#discovery store

[transwaterbender]

Got these new shorts yesterday :p

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An Epic antitrust loss for Google

A jury just found Google guilty on all counts of antitrust violations stemming from its dispute with Epic, maker of Fortnite, which brought a variety of claims related to how Google runs its app marketplace. This is huge:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/technology/epic-games-google-antitrust-ruling.html

The mobile app store world is a duopoly run by Google and Apple. Both use a variety of tactics to prevent their customers from installing third party app stores, which funnels all app makers into their own app stores. Those app stores cream an eye-popping 30% off every purchase made in an app.

This is a shocking amount to charge for payment processing. The payments sector is incredibly monopolized and notorious for its price-gouging – and its standard (wildly inflated) rate is 2-5%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Now, in theory, Epic doesn't have to sell in Google Play, the official Android app store. Unlike Apple's iOS, Android permit both sideloading (installing an app directly without using an app store) and configuring your device to use a different app store. In practice, Google uses a variety of anticompetitive tricks to prevent these app stores from springing up and to dissuade Android users from sideloading. Proving that Google's actions – like paying Activision $360m as part of "Project Hug" (no, really!) – were intended to prevent new app storesfrom springing up was a big lift for Epic. But they managed it, in large part thanks to Google's own internal communications, wherein executives admitted that this was exactly why Project Hug existed. This is part of a pattern with Big Tech antitrust: many of the charges are theoretically very hard to make stick, but because the companies put their evil plans in writing (think of the fraudulent crypto exchange FTX, whose top execs all conferred in a groupchat called "Wirefraud"), Big Tech keeps losing in court:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Now, I do like to dunk on Big Tech for this kind of thing, because it's objectively funny and because the companies make so many unforced errors. But in an important sense, this kind of written record is impossible to avoid. Any large institution can only make and enact policy through administrative systems, and those systems leave behind a paper-trail: memos, meeting minutes, etc. Yes, we all know that quote from The Wire: "Is you taking notes on a fucking criminal conspiracy?" But inevitably, any ambitious conspiracy can only exist if someone is taking notes.

What's more, any large conspiracy involving lots of parties will inevitably produce leaks. Think of this as the corollary to the idea that the moon landing can't be a hoax, because there's no way 400,000 co-conspirators could keep the secret. Big Tech's conspiracies required hundreds or even thousands of collaborators to keep their mouths shut, and eventually someone blabs:

https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-moon-landing-you-d-need-400000-conspirators

This is part of a wave of antitrust cases being brought against the tech giants. As Matt Stoller writes, the guilty-on-all-counts jury verdict will leak into current and future actions. Remember, Google spent much of this year in court fighting the DoJ, who argued that the company bribed Apple not to make a competing search engine, paying tens of billions every year to keep a competitor from emerging. Now that a jury has convinced Google of doing that to prevent alternative app stores from emerging, claims that it used these pay-for-delay tactics in other sectros get a lot more credible:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-google-loses-antitrust-case

On that note: what about Apple? Epic brought a very similar case against Apple and lost. Both Apple and Epic are appealing that case to the Supreme Court, and now that Google has been convicted in a similar case, it might prompt the Supremes to weigh in and resolve the seeming inconsistencies in the interpretation of federal law.

This is a key moment in the long project to wrest antitrust away from the pro-monopoly side, who spent decades "training" judges to produce verdicts that run counter to the plain language of America's antitrust law:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

There's 40 years' worth of bad precedent to overturn. The good news is that we've got the law on our side. Literally, the wording of the laws and the records of the Congressional debate leading to their passage, all militate towards the (incredibly obvious) conclusion that the purpose of anti-monopoly law is to fight monopoly, not defend it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

It's amazing to realize that we got into this monopoly quagmire because judges just literally refused to enforce the law. That's what makes one part of the jury verdict against Google so exciting: the jury found that Google's insistence that Play Store sellers use its payment processor was an act of illegal tying. Today, "tying" is an obscure legal theory, but few doctrines would be more useful in disenshittifying the internet. A company is guilty of illegal tying when it forces you to use unrelated products or services as a condition of using the product you actually want. The abandonment of tying led to a host of horribles, from printer companies forcing you to buy ink at $10,000/gallon to Livenation forcing venues to sell tickets through its Ticketmaster subsidiary.

The next phase of this comes when the judge decides on the penalty. Epic doesn't want cash damages – it wants the judge to order Google to fulfill its promise of "an open, competitive Android ecosystem for all users and industry participants." They've asked the judge to order Google to facilitate third-party app stores, and to separate app stores from payment processors. As Stoller puts it, they want to "crush Google’s control over Android":

https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-v-google-trial-verdict-a-win-for-all-developers

Google has sworn to appeal, surprising no one. The Times's expert says that they will have a tough time winning, given how clear the verdict was. Whatever this means for Google and Android, it means a lot for a future free from monopolies.

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/2023/12/12/im-feeling-lucky/#hugger-mugger

[sforzesco]

Do you have any good resources/references/advice for drawing (late republican) Roman clothing? I want to draw a couple of historical figures but thinking about drawing a toga makes me feel like 😖😖😖...

-Costumes of the Greeks and Romans, Thomas Hope

-Greek and Roman Fashions, Tom Tierney

-The World of Roman Costume, ed. Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante.

-Decorative Symbols and motifs for Artists and Craftsmen/Decorative Patterns of the Ancient World, Dover Publications

-photos & videos from reenactors and reenactment events

-build a screenshot reference library from movies and shows that have costume designs you like, that kind of thing. grab a blanket and wrap yourself up in it toga style and take a photo if you need a specific angle. etc. museums usually have a lot of their galleries online, and places like the met often shoot statues from multiple sides.

[luff-gore]

G. Gore del. / Graham Gore drew (it) A compilation [2/?]

watercolour and pen sketches, original (1845) Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge (N. 1533 & N. 1534)

1-2: HMS Erebus, 22 May 1845, 3AM, off Aldborough / Blazer taking HMS Erebus in tow, 31 May 1845, 6PM

[doppleganger-rental]

Time

[mankillercalledbunny]

One of the problems with being both a nerd and someone with a minor special interest in fragrance and perfume is that I put in a casual throwaway mention of someone's cologne and immediately went "wait what could that be" and proceeded to compile a list of options from MY OWN SAMPLE COLLECTION (bar Eau de Audacity which I've smelled but they didn't have a sample of when I went)

Anyway if anyone wants "warm amber" fragrance recs to imagine your character wearing to a gala, here you go, I've added descriptions but they're usually a vanilla, resin, and/or incense base with some kind of spice, tonka, leather or wood note as the focus (though there are a few surprises), and I've linked their Fragrantica pages for more detail! Several of these are cross-recommended for each other, so if you like one on the list it's worth checking out a couple of the others.

Penhaligon

The World According to Arthur (my all time favourite, wore this to my wedding reception)

Terrible Teddy (another favourite, amber incense and leather)

Eau de Audacity (bold, orange blossom, frankincense and pepper over vanilla and leather)

Le Labo

Vetiver 46 (woody with strong vetiver and spice notes, the vanilla and amber take a back seat)

Kuumba Made

Amber Paste [now discontinued] (Musc Rav's sneaky cheaper alternative; opens pine resiny but quickly settles into a gorgeous vanilla tonka blend that lasts AGES)

Amber & Sandalwood (similar to above with more wood and resin rather than sweet)

Frederic Malle

Musc Ravageur (complex head turner that opens with with lavender, bergamot, then shifts to clove and sandalwood on a vanilla tonka base)

Maison Francis Kurkdjian

Gentle Fluidity Silver (beautifully blended juniper and nutmeg over bergamot, cedar and vanilla, a clean, woody amber)

Grand Soir (hits like vanilla bourbon, softens out as it goes; not for people who have sensitive noses or an aversion to boozy scents)

Diptyque

La Duelle (vanilla-forward with woody and spicy/smoky notes)

[manyplushtoys]

Panda | Discovery Channel Store | did not buy

So cute! Made out of cuddly and warm fur with fancy leather and embroidery paw pads. It was very large, would probably be an exciting gift for a kid.

[yaoi-hate-machine]

guy rediscovers reading fic by thinking “man i kinda wanna write but i also rly don’t feel like it. i wish the writing already existed and it was just There for me to enjoy”

[cosmic-navel-gazin]

i saw your vidya gamin ost post

you totally forgot the spyro osts

[trioxidewastaken]

warner bros discovery should release all of mythbusters on laserdisc, i think that’d be cool

[bekkathyst]

In other news, I’m still working on setting up the jewelry space in my work space and I’m really excited to start working on jewelry again 💜 there is sooo much that’s been swimming around in my head for months that I want to make into reality but man everything else is so time consuming

[girlvinland]

For the past few months I’ve been seeing a therapist who specializes in LGBTQ+ issues and religious trauma and she’s just. So good. She’s like…the exact person I needed, plus she’s helped provide so many other resources and I’m just really thankful I was able to find her to begin with.

[blackros78]

Even as a kid, if I would come across something cool in the record store, that would be how I found out about bands. It's kind of the same way these days. In a way even less because there are no record stores to go to anymore.

Scott Ian

[bmpmp3]

SOME ocs

[doppleganger-rental]

Some vintage dog figures

[marginal-effect]

2 hours into work and i get a text saying theres a dead mouse waiting for me at home bc my roommate is too scared to remove the trap herself. lol anyway RIP Squeaks