Re: chocolate: I don't seem to be bothered by it as such. It's the associated milk content that seems to cause me the most problems, so I watch the package labeling closely for that—and fortunately EU package labeling as regards allergens and triggers is, by and large, very good.

I've been using the Monash University FODMAP method of helping to control IBS, but am surprised to find that its associated app doesn't seem to say anything about Nutella. (Which strikes me as a bit weird, but I may be searching incorrectly.) ...Casa de Sante (which is a third-party site that sells "gut supplements") suggests that Nutella is low-FODMAP due to containing fairly low amounts of known triggers. So, all right, that's nice.... but I'll still take that assessment with a grain of salt, as these are people who want to sell you IBS-adjacent supplements.

Here's where things get complicated, though. I do occasionally have a little Nutella (or the non-branded version of it that we get from our local supplier of baking goods, Kells Wholemeal.) And because I carefully restrain myself, I haven't as yet had any problems, because I always take a lactase supplement—a.k.a. Lactaid or similar—along with them. Because lactase is (relatively) cheap, and spending two or three days swollen up and in pain from having gotten careless with myself is not.

As regards the branded stuff, though, there's a problem. European Nutella and US Nutella are not the same animal... and the US version of Nutella is apparently disquietingly cagey about its labeling. It's apparently difficult to tell whether the portion size of the Nutella you're ingesting has enough skimmed milk powder and/or whey in it to set your lactose intolerance off.

My advice to you would be this (and as usual, you know what advice that costs you nothing tends to be worth... But anyway): don't eat Nutella without taking a Lactaid or similar first. Two reasons: (a) To cover your butt. (b) To help act in establishing a basis for any further diagnostics you need to do. If you have some Nutella after having taken lactase, and still have internal trouble afterwards, then it's a fair bet something else in the stuff is triggering the IBS side rather than the lactose-intolerance side of the equation. That soy-based lecithin, for example. I'd be a bit suspicious about that. (Soy, unfortunately, is one of my own triggers. I can still have tofu, but only so, so carefully.)

...And then, after that, act accordingly to what you've discovered. One thing about my intolerance that I do know: it's come and gone without warning* over many years—sometimes receding into the background completely, suddenly getting much worse without apparent rhyme or reason. So an amount of lactose that once wouldn't have troubled you very much might now be one that you have to watch out for. Or else you simply exceeded what is now a wise portion-control amount for you when you got into those cookies.

(sigh) It's the imponderables associated with handling this problem from day to day that are the most annoying aspect of it. I'm not wild about the wariness with which I have to approach a lot of foods these days—not least because this is Ireland, and in this historically heavily-dairy-based culture, food processors will sneak milk into any damn thing without warning. :) But you do what you've gotta do to get by... which means that, outside of the house, I don't put anything in my mouth without having the lactase pills nearby.

Anyway: hope this helps!

*It also doesn't help that my earliest attacks happened before lactose intolerance was widely recognized as being a problem for a significant portion of the planet's population.

[abyssal-ambience]

prefacing this with I'm not necessarily punk, but I like customizing my clothes. and i wanna help other people find stuff for battle jackets! (and other stuff) I'm not the authority on this, but I still want to give my two cents!! also don't expect much more to this, my profile is pure cringe.

If anyone is starting out and I can help, I'd like too!!

The spike/stud dilemma

one of the biggest issues i've noticed is "where do I find studs/spikes without fast fashion??" which is totally fair. something like that shouldn't have to be a minefield. obviously if you buy from a small business that re-sells them from aliexpress you're still indirectly supporting aliexpress.

im sure there ARE slow fashion alternatives and if anyone knows some please let me know so I can add it!!

BUT here's what I'd recommend.

-goodwill bins, sometimes they have old clothes or broken belts, very rare though. also any thrift store or reclaimed craft store.

-Local businesses, sex shops

-metal paper fasteners

-borrowing. it's inevitable, I know. JOANNs is definitely the best selection imo, but Hobby Lobby is better to steal from. Because They are Terrible. Michael's is OK but less selection usually. They use peal off tags usually which are easy to remove.

-also if you're feeling extra insane, hot topic uses mainly ink tags, which can be removed with heat (look up tutorials on) or just cut off a stud/spike belt. their studs are pretty easy to remove. same with bracelets, they break a lot. ofc it depends on the place whether they use beep beep tags.

-ask people for broken shit!

TEXTILES (the easy part)

-fabric samples are easy to find for free online. get whatever colors you want, i usually stick to black, white, grey and 1-3 other colors. they're usually pretty small so order around until you find the right size. you want cotton and linen, usually upholstery if you're painting on them. if you're not or you're ok working with leather, leather is easy to find too. A lot of companies mentioned how stretchy your material is something not stretchy most cases.

-FACEBOOK!! A.K.A the boomer method. This is where I got almost all of mine!! I recommend downloading FREEBIE as well! I got mine thru that, it links to facebook, nextdoor, and so on. Ofc you can pay for them- but you don't have to! I have lifetime supply of textiles basically bc of this. A lot of people get them for hobbies or work.

-the goodwill bins!!!! you can absolutely find fabric there, it's pretty common actually

-you don't need to steal this tbh it's easy to find second hand and less wasteful

PAINTING

-Facebook, goodwill, or reclaimed/used craft stores if you have them

-borrowing (same places)

-use something like Painter Eye (AR tracing app) and draw out any complex band logos etc.

-you can also use sharpies or whatever nobody's stopping you

Other stuff

-one of the best ways to find stuff is just GO FOR A WALK! Find little shiny objects!

-hardware stores are good so are army surplus

[jellyfishloveletterghosts]

So I saw this post and well you know how it goes…

 Now I’m thinking about Entomologist Ganondorf and traveler Link

 Link in one of the rare times he is home for a few days and finds himself without plans turning on the old television that came with the place. Flipping through the channels absently and finding nothing of interest until he sees this giant of a man with butterflies clinging to him as he talks about them. Link recognizes the butterflies, he tasted on a few years back when he was traveling death mountain. Spiciest bug he ever tastes and the effects were great, he could barely feel the heat of the lava as he climbed higher and higher.

 Ganondorf calls them Smotherwings and talks about all their benefits and how the locals use them in potions they sell to visitors to help them stand the heat of the volcano. From there he moves onto another region and another bug Link’s eaten while visiting. He watches entrance and fascinated as the man interacts with both live and mounted specimens talking about all of their benefits Link had unknowingly been taking advantage of.

 Link posts about the show as he watches it. How attractive he finds the butterfly man how he wants to eat bugs with him and listen to him talk about them for hours. How he wants to marry the butterfly man.

Once the show is over Link is immediately trying to find the episode so he can track the butterfly man down. Unfortunately other than using the one social media app to post pictures from his travels he’s no very good with the internet. He texts Zelda in frustration. She laughs as his continued ineptitude with technology that isn’t the one app he bothered to learn. She does manage to find his name and then Link is able to find him too.

 Link starts following the man looking forward to more bug related content from him in the future.

 He wakes up the next morning to find that Ganondorf has followed him and gone through all of his stuff likening all of his bug eating posts. On the post where Link expressed wanting to marry the man, sure it would never be seen by more than a few friends Ganondorf has replied with - I’m flattered 💍-

 Zelda being the little shit she shared it with her own massive following with – You’re going to say yes right? -  She is not the only one commenting on it, hundreds of people Link does not know have opinions on their supposed upcoming nuptials. It is a little unsettling and he promises himself to get revenge on Zelda for unleashing her followers on him. He has a massive uptick in followers since last night because of all of this.

 He doesn’t respond publicly instead sliding into Ganondorf’s dms - Do you want to go on a date? – Nervous and hopeful, stomach feeling like he has tried swallowing a live butterfly again. It tickles too much he will not make that mistake again.

He is not left waiting long, phone pinging near immediately with a response - Will there be bugs? -

 That is an easy question to answer – Yes – and he hopes it will be well received. He is pretty sure it will be but there is still a nerve racking second before he gets his answer.

 - I’d love to – Link is giddy with excitement.

 They both go radio silence for a while, no bug facts from Ganondorf, no pictures of Link’s travels. When they do finally show up online again they both post the same picture. The two of them smiling and feeding each other bugs in some remote location.

 Zelda once again has her followers in a frenzy when she replies to their pictures with – There better not be any bugs in the wedding cake. – They laugh when they read it and go back to enjoying traveling together, ignoring their growing follower count.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

We should ban TikTok('s surveillance)

With the RESTRICT Act, Congress is proposing to continue Trump’s war on Tiktok, enacting a US ban on the Chinese-owned service. How will they do this? Congress isn’t clear. In practice, banning stuff on the internet is hard, especially if you don’t have a national firewall:

https://doctorow.medium.com/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography-33aa668dc602

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

My guess is that they’re thinking of ordering the mobile duopoly of Google and Apple to nuke the Tiktok app from their app stores. That’s how they do it in China, after all: when China wanted to ban VPNs and other privacy tools, they just ordered Apple to remove them from the App Store, and Apple rolled over:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

That’s the completely foreseeable consequence of arrogating the power to decide which software every mobile user on earth is entitled to use — as Google and Apple have done. Once you put that gun on the mantelpiece in Act I, you damn betcha that some strong-man backed by a powerful state is going to come along and shoot it by Act III.

The same goes for commercial surveillance: once you collect massive, nonconsensual dossiers on every technology user alive, you don’t get to act surprised when cops and spies show up and order your company to serve as deputies for a massive, off-the-books warrantless surveillance project.

Hell, a cynic might even say that commercial surveillance companies are betting on this. The surveillance public-private partnership is a vicious cycle: corporations let cops and spies plunder our data; then the cops and spies lobby against privacy laws that would prevent these corporations from spying on us:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/25/nationalize-moderna/#hun-sen

Which makes the RESTRICT Act an especially foolish project. If the Chinese state wants to procure data on Americans, it need not convince us to install Tiktok. It can simply plunk down a credit card with any of the many unregulated data-brokers who feed the American tech giants the dossiers that the NSA and local cops rely on.

Every American tech giant is at least as bad for privacy as Tiktok is — yes, even Apple. Sure, Apple lets its users block Facebook spying with a single tap — but even if you opt out of “tracking,” Apple still secretly gathers exactly the same kinds of data as Facebook, and uses it to power its own ad product:

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

There is no such thing as a privacy-respecting tech giant. Long before Apple plastered our cities with lying billboards proclaiming its reverence for privacy, Microsoft positioned itself as the non-spying alternative to Google, which would be great, except Microsoft spies on hundreds of millions of people and sells the data:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

Tech’s surveillance addiction means that Tiktok’s own alternative to the RESTRICT Act is also unbelievably stupid. The company has proposed to put itself under Oracle’s supervision, letting Oracle host its data and audit its code. You know, Oracle, the company that built the Great Firewall of China 1.0:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/selling-china-surveillance

We should not trust Tiktok any more than we trust Apple, Facebook, Google or Microsoft. Tiktok lied about whether it was sending data to China before:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access

And even if it keeps its promise not to send user data to China, that promise is meaningless — it can still send the vectors and models it creates with that data to China — these being far more useful for things like disinformation campaigns and population-scale inferences than the mere logs from your Tiktok sessions.

There are so many potentially harmful ways to process commercial surveillance data that trying to enumerate all the things that a corporation is allowed to do with the data it extracts from us is a fool’s errand. Instead, we should ban companies from spying on us, whether they are Chinese or American.

Corporations are remorseless, paperclip-maximizing colony organisms that perceive us as inconvenient gut-flora, and they lack any executive function (as do their “executives”), and they cannot self-regulate. To keep corporations from harming us, we must make it illegal for them to enact harm, and punish them when they break the law:

https://doctorow.medium.com/small-government-fd5870a9462e

After all, the problem with Tiktok isn’t the delightful videos or the fact that it’s teaching a generation of children to be expert sound- and video-editors. The problem with Tiktok is that it spies on us. Just like the problem with Facebook isn’t that it lets us communicate with our friends, and the problem with Google isn’t that it operates a search engine.

Now, these companies will tell you that the two can’t be separated, that a bearded prophet came down off a mountain with two stone tablets, intoning, “Larry, Sergey, thou shalt stop rotating thine logfiles and, lo, thou wilt data-mine them for actionable market intelligence.” But it’s nonsense. Google ran for years without surveillance. Facebook billed itself as the privacy-forward alternative to Myspace and promised never to spy on us:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

The inevitabilist narrative that says that corporations must violate our rights in order to make the products we love is unadulterated Mr Gotcha nonsense: “Yet you participate in society. Curious. I am very intelligent”:

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Of course, corporations push this narrative all the time, which is why American Big Tech has been quietly supporting a ban on Tiktok, which (coincidentally) has managed to gain a foothold in the otherwise impregnable, decaying, enshittified oligarchy that US companies have created.

They have conspicuously failed to call for any kind of working solution, like a federal privacy law that would ban commercial surveillance, and extend a “private right of action,” so people could sue tech giants and data-brokers who violated the law, without having to convince a regulator, DA or Attorney General to bestir themselves:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

Instead, the tech giants have the incredible gall to characterize themselves as the defenders of our privacy — at least, so long as the Chinese government is the adversary, and so long as its privacy violations come via an app, and not buy handing a credit card to the data-brokers that are the soil bacteria that keeps Big Tech’s ecosystem circulating. In the upside-down land of Big Tech lobbying, privacy is a benefit of monopoly — not something we have to smash monopolies to attain:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

Not everyone in Congress is onboard with the RESTRICT Act. AOC has come out for a federal privacy law that applies to all companies, rather than a ban on an app that tens of millions of young Americans love:

https://www.businessinsider.com/aoc-first-tiktok-congress-ban-without-being-clued-in-2023-3

You know who agrees with AOC? Rand Paul. Yes, that absolute piece of shit. Paul told his caucusmates in the GOP that banning an app that millions of young American voters love is bad electoral politics. This fact is so obvious that even Rand fucking Paul can understand it:

https://gizmodo.com/rand-paul-opposes-tiktok-ban-warns-republicans-1850278167

Paul is absolutely right to call a Tiktok ban a “national strategy to permanently lose elections for a generation.” The Democrats should listen to him, because the GOP won’t. As between the two parties, the GOP is far more in thrall to the Chamber of Commerce and the rest of the business lobby. They are never going to back a policy that’s as good for the people and as bad for big business as a federal privacy law.

The Democrats have the opportunity to position themselves as “the party that wants to keep Tiktok but force it to stop being creepy, along with all the other tech companies,” while the GOP positions itself as “the party of angry technophobes who want to make sure that any fun you have is closely monitored by Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pinchai and Tim Cook and their pale imitations of the things you love about Tiktok.”

That’s not just good electoral politics — it’s good policy. Young voters aren’t going to turn out to the polls for performative Cold War 2.0 nonsense, but they will be pissed as hell at whoever takes away their Tiktok.

And if you do care about Cold War 2.0, then you should be banning surveillance, not Tiktok; the Chinese government has plenty of US dollars at its disposal to spend in America’s freewheeling, unregulated data markets — as do criminals, petty and organized, and every other nation-state adversary of the USA.

The RESTRICT Act is a garbage law straight out of the Clinton era, a kind of King Canute decree that goes so far as to potentially prohibit the use of VPNs to circumvent its provisions. America doesn’t need a Great Firewall to keep itself safe from tech spying — it needs a privacy law.

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A modified vintage editorial cartoon. Uncle Sam peeks out over a 'frowning battlement' whose cannon-slots are filled with telescopes from which peer the red glaring eyes of HAL 9000 from '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Topping the battlements in a row are Uncle Sam and three business-suited figures with dollar-sign-bags for heads. The three dollar-bag men have corporate logos on their breasts: Facebook, Google, Apple. Standing on the strand below the battlements, peering up, is a forlorn figure with a Tiktok logo for a head. The fortress wall bears the words 'RESTRICT Act.']

[creations-by-chaosfay]

Do you have any tips you'd be willing to share on getting starting with quilting? I want to try but there seems to be a lot and I don't know where to begin. Or how. If not, I understand. Either way, I hope you're well

First, do you know how to sew? If you don't, a lot of quilt shops and fabric stores (like Joann Fabrics) offer classes, often for free.

Second, do you have a sewing machine? If not, I recommend a thrift/secondhand store and taking the machine to a place that repairs them. I found a local place via the NextDoor app. The licensed retailers often charge outrageous prices, so I opt for independent folks. They aren't licensed to sell machines, but they can repair them. Quilt shops will also know people who perform maintenance and repairs, and they may do so in-store, so ask. I pay $90/machine (for both computerized and manual), and the licensed retailer in my area charges $150/machine, even the manual ones.

For fabric, speak to quilt shop owners about their scrap collections. Many of them will have bins and bins of the stuff. That was the first place I got good quality fabric for pennies. One of my local quilt shops (all quilt shops are independent, Joann Fabrics is not) sells scrap fabric for $6/large zipper freezer bag. The bag had to be able to close, that was the only rule.

For thread, there's a lot of debate on what's the best. I started with cheap cotton thread. It makes a lot of lint, but it was extremely inexpensive, just $5/1200 yards. You want size 50 for sewing and piecing. I favor size 30 for handquilting because it's thicker, stronger, and makes for some visual interest when I use contrasting colors.

For quilt batting, get it on sale. I buy mine at Joann Fabrics, and opt for cotton because I like the way it feels. Polyester and poly-cotton blends are less expensive, often half the price of cotton. They're good options for limited budgets.

Other notions: pins, rotary cutter (I use one with a 60mm blade), rotary ruler (clear plastic with a grid, at least 4 inches wide), cutting/craft mat with a grid, scissors, iron and ironing board (I got mine at a department store for super cheap), and bobbins, all of which are available at craft stores. Remember to do your shopping during sales and with coupons because those discounts make a HUGE difference.

For patterns, I have a pinned post on my blog with links to free pattern sites. If you want to support your local library, go check out quilt books there. Some libraries also offer classes and will direct you to places that offer supplies for free or nearly free. There's a local program in my area that offers a boxed kit with nearly everything you need to learn a new craft without spending a lot of money. They may have staff members who will teach you. Video tutorials by @teresadownunder have worked really well for me; I'm autistic with ADHD, which makes learning some things really difficult. She explains things really well, with lots of visuals and written text. It was was her videos that taught me how to do foundation paper piecing.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I highly recommend going to a local quilt shop. They will be absolutely thrilled to teach you. A new member to the cult of quilting? This is wonderful news! One of my blog followers here was really shy about approaching anyone in person because they're a guy and quilting is traditionally a woman's art. He wanted to surprise his grandmother with a quilt because she always made quilts for the rest of the family, but no one had bothered to learn how to make quilts. He's now the family quilter and has thrilled his grandmother with two quilts now. Sure, his sisters tease him, but he no longer cares because quilting is very satisfying work. It only looks complicated, and some of the more advanced patterns are, but that's why I share WIP pics. Y'all can see that it's really quite simple...and it makes my ADHD brain very happy because there's so much immediate gratification. The first time I made corners meet, I did a squealing happy dance.

Good luck, and remember to be patient, take breaks, and have fun. Oh, and set an alarm for every 90 minutes because you may get really into the work.

[waywardtyrantpirate]

Ok, so I have an idea.

So I want to make an app like The Freebie Alerts app but w/ more options an more local stuff. I want to include businesses (giving out food to reduce food waste), reasources (for homelessness, shelters, new mothers), have the option to barter for things, have options to sell services (handyman), for money or barter.

But I need a coder or someone who can build the app. Ik what I want it to look like an the layout an everything I just gotta get it. If not I guess I can lean how to build a app.

Pls dm me if interested

+18 pls tho

[blazehedgehog]

Thoughts on the Microsoft Third Party news?

I mean if Xbox is getting to be a big enough brand that people are raising questions of whether or not exclusivity means monopoly, then yeah, spreading more of your games out across multiple platforms makes legal sense.

More and more of the game industry is regrettably going to be moving in the direction of "account ecosystem" rather than hardware platform. Years ago there was talk about how one day there would be no Xbox or Playstation console, just an Xbox or Playstation App you launch on something like a Roku.

The final disgusting endpoint in all of this "no more sales, just service" drive. No discs, not even local data, just a monthly streaming subscription. Forever. No ownership, no ability to mod games, no way to play offline.

Even in the best case scenario, we're looking at a Netflix where you stream 90% of what you play and only "buy" the 10% of games you truly love.

The only thing that flies in the face of that is, like, Steam. The state of movie ownership is what it is because Netflix got there first. The streaming arm of Netflix is the entire reason the "Hollywood Streaming Industry" exists right now. It predates Prime Video, it predates Tubi, it predates everything.

Fewer people probably remember this, but the original premise of Hulu was to get TV networks signed on to simulcast their newest shows online, because none of them were doing that yet. "Netflix Instant" (the original name for Netflix streaming) even predates that. Hulu was trying to fill a need that Netflix could not because Netflix did not actually stream TV shows at first. Not even syndicated rerun stuff. It was just movies. Streaming Seinfeld or The Simpsons or The Office was just outright impossible.

Netflix got in there and shifted the direction of an entire industry, before borders had been staked out or consumers had built up substantial libraries they were protective of. So we went from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to Streaming, where "Streaming" usually means a subscription service and not any form of ownership.

But that's not the case with games. Users expect backwards compatibility, they expect their libraries to carry forward, and in some cases people may own hundreds or even thousands of games in a digital library. I know on the Xbox 360, I own at least $200 worth of digital games, because I won a sweepstakes specifically for a $200 Xbox gift card. And my 19 year old Steam account will gladly tell the entire world I own over 1600 PC games.

That's just on Steam! Epic is still always giving away free games (200+), GOG is occasionally giving away free games and holding sales where you can get stuff for a couple bucks, etc. etc. etc. It's like the warehouse of mythical items from Indiana Jones over here.

People own gigantic libraries of digital games they expect to keep and willingly modify in perpetuity. It's a lot harder to push people to stream everything off the cloud as a result. It's why the big selling point for game streaming is "No downloads!" and it's why it's struggling to catch on. Sure, a 100gb+ game is huge, but if I take my download limiters off, it doesn't actually take that long. A 90 minute download for a 30+ hour game seems like a pretty fair exchange, all told.

But Microsoft is still going all-in on "account ecosystem." It's like, think of it this way: every game publisher is in a constant war to have the one big holiday game that everybody buys. And for guys like Microsoft, that one big game a year is their primary moneymaker. If they can get everyone to spend at least $60 on their game once a year, they stay in business.

Game Pass is $60 a year. They side step having to put out that holiday season's biggest game and get to say, "Well for the price of one game, you can get access to an entire library." It changes the perspective on so much of their business model. Suddenly they don't need the big flagship holiday blockbuster, they just need to get more people to pay for Game Pass.

And the ultimate end goal there is probably to get Game Pass in as many places as they can. There's already a PC Game Pass. If they can launch some version of Game Pass for Playstation? Game Pass for Switch? They'll do it. The Xbox almost doesn't matter anymore. The subscription and the ecosystem does. It's why Microsoft rebooted the Xbox app on PC a few years ago -- it used to be a "Companion App" for your console, but now the Xbox App on PC is where all of their PC gaming and Game Pass stuff lives. Xbox isn't hardware anymore, it's a service you subscribe to, and that's where the real money is. Especially considering what a gigantic money pit hardware is; I don't think Microsoft has ever, even once, turned a profit on Xbox hardware (and neither has Sony, as far as I know).

Get rid of the need for hardware and that $60/year looks even sweeter, doesn't it? Especially when you start to consider that something like Game Pass Ultimate is actually $180/year. If you can lure people in on the $60 but upsell them to the $180... well, gosh, that's almost the price of a whole new console every year, isn't it? That's a lot of constant cashflow without needing the years and years of deeply expensive research, development, and manufacturing.

Getting people to spend a console's worth of money on your service without actually needing the console itself is massively desirable. They'd be saving millions, if not billions of dollars while making millions more elsewhere. There's a chart out there some executive is drooling over where a line goes straight up by something like 900%.

The only problem is the whole consumer rights/ownership factor. Which I am not a fan of. I objectively refuse to support Game Pass for what it's obvious goals are. I will buy and own every game I want to play. No compromises. I will buy physical if space and money allows. I will not be bled dry by temporary access.

[ilhoonftw]

pro tip if you're interested in learning some new craft like idk making earrings, search local market place type apps for second hand stuff because it's not rare for someone to sell a whole box of crafting tools. someone quits that hobby, has to move and decides to get rid of all that stuff at once. when i got into making jewelry, i didn't want to overspend on a new hobby, so i decided to look for used tools. i got lucky and got a whole box of stuff. i didn't spend much, didn't have to browse random online stores, i had a nice starter kit and i still use bunch of things from that box. and the lady who got rid of it wished me luck. 10/10

[alinktoana]

local elderly girl sells stickers at a japanese food festival

not gonna lie, the entire experience is very emotional to me and it's been a month but moon channel's vid essay about cool japan, and the release of smt5 vengeance (lol) inspired me

tldr: i made some stickers, got real existential about it, will keep making more c: if youd like to check them out, here's a link

ive always wanted to draw, i used to say i was gonna become a painter or a fashion designer when i grew up. none of that happened, but i did go to film school. my final project was a script for an animated short highly inspired by nbc hannibal, majora's mask (i know, it was 2016, it makes sense to me lol) and a huge loss in my life from which i havent fully recovered, 10 years later.

the point is, ive always been art adjacent but i never really drew, until i got inspired by_hannibal itself_, noel fielding, kylux (LOL) and a roommate who was who was really inspired by art youtubers like frannerd and drew around the house, so i picked up a pencil and started drawing hannigram fanart bc i was so insanely in love with that show lol i remember who i was before i drew. i spent my days reading and watching tv, bc i love stories and stuff, but i was a consumer. and once i got a job after college i felt so incredibly isolated and directionless. do i have a direction now, as i work as a """"designer""" for a company that sells a mental health app? no. but like demifiend was force fed a magatama and got demon powers (LMAO BEAR WITH ME I JUST BOUGHT SMT3 HD REMASTER), i caught the art demon (like steven zapata says). and i caught it bad. i spend my day to day rushing through my work and chores and everything so i can have enough time to draw in the evening, to do whatever, and sometimes the need is so immense i cant do anything bc im not good enough, my skills are fading, im worthless, what's the meaning of all this? so i took a chance and showed my work at an arts alley on a japanese food festival i was helping organize. mind you, i was juggling that with my 9/5, promoting the event, finishing drawings from years ago. and when i got there, nobody got it. people looked at the stickers and didnt recognize the characters, and went on to buy the stickers my friends had that were more current. it was all japanese fanart. we were there with the single purpose of baiting weebs like us lol

ive always dealt with clients, im used to this. but im used to business to business, bc sigh i am a corporate girly. and im a beginner in the demon arts of arting. i felt so ashamed people were preferring other people, that i had the audacity to think i was worth anything. but i stood there, standing still with my brain boucing off my skull wanting to leave but also enjoying the experience and hoping someone, anyone would get it. and some people did. to my surprise, jack frost was my best selling sticker, lol. jack frost, from the smt franchise, a franchise im so new to but i love so dearly. im 100% a poser, ive never finished a megaten game. but… it just speaks to me. and thats where my cool japan feelings come from bc, like i said, i was selling at a japanese food festival. people my age, from the country i come from, were exposed to dragon ball and cardcaptor sakura from birth. and learning about history and the atrocities of the japanese empire is just. who can you trust. but ive aways resonated with one thing from japan, and it's the way they portray sadness in their works. it's become a ritual since last year that i will listen to smtv's ost when im on my period bc it literally brings me back to life. no one but i know how many times ive drawn goro majima and taiga saejima bc their mere existance and their sorrow resonates with me so immensily and i dont wanna see them being sad, nor do i wanna see me being sad. it's. it's really difficult to be to admit that im from brazil, bc our country sells happiness as an export but for many, many years the most popular genre is butthurt country music, and it makes sense, you know? people dont wanna admit they're sad. and i can only imagine what it's like for regular japanese people, bc we (i) get to see their big exports of bittersweetness… i dont know, maybe other people get to see that from brazil too, i dont know. the arts in brazil, or specially where i live, it's just isnt in the cards for us. but ill keep trying, you know. and i know fanart is a hack. but im trying. despite everything and everyone wanting us (me) to work for mining/metal/oil companies, make the most money, have the least health, drink all the alcohol (but call an uber), consume, reproduce and die, i. i just wanna draw tiny people, you know. it's. not that big a deal. all this to say that yes im gonna keep drawing and making stickers and, who knows, you know. these are stickers that i wont ever find near me, or that im too broke to get them from artists/official stores, so if youre like me, here's some pdfs in case you wanna print them and stick them wherever c: ty if you got this far, this is a big ramble… but it's been years in the making and despite everything im happy about it c:

[beardedmrbean]

Thank you for liking my collection, perhaps other people will too

But I saw that post about how funimation is shutting down and it’s capitalism fault…but bitch it’s streaming service exclusively for ANIME. A huge niche

Also to the reason why, their both are shitshows. But Sony owns funimation and bought crunchyroll, two anime streaming services

Now crunchyroll(which is a shitshow too) got popular

Like been to your local Walmart?

There a section at Walmart dvd area dedicated to crunchyroll in mine

So while this sucks (especially it seems that Sony isn’t going to let people transition their Funi stuff to crunchyroll) it not shocking

Now their a mess, let compare this to Disney handling of Disney plus and Hulu

Now yes Disney plus app is have a hub for Hulu now. Which thank you, because I have the Disney plus bundle (I sharing it with other people. SHIT THE MOUSE IS COMING FOR ME!) but it sure as hell more convenient for me to use the Hulu hub than go out to another app to watch Hulu content

Though it FUCKING funny how my continue watching can have Disney plus alongside with seienin anime

But anyways, I can see why Sony did that because, both streaming services are niches and crunchyroll is just bigger

But I’m 23, any anime consumption…

Bitch back in the day most westerners anime fans had to watch cable TVs blocks like Toonami. Like my tv consumption were in flux. I didn’t have cable all the time and watch a lot of dvds especially in road trips. A lot of my anime consumption started by watch adult swim aired anime. Or if my family a little bit of money. Cable box where I watch Digimon on Disney old block Jetix

Actually the photo I sent you will probably help your other anime fans on how I consume anime

But anime streaming services…are niche af. Yes anime went mainstream in the west, but they can easily be gone instantly. Actually one of my favorite Drifters was taken off it streaming services. But I was able to get the blu ray

Sorry for the essay…I’m just SHOCKED on how bad certain people over reliance of streaming services is because I still really the twilight years of renting (grew up near a family video)

Thank you for liking my collection, perhaps other people will too

ya like I said I recognized the obvious ones, never really did much with anime.

As for all the services, it's a really weird thought that's come into my head watching all of this.

Most folks out in tumblr land probably won't remember when the "Bell System" was broken up.

The phone system in the US was a legal monopoly, until it wasn't a legal monopoly and the Fed broke it up into regional things and also opened things up to competition for a bit there were hundreds of different phone companies popping up offering the best price on local or long distance and all that good stuff.

Then they started to get absorbed by the bigger ones, still no return to the monopoly since that's not allowed but went from on choice to oddles of choices back down to just a few choices none of which were terrible.

Cellphones did that too when they showed up, was never a monopoly but there were tons of regional outfits selling service, that all got slowly bought up by larger and larger companies.

Cable and satellite TV as well as internet too.

I think we may be seeing that with streaming services, not really any tiny fly by night groups doing streaming services but there's only so many that can be out there before they stop being profitable, especially the niche ones.

Which I think that merger and the price hike that is coming with it is a thing that was basically inevitable, the price hike will reverse if history is any indicator, at leas so long as people remain pissed about it and don't sub.

That or they'll sell packages so you can customize what you want.

Either way I'm still with you on the need to rely less on streaming services, I feel the same way about the cloud, which I refuse to use, I know how to work around all that if the need arises.

[foodandfolklore]

Loblaws Boycott. How to get affordable food?

Today is May 1st; which means it is the start of the Loblaws Boycott across Canada. For those unfamiliar with the situation, food prices in Canada have been climbing to astronomical sums. Our main chain Grocery Stores keep increasing prices beyond what is normal inflation. Because they know as Mortals, we need to eat. And the further north you go, the worse it gets. They have already been caught artificially raising Bread prices a few years back, and blaming the price hike on the War in Ukraine. They set a price, We pay for it, and then they keep the price cause clearly people are willing to pay /s

So a boycott has been organized by people of Canada through social media and has even been talked about by TV News Outlets. The idea being to speak with your wallet and pressure change. The problem for many, however, is...Loblaws is just so massive, they don't see other alternatives. They own No Frills, Great Canadian Superstore, Shoppers Drugmart, and a ton more. For many Canadians, it seems like Loblaws is their only option in their area.

So I want to provide a list of some options for people to still get fed. Or even if you don't want to engage in the boycott, you just wanna find affordable food.

Costco and Walmart If a friend of family member has a Costco Membership and is willing to take you with them, do it. The workers there don't police who has the membership, so long as someone has one. You can bulk buy a bunch of staples like Meat, Cheese, Toilet Paper and Coffee for much cheaper in the long run. However, Buying in bulk is not always feasible for everyone. They either don't have the space or they can't afford to drop a few hundred dollars on a single shop. Walmart is a controversial suggestion because they have some....history. And your values may require you to not shop at Walmart. But if you need some accessible groceries for reasonable prices, Walmart actually has a very good selection.

2) International/Local Stores This is not really an option if you live more rural. But if you can find a nearby Asian Grocer or Halal Store you can get a lot of stuff. And not just rice. Legumes, Beans, Meat, Seafood; you'd be surprised how much you can get. You may also find a gem of a bakery or butcher.

3) Farmers Markets It's getting to growing season in Canada. Be Sure to check your near by Farmers Markets. You'll mostly find Fruits and Veggies, but may also be some local honey and eggs if you're lucky. This is also a great option for people who feel eating Organic food is important.

4) Food Waste Apps There is a surprising amount of apps dedicated to preventing food waste by selling you food that is about to be thrown away. The food is still good, and the reason for Discarding varies, but commonly it's because it's approaching it's best before date or Expiration date. Food can still be consumed after it's best before date, so long as it's not spoilt. Different areas will have different Levels of Activity on Different apps. A store needs to opt in before you can buy anything. So check out a few different ones. Flash Foods, Food Hero, and Too Good to Go are popular.

5) Ugly Food Boxes A lot of food gets chucked cause it doesn't conform to our expectation of how that food should look. It grew in a weird way and despite being totally fine to eat; Stores don't want to sell them. So you can get Subscription Boxes of Ugly Produce. Which I think is kinda fun. I remember being younger and my mom pointing out the funny shaped peppers. This isn't entirely a new concept, and many people would of probably heard of Imperfect Foods. However, this is a USA only service; useless to us Canadians. But we can try Odd Bunch or Eat Impact. The bonus with this is it's delivered directly to you. Great for people like myself who can't Drive but love to cook.

6) Meal Kits You see it all the time on Youtube: Try Hello Fresh and get so many meals free, yada yada. Well....it might be worth a try. You can cancel these kits at any time, and them hop back on them later. Like a streaming service. A friend of mine apparently does this. Ordering a box when the value of what they're offering is worth the price to her. Not a great option if you tend to forget to cancel subscriptions *cough* (Hi) but it can be a really smart way to get exactly what you want for a good price. Plus if you use a sponsor code, or a coupon in the mail.... Hello Fresh and Make Good Food are the two more well known meal kits available in Canada.

[simplefelicity]

What I sold in 2023

this is the second in a series of posts in which i reflect on my 2023 from a financial perspective, using data from my financial journal.

i sell my secondhand books and clothes and miscellaneous objects online. i'm not a reseller, i do not purchase things to sell them online. this is all just stuff i have laying around the house.

this year i sold 18 books, 8 pieces of clothing and 5 miscellaneous objects. in total, 31 objects left my house AND i earned back 314€. yay!

what was successful

the lesson here is, once again, list everything you can! even stuff you think would never sell! i sold a bag that i wouldn't have paid 1€ for 5€! you never know who is going to scroll past your ad.

also, being on more than one website/app is very important! i am on 3 apps and 1 book-specific website. the most sales came from Vinted, but Vinted doesn't allow to sell everything. my biggest sale (roller skates for 80€) happened on a more local app that's not as well known.

my most successful months were january, october and december, when i sold 5 items each. otherwise, i usually sold 1 or 2 items per month. i don't know why those months in particular were so successful. my guess is that it was a mix of new university books time and gift-giving. i wonder if the pattern will repeat next year as well?

i have finally finished taking pictures of all the clothes i wanted to list. it was such a long process! but i did it!

what didn't work

in the name of being on as many apps as possible, i tried to branch off to Depop. i don't know how it is in other countries, but i only got spam and people trying to get me to click on links. not even 1 real person interacted with me! so i think i'll eliminate my profile and good riddance.

i also ventured on eBay, which is something i've been wanting to try for ages. i only listed 1 item just to see how it worked and it didn't lol. i guess i chose the wrong item and i should try again with something easier to sell. buying something to get a couple of more good reviews would be a good idea as well.

but mostly i need to go on the apps i already use and reupload some of the listings (especially the clothes) to give them more visibility.

plus, there are some listings that i took off for one reason or the other and never put up again because of laziness and that's not conducive to business, let me tell you.

2024 plans

currently, all the things i want to sell are in 2 drawers of my closet. i can't wait to have that space back! so i need to work harder on this payed decluttering.

i'm still proud of myself, because there were times when i thought "why am i doing this? why do i even bother? why don't i just throw everything in the trash and be done with it?" but the numbers speak for themselves, don't you think? and i can finally start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, thank God.

in the new year, i plan to keep experimenting with eBay and consolidate my presence on my current apps. also, i should start taking pictures of my shoes (dread).

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Fighting the privacy wars, state by state

In 2021, Apple updated its mobile OS so that users could opt out of app tracking with one click. More than 96% opted out, costing Facebook $10b in one year. The kicker? Even if you opted out, Apple continued to spy on you, just as invasively as Facebook had, as part of its competing targeted ad product:

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

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/23/state-of-play/#patchwork

The fact that Apple — a company that has blanketed the world with anti-surveillance billboards — engaged in deceptive, pervasive surveillance reveals the bankruptcy of “letting the market decide” what privacy protections you should have.

When you walk into a grocery store, you know that the FDA is on the job, making sure that the food you buy doesn’t kill you — but no one stops the grocery store from tracking literally every step you take, every eye movement you make (no, really!) and selling that to all comers:

https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/02/16/forget-milk-and-eggs-supermarkets-are-having-a-fire-sale-on-data-about-you

America’s decision to let the private sector self-regulate commercial surveillance is a grotesque failure of duty on the part of Congress, which has consistently failed to pass comprehensive privacy legislation. There are lots of reasons for this, but the most important is that American cops and spies are totally reliant on commercial surveillance brokers, and they fight like hell against any privacy legislation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#axciom

The private sector’s unregulated privacy free-for-all means that cops don’t need to get warrants to spy on you — they can just buy the data on the open market for pennies:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/18/fifth-pig/#ppp

The last Congressional session almost passed a halfway decent (but still deeply flawed) federal privacy law, but then they didn’t. Basically, Congress only passes laws that can be sandwiched into 1,000-page must-pass bills and most of the good stuff that gets through only does so because some bought-and-paid-for Congressjerks are too busy complaining about “woke librarians” to read the bills before they come up for a vote.

The catastrophic failure to protect Americans’ privacy has sent human rights groups hunting for other means to accomplish the same end. On the federal level, there’s the newly reinvigorated FTC, under the visionary, muscular leadership of Lina Khan, the best Commission chair in a generation. She’s hard at work on rules to limit commercial surveillance:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/12/regulatory-uncapture/#conscious-uncoupling

But FTC regs take time to pass, and it can be hard for ordinary individuals to trigger their enforcement, which might leave you at the mercy of your local officials when your privacy is invaded. What we really need is a privacy law with a “private right of action” — the right to go to court on your own:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

The business lobby hates private right of action, and they trick low-information voters into opposing them with lies about “ambulance chasers” who sue innocent fast-food outlets for millions because they serve coffee that’s too hot:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico

With Congress deadlocked and privacy harms spiraling, pro-privacy groups have turned to the states, as Alfred Ng writes for Politico:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/22/statehouses-privacy-law-cybersecurity-00083775

The best provisions of the failed federal privacy law have been introduced as state legislation in Massachusetts and Illinois, and there are amendments to Indiana’s existing state privacy law — 16 states in all are working on or have some kind of privacy law. This means businesses must live with the dread “patchwork of laws,” which serves the business lobby right: they must do business in potentially radically different ways in different states, and small missteps could cost them millions, in true fuck-around-and-find-out fashion.

As Ng writes, these laws don’t have to pass in every state. America’s historically contingent, lopsided state lines mean that some states are so populous that whatever rules they pass end up going nationwide (the ACLU’s Kade Crockford uses the example of California Prop 65 warnings showing up on canned goods in NY).

As Congress descends further into self-parody, the temptation to treat the federal government as damage and route around it only mounts. It’s a powerful, but imperfect strategy. On the negative side, it takes a lot of resources to introduce legislation into multiple states, and to win legislative fights in each.

Think of the incredible fuckery that the coalition of Apple, John Deere, Wahl, and other monopolists got up to defeat dozens of state Right to Repair laws, even snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in New York state, neutering the incredible state electronics repair law before it reached the governor’s desk:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/17/more-details-on-how-tech-lobbyists-lobotomized-nys-right-to-repair-law-with-governor-kathy-hochuls-help/

Indeed, the business lobby loves lobbying statehouses, treating them as the Feds’ farm-leagues, filled with naive, easily hoodwinked rubes. Organizations like ALEC use their endless corporate funding to get state legislation that piles farce upon tragedy, like the laws banning municipal fiber networks:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love

The right has always had hooks in state legislatures, but they really opened up the sluice gates in the runup to the 2010 census, when a GOP strategist called Thomas Hofeller started pitching Republican operatives on a plan called REDMAP, to capture state legislatures in time for a post-2010 census mass-redistricting that would neutralize the votes of Black and brown people and deliver permanent rule by an openly white nationalist Republican party that could lose every popular vote and still hold power.

Of course, that’s not how they talked about it in public. Though the racial dimension of GOP gerrymandering were visible to anyone on the ground, Hofeller maintained a veneer of plausible deniability on the new REDMAP districts, leaving the racist intent of GOP redistricting as a he-said/she-said matter of conjecture:

https://www.klfy.com/national/late-gop-redistricting-gurus-files-hint-at-partisan-motives/

That is, until 2018, when Satan summoned Hofeller back to hell, leaving his personal effects in the hands of his estranged anarchist daughter, Stephanie, who dumped all her old man’s files online, including the powerpoint slides he delivered to his GOP colleagues where he basically said, “Hey kids, let’s do an illegal racism!”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pked4v/the-anarchist-daughter-of-the-gops-gerrymandering-mastermind-just-dumped-all-his-maps-and-files-on-google-drive

Sometimes, laws that turn on intent are difficult to enforce because they require knowledge of the accused’s state of mind. But there are so many would-be supervillains who just can’t stop themselves from monologing, and worse, putting it in writing.

As bad as state politics can be, they’re still winnable battlefields. Last year saw a profound win on Right to Repair in Colorado, where a wheelchair repair bill, HB22–1031, made history:

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

That win helped inspire Rebecca Giblin and I when we were writing Chokepoint Capitalism, our book about how Big Tech and Big Content rip off creative workers, and what to do about it.

https://chokepointcapitalism.com

Many readers have noted that the first half of the book — where were unpack the scams of streaming, news advertising, ebooks and audiobooks, and other creative fields — is incredibly enraging.

But if you find yourself struggling to concentrate on the book because of a persistent, high-pitched whining noise that you suspect might be a rage-induced incipient aneurysm, keep reading! The second half of the book is full of detailed, shovel-ready policy proposals to get artists paid, including a state legislative proposal that works from the same playbook as these state privacy laws.

If your creative work entitles you to receive royalties, your contract will typically include the right to audit your royalty statements. If you do audit your royalties, you will often find “discrepancies.” We cite one LA firm that has performed tens of thousands of record contract audits over decades, and in every instance except one, the errors they discovered were in the labels’ favor.

This is a hell of a head-scratcher. I can only assume that some kind of extremely vexing, highly localized probability storm has taken up permanent residence over the Big Three labels’ accounting departments, making life hell for their CPAs, and my heart goes out to them.

Anyway: if you find one of these errors and you tell your label or publisher or studio, “Hey, you stole my money, cough up!” they will pat you on the head and say, “Oh, you artists are adorable but you can’t do math. You’re mistaken, we don’t owe you anything. But because we’re good natured slobs, we’ll offer you, say, half of what you think we owe you, which is good, because you can’t afford to sue us. And all you need to do to get that money is to sign this non-disclosure agreement, meaning you can’t tell anyone else about the money we’re stealing from them.

“Oh, and one more thing: your accountant has to promise never to audit us again.” As Caldwell-Kelly said when we talked about this on Trashfuture, this is like the accused murderer telling the forensics team, “Dig anywhere you’d like in my garden, just not in that corner, I’m very sentimental about it.”

https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/e/amazon-billing-amazon-for-amazon-feat-cory-doctorow-and-rebecca-giblin/

Now, contracts are a matter of state law, and nearly every entertainment industry contract is signed in one of four jurisdictions: NY, CA, TN (Nashville), and WA (games companies and Amazon). If we amended the state laws in one or more of these to say, “NDAs can’t be enforced when they pertain to wage theft arising from omissions or misstatements on royalties,” we could pour money into the pockets of creative workers all over the world.

Yes, the entertainment giants will fight like hell against this, and yes, they have a lot of juice in their state legislatures. But they’re also incredibly greedy and reckless, and prone to such breathtaking and brazen acts of wage theft that they lurch from crisis to crisis, and at each of these crises, there is a space to pass a law to address these very public failings.

For example, in 2022, the Writers Guild of America — one of the best, most principled, most solidaristic and unified unions in Hollywood — wrested $42 million from Netflix, which the company had stolen from its writers:

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/wga-wins-42-million-arbitration-netflix-1235333822/

Netflix isn’t alone in these massive acts of wage theft, and this is certainly not the only way Netflix is stealing from creative workers. There’s never just one ant: if Netflix cooked the books for writers, they’re definitely cooking it for other workers. That means there will be more scandals, and when they break, we can demand more than a bandaid fix for one crime — we can demand modest-but-critical legislative action to fix contracts and prevent this kind of wage-theft in the future.

The state legislatures aren’t an intrinsically better battlefield for just fights, but they are an alternative to Congress, and there is space to make things happen in just some of the 50 state houses that can ripple out over the whole country — for good and bad.

[Image ID: Blind justice, holding aloft a set of unbalanced scales; in the lower scale is a map of the USA showing the state lines; in the higher scale rests the capitol building.]

[askingexorcists]

So am i gonna have to circle round to anon? Since im blocked on everything else and youre ignoring me on paypal? Thats fucked dude. I wouldnt have had a problem if youd just said to me 'hey man so sorry i actually cant/dont wanna send you stuff' but to block me with no explaination dude?? Cmon! Did you forget youd sold stuff to me? Did you not care?? Did you just want money?? Bullshit.

So I've not been on tumblr for a while now because I've been so stressed out with this... most of you probably know that I sold some blue exorcist merch a little while back...I maybe sent out like 15 parcels round about?

A particular person I sold too claimed they didn't arrive, I had provided proof of shipping, screenshots/tracking number and whatever else. I have no idea if the items actually arrived to this person and she's lying about it, however I don't want to belive that, and I've had issues with royal mail (who I shipper with) in the past so it's possible her package was just lost or something of the sort.

However since it didn't arrive I tried to resolve this with this person, but like I said I had all the proof of postage. I asked if they'd sort if with their bank/PayPal or royal mail. Once it's shipped there isn't really anything I can do about it.

I cannot afford to refund for a package that I have the proof I shipped, especially since I do not know for sure if this person received the money or not. We've both opened a case with PayPal to try resolve this, and since I had the proof of postage there wasn't a lot to go on.

I never wanted to sell any of my merch, it was honestly a very sad sale for me, but I've got my own child now, and life gets very expensive and I just wanted to earn some extra cash for him

Despite this I could NEVER scam anyone or anything of the sort. Every other single person I sent parcels too told me their stuff arrived and were very happy with it. I included little free gifts and notes in every order. I really, honestly tried. I chased up the order with my local post office. I spoke to the post company online. I've spoken to PayPal. I've tried everything for a peaceful ending to this, but ultimately I have to let this person sort this out either their bank or PayPal or something.

It's been really stressing me out and I've been so anxious over the whole thing for a good while now, I've blocked this person and I hope they get their money back/get the parcel or such, and I wish them the best.

I've been in the blue exorcist fandom for almost 9 years now and I've made so many great friends through this app and this fandom, and talked to so many great people. It was such a big part of my life and my childhood. Even though I don't update the blog anymore hardly...I still read the aoex manga monthly, I'm always lurking on posts reading everyone's content, always reading everyone's theory's. I've stayed of my blog a while now as I've been so anxious of all this but now honestly I just want it past me as I know I've tried all I can to resolve this.

Also wanna say thank you to everyone who's bought from me / supported this blog ♡

[rocknrollsalad]

🕺 A quick little thing for the steddie holiday drabbles sports au prompt

🎶 modern au, deaf!steve, background dancer!steve, rockstar!eddie they're both performing at an award show and Eddie decides to prove how great he is at flirting

🎸 content/trigger warnings: i can't think of anything, let me know if something needs adding though

🧏‍♂️ word count: 694

“I’ve been watching you all week,” Eddie said in the humble rehearsal space. 

The guy stretching, alone, in the middle of the room stood up with a knitted brow and did that thing where he pins one arm to his chest with the other. A stretch that probably had some benefit but right now it gave the illusion of stretching as he stared down the man who decided to sound like a stalker as an opening line. 

“Rehearse! I’ve been watching you rehearse all week! I’m in a band. We’re performing. I am supposed to be here.”

Still, the guy stood and stared. Switching arms but otherwise unmoving. 

“Okay, shit. Lemme try again. You go back to stretching and I’ll come in like I’ve talked to other humans again?” 

Nothing. Great. Eddie should have done some stretching, it was hard to have his foot this thoroughly in his mouth. His legs didn’t bend that well and noticing that this guy’s did landed him in this mess. 

Eddie walked in a little circle, rather than going through the whole process of walking out of the room and back in. 

“Hi there. I’m Eddie Munson, I play in Corroded Coffin. We are…selling out a little bit tonight and performing. The label says it’s gonna be great but I’m just here for the free booze. I saw you at the run-through yesterday and…shit, man. I don’t know how to save this. You’re hot. I’m into this whole…this whole thing.” Eddie motioned to the guy’s general area. If he was going to bomb, he’d make the biggest explosion possible. 

The carnage was unreal. Local metalhead tries to flirt, one dead and over a hundred wounded. Dancer guy stretched his arms over his head and Eddie respectfully averted his gaze. Not before he caught the bit of midriff that the stretch exposed which was just reviving him to kill him again. 

From there the guy rolled his neck and began some toe touches. Without the courtesy of turning around. Eddie appeared clueless but he wasn’t dumb. The lack of response was an answer all its own. Rejection was never easy but something about it not truly being there made it harder. And he'd find some guy at the after party tonight who'd be nothing more than a cheap stand-in for this guy but Eddie wasn't going to stand around here and continue to fail. 

Eddie was almost to the door when a voice called out, “Hey, man.” 

Turning around, half expecting a fight, Eddie looked at the dancer. Still in the middle of the room forcing Eddie to see his misery in the mirror behind the guy. His shorts were just too short, hands on his hips, and a devilish grin; the stuff of dreams. Leaving Eddie dumbfounded and nervous. 

He pointed to his ear, “I can’t hear and I only caught about three words of what you said. But, uh, I figured I should put you out of your misery.” 

“Mother fucker,” Eddie muttered, looking around for the camera crew that was going to spring out. 

“Hey, I heard that.” 

Eddie sucked in a breath to apologize. It stalled on his tongue as the words registered. “Oh! That’s the one you read successfully,” he muttered to no one. 

Taking out his phone, Eddie was blessed with a chance to try again. A chance to not put his foot in his mouth. Though being messed with was oddly more of a turn on than watching him stretch. This guy watched him squirm and only let him off the hook at the last possible moment? He was perfectly Eddie's type. They were going to have fun. 

In his notes app, Eddie typed, “I’m going to this stupid award show and need a date. You wanna cause some trouble with me?” 

“I dunno, you going to keep watching me?” he asked out loud. 

There was no way Eddie’s eyes didn’t turn to cartoon hearts. This guy was a pain in the ass and Eddie was walking on clouds. He nodded to a chair in the corner and Eddie did not have to be told twice. His band could rehearse without him.