#popular job posting sites

[welinkjobs]

Work Entrances and the Gig Economy: Bridging Openings in the Present day Workforce

The scene of work has experienced a noteworthy change in later a long time, driven by mechanical progressions, changing workforce inclinations, and the worldwide move toward adaptable working models. The gig economy, characterised by short-term contracts and independent work, has risen as a crucial component of this advancement. Work entries play a fundamental part in interfacing gig specialists with openings, making them crucial in today’s labour market.

The Rise

Agreeing to later considerations, millions of individuals universally presently lock in in gig work, whether as their essential source of salary or a supplementary one. This demonstrates offers to a different statistic, from understudies and retirees to experts looking for independence and work-life balance.

Several variables have fueled this trend:

Technological Progressions: The multiplication of web get to and portable innovation has made inaccessible work and advanced collaboration seamless.

Changing Inclinations: More youthful eras, especially Millennials and Gen Z, prioritise adaptability, freedom, and openings to seek after numerous interests.

Economic Instability: Periods of financial downturn have driven numerous to look for independent openings as conventional business gets to be less secure.

Role of Work Entries in the Gig Economy

Job entries are the spine of the gig economy, acting as virtual marketplaces where consultants and bosses interface. These stages have revolutionised how work is sourced, overseen, and completed. Here’s how they contribute:

1. Availability and Convenience

Job entries dispose of topographical obstructions, empowering labourers to get to openings around the world. Specialists can browse postings, offered on ventures, and secure work from the consolation of their homes, whereas managers pick up to get to a worldwide ability pool.

2. Streamlining Processes

From continued transfers to ability appraisals, work entries streamline the contracting preparation. Highlights like computerised coordinating calculations, surveys, and evaluations offer assistance bosses recognize the best candidates rapidly, whereas labourers can channel openings based on their preferences.

3. Building Believe and Transparency

Many work entrances actualize confirmation frameworks, escrow instalment strategies, and debate determination instruments, cultivating belief between gig specialists and clients. This structure diminishes dangers related with outsourcing, such as postponed instalments or misaligned expectations.

4. Upskilling and Community Building

Some stages offer assets like preparing modules, webinars, and gatherings to offer assistance labourers improve their abilities and interface with peers. This back framework fortifies the gig workforce and improves its long-term sustainability.

Popular Work Entries Catering to Gig Workers

Several stages have become synonymous with the gig economy. Unmistakable illustrations include:

Upwork: A flexible stage catering to specialists in areas such as composing, programming, and realistic design.

Fiverr: Known for micro-tasks, Fiverr permits experts to offer particular administrations at predefined rates.

Toptal: Centred on high-skilled gigs, Toptal interfaces bosses with top-tier ability in tech, plan, and finance.

TaskRabbit: This stage matches neighbourhood gig labourers with clients requiring physical errands like furniture gathering or moving assistance.

Benefits for Gig Workers

For consultants, work entries offer:

Flexibility: Select ventures that adjust with their plan and interests.

Diverse Openings: Work with clients over businesses and regions.

Portfolio Building: Pick up encounters and construct a proficient portfolio to secure more profitable gigs.

Benefits for Employers

For companies, work entries provide:

Cost Effectiveness: Spare on overhead costs related to full-time employees.

Access to Specialised Ability: Discover specialists for specialty parts without long-term commitments.

Scalability: Rapidly scale operations up or down based on extended needs.

Challenges and Future Outlook

Despite their focal points, work entries and the gig economy confront challenges:

Worker Assurances: Consultants frequently need benefits like wellbeing protections and paid take off, raising concerns approximately work security and well-being.

Platform Expenses: A few entries charge tall commission rates, which can diminish profit for gig workers.

Competition: With a developing number of consultants, competition for employment can be serious, driving to a race to the foot in pricing.

Looking ahead, work entrances are likely to advance in reaction to these challenges. Highlights such as upgraded specialist securities, AI-driven personalised work suggestions, and more impartial expense structures may rethink the gig economy landscape.

Conclusion

The gig economy and work entries speak to an advantageous relationship that proceeds to shape the future of work. By bridging holes between ability and opportunity, these stages enable people and businesses to flourish in an progressively energetic and globalised showcase. As the gig economy grows, the number of work entries will stay significant, driving development and inclusivity in the cutting edge workforce.

By leveraging the openings displayed by work entries and tending to their challenges, labourers and bosses alike can explore the ever-changing world of work with certainty.

[jobingis]

Best Job Search Websites of 2023

Jobingis stands out from other job search platforms due to its commitment to providing a seamless user experience. The website is optimized for both desktop and mobile devices, enabling users to access job listings and features on the go. The platform also offers a user-friendly application tracking system, allowing job seekers to manage their applications, track their progress, and receive updates directly from employers.

[scltbvrns]

right winged indians are so (i don't want to utter that word) when it comes to media literacy but all of them literally grew up in godi media so i cannot blame them either. like no one is saying INDI alliance is good. it's just the lesser evil out of the two.

[bbbartblog]

In the beginning of the month I started to post my PonyxMuffy fancomic on The Duck Webcomics, after discovering that I can still access my old account, and I got featured~! They even wrote a little blurb about it!

It's always fun to see people describe my art hehe

[mcmansionhell]

the motel room, or: on datedness

I.

Often I find myself nostalgic for things that haven't disappeared yet. This feeling is enhanced by the strange conviction that once I stop looking at these things, I will never see them again, that I am living in the last moment of looking. This is sense is strongest for me in the interiors of buildings perhaps because, like items of clothing, they are of a fashionable nature, in other words, more impermanent than they probably should be.

As I get older, to stumble on something truly dated, once a drag, is now a gift. After over a decade of real estate aggregation and the havoc it's wreaked on how we as a society perceive and decorate houses, if you're going to Zillow to search for the dated (which used to be like shooting fish in a barrel), you'll be searching aimlessly, for hours, to increasingly no avail, even with all the filters engaged. (The only way to get around this is locational knowledge of datedness gleaned from the real world.) If you try to find images of the dated elsewhere on the internet, you will find that the search is not intuitive. In this day and age, you cannot simply Google "80s hotel room" anymore, what with the disintegration of the search engine ecosystem and the AI generated nonsense and the algorithmic preference for something popular (the same specific images collected over and over again on social media), recent, and usually a derivative of the original search query (in this case, finding material along the lines of r/nostalgia or the Backrooms.)

To find what one is looking for online, one must game the search engine with filters that only show content predating 2021, or, even better, use existing resources (or those previously discovered) both online and in print. In the physical world of interiors, to find what one is looking for one must also now lurk around obscure places, and often outside the realm of the domestic which is so beholden to and cursed by the churn of fashion and the logic of speculation. Our open world is rapidly closing, while, paradoxically, remaining ostensibly open. It's true, I can open Zillow. I can still search. In the curated, aggregated realm, it is becoming harder and harder to find, and ultimately, to look.

But what if, despite all these changes, datedness was never really searchable? This is a strange symmetry, one could say an obscurity, between interiors and online. It is perhaps unintentional, and it lurks in the places where searching doesn't work, one because no one is searching there, or two, because an aesthetic, for all our cataloguing, curation, aggregation, hoarding, is not inherently indexable and even if it was, there are vasts swaths of the internet and the world that are not categorized via certain - or any - parameters. The internet curator's job is to find them and aggregate them, but it becomes harder and harder to do. They can only be stumbled upon or known in an outside, offline, historical or situational way. If to index, to aggregate, is, or at least was for the last 30 years, to profit (whether monetarily or in likes), then to be dated, in many respects, is the aesthetic manifestation of barely breaking even. Of not starting, preserving, or reinventing but just doing a job.

We see this online as well. While the old-web Geocities look and later Blingee MySpace-era swag have become aestheticized and fetishized, a kind of naive art for a naive time, a great many old websites have not received the same treatment. These are no less naive but they are harder to repackage or commodify because they are simple and boring. They are not "core" enough.

As with interiors, web datedness can be found in part or as a whole. For example, sites like Imgur or Reddit are not in and of themselves dated but they are full of remnants, of 15-year old posts and their "you, sir, have won the internet" vernacular that certainly are. Other websites are dated because they were made a long time ago by and for a clientele that doesn't have a need or the skill to update (we see this often with Web 2.0 e-commerce sites that figured out how to do a basic mobile page and reckoned it was enough). The next language of datedness, like the all-white landlord-special interior, is the default, clean Squarespace restaurant page, a landing space that's the digital equivalent of a flyer, rarely gleaned unless someone needs a menu, has a food allergy or if information about the place is not available immediately from Google Maps. I say this only to maintain that there is a continuity in practices between the on- and off-line world beyond what we would immediately assume, and that we cannot blame everything on algorithms.

But now you may ask, what is, exactly, datedness? Having spent two days in a distinctly dated hotel room, I've decided to sit in utter boredom with the numinous past and try and pin it down.

II.

I am in an obscure place. I am in Saint-Georges, Quebec, Canada, on assignment. I am staying at a specific motel, the Voyageur. By my estimation the hotel was originally built in the late seventies and I'd be shocked if it was older than 1989. The hotel exterior was remodeled sometime in the 2000s with EIFS cladding and beige paint. Above is a picture of my room, which, forgive me, is in the process of being inhabited. American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) hotel rooms are some of the most churned through, renovated spaces in the world, and it's pretty rare, unless you're staying in either very small towns or are forced by economic necessity to stay at real holes in the wall, to find ones from this era. The last real hitter for me was a 90s Day's Inn in the meme-famous Breezewood, PA during the pandemic.

At first my reaction to seeing the room was cautionary. It was the last room in town, and certainly compared to other options, probably not the world's first choice. However, after staying in real, genuine European shitholes covering professional cycling I've become a class-A connoisseur of bad rooms. This one was definitively three stars. A mutter of "okay time to do a quick look through." But upon further inspection (post-bedbug paranoia) I came to the realization that maybe the always-new brainrot I'd been so critical of had seeped a teeny bit into my own subconscious and here I was snubbing my nose at a blessing in disguise. The room is not a bad room, nor is it unclean. It's just old. It's dated. We are sentimental about interiors like this now because they are disappearing, but they are for my parents what 2005 beige-core is for me and what 2010s greige will become for the generation after. When I'm writing about datedness, I'm writing in general using a previous era's examples because datedness, by its very nature, is a transitional status. Its end state is the mixed emotion of seeing things for what they are yet still appreciating them, expressed here.

Datedness is the period between vintage and contemporary. It is the sentiment between quotidian and subpar. It is uncurated and preserved only by way of inertia, not initiative. It gives us a specific feeling we don't necessarily like, one that is deliberately evoked in the media subcultures surrounding so-called "liminal" spaces: the fuguelike feeling of being spatially trapped in a time while our real time is passing. Datedness in the real world is not a curated experience, it is only what was. It is different from nostalgia because it is not deliberately remembered, yearned for or attached to sweetness. Instead, it is somehow annoying. It is like stumbling into the world of adults as a child, but now you're the adult and the child in you is disappointed. (The real child-you forgot a dull hotel room the moment something more interesting came along.) An image of my father puts his car keys on the table, looks around and says, "It'll do." We have an intolerance for datedness because it is the realization of what sufficed. Sufficiency in many ways implies lack.

However, for all its datedness, many, if not all, of the things in this room will never be seen again if the room is renovated. They will become unpurchaseable and extinct. Things like the bizarrely-patterned linoleum tile in the shower, the hose connecting to the specific faucet of the once-luxurious (or at least middling) jacuzzi tub whose jets haven't been exercised since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wide berth of the tank on the toilet. There is nothing, really, worth saving about these things. Even the most sentimental among us wouldn't dare argue that the items and finishes in this room are particularly important from a design or historical standpoint. Not everything old has a patina. They're too cheaply made to salvage. Plastic tile. Bowed plywood. The image-artifacts of these rooms, gussied up for Booking dot com, will also, inevitably disappear, relegated to the dustheap of web caches and comments that say "it was ok kinda expensive but close to twon (sic)." You wouldn't be able to find them anyway unless you were looking for a room.

One does, of course, recognize a little bit of design in what's here. Signifiers of an era. The wood-veneer of the late 70s giving way to the pastel overtones of the 80s. Perhaps even a slow 90s. The all-in-one vanity floating above the floor, a modernist basement bathroom hallmark. White walls as a sign of cleanliness. Gestures, in the curved lines of the nightstands, towards postmodernity. Metallic lamp bases with wide-brimmed shades, a whisper of glamor. A kind of scalloped aura to the club chairs. The color teal mediated through hundreds if not thousands of shoes. Yellowing plastic, including the strips of "molding" that visually tie floor to wall. These are remnants (or are they intuitions?) of so many movements and micromovements, none of them definite enough to point to the influence of a single designer, hell, even of a single decade, just strands of past-ness accumulated into one thread, which is cheapness. Continuity exists in the materials only because everything was purchased as a set from a wholesale catalog.

In some way a hotel is supposed to be placeless. Anonymous. Everything tries to be that way now, even houses. Perhaps because we don't like the way we spy on ourselves and lease our images out to the world so we crave the specificity of hotel anonymity, of someplace we move through on our way to bigger, better or at least different things. The hotel was designed to be frictionless but because it is in a little town, it sees little use and because it sees little use, there are elements that can last far longer than they were intended and which inadvertently cause friction. (The janky door unlocks with a key. The shower hose keeps coming out of the faucet. It's deeply annoying.)

Lack of wear and lack of funds only keep them that way. Not even the paper goods of the eighties have been exhausted yet. Datedness is not a choice but an inevitability. Because it is not a choice, it is not advertised except in a utilitarian sense. It is kept subtle on the hotel websites, out of shame. Because it does not subscribe to an advertiser's economy of the now, of the curated type rather than the "here is my service" type, it disappears into the folds of the earth and cannot be searched for in the way "design" can. It can only be discovered by accident.

When I look at all of these objects and things, I do so knowing I will never see them again, at least not all here together like this, as a cohesive whole assembled for a specific purpose. I don't think I'll ever have reason to come back to this town or this place, which has given me an unexpected experience of being peevish in my father's time. Whenever I end up in a place like this, where all is as it was, I get the sense that it will take a very long time for others to experience this sensation again with the things my generation has made. The machinations of fashion work rapaciously to make sure that nothing is ever old, not people, not rooms, not items, not furniture, not fabrics, not even design, that old matron who loves to wax poetic about futurity and timelessness. The plastic-veneered particleboard used here is now the bedrock of countless landfills. Eventually it will become the chemical-laced soil upon which we build our condos. It is possible that we are standing now at the very last frontier of our prior datedness. The next one has not yet elided. It's a special place. Spend a night. Take pictures.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!

[ayeforscotland]

I don't think anyone can mentally prepare you for how awful Linkedin is as a networking/job hunting social media site. The posts that gain any sort of popularity there would be absolutely crucified anywhere else online. From awful advice from recruiters to a CEO posting a picture of himself crying over layoffs he made?????

And just an endless amount of people like this.

[n30n-l1ghts]

Okay, I need to rant. Fuck AI. And I mean seriously. FUCK. A.I. I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but more people need to be talking about this, and there’s no point in me saying that if I’m not willing to talk about it too. AI has done nothing but ruin our communities and defile the art that millions of hands have spent millions of hours creating. Fanfiction is a work of passion. Drawing is a work of passion. Voice acting IS A WORK OF PASSION. AI has no passion. It takes the soul out of the things we love and cherish. It steals what we as a collective community have lovingly crafted, and it shatters it to a thousand pieces, spits on it, curses its family, and throws it in a flaming dumpster to be eaten by rats. It is despicable and disgusting.

I won't lie, or pretend I’m a perfect saint. I myself was a user of Character AI until somewhat recently. And as ashamed as I am to admit that, I feel it’s necessary to own up to my own faults. But after seeing the damage it causes, I can’t in good conscience even consider touching that site. Many of us write because it is our passion. Many of us because it is our job. And many of us because it is our *friend*. AI steals the writing of your favorite creators WITHOUT PERMISSION and mashes it together like Frankenstein’s fucked up monster to create storylines that aren’t even fucking coherent. Not only that, but Character AI uses whatever you respond to it with to teach itself as well, which means that the company has access to whatever you chat about, and free reign to do whatever they want with it. They also make absurd amounts of money from it, which in comparison, fanfiction writers, who spend countless hours writing stories for our favorite characters, more often than not charge nothing. And the ones who do charge, tend to have reasonable, if not highly lenient prices for their labor.

Which leads me into another side rant. SUPPORT WRITERS THAT YOU LIKE. It’s really not that hard, it takes two fucking seconds of your time and it makes someone's day. Reblog. Share with your friends. Like. Comment. Just let the writer know that you saw it, and that you liked it. The amount of fanfic writers I have seen get completely discouraged from writing because of lack of engagement is astounding. I’ve seen several posts on Tumblr or Twitter or Bluesky talking about creators that were incredibly popular but never knew it due to lack of engagement is appalling. If you can rant about your love for their work on Discord, you can rant about your love for their work in the comments. Just fucking copy paste it. Tell them how much you love it. Show them support. Especially the ones that don’t charge. Because for those of us that don’t, our only payment, is your feedback. Even constructive criticism is greatly appreciated by damn near every writer I can think of. Because even that shows that you read it, absorbed it, and thought about it enough to have something to actually say about it.

The same thing goes for artists and voice actors. You see a drawing or animation you enjoy? Comment. Like. Share. You see a character in an anime or a game and you love their voice? Go check out their voice actor, maybe they do some other cool stuff, and you might just discover your new favorite series or streamer. A perfect example is Alejandro Saab. I became a fan of his through his astounding performance in several series dear to me, and lo and behold, he’s also a streamer I enjoy. Same story with Aleks Le, or Ray Chase. Yuri Lowenthal, Lizzie Freeman, Landon Mcdonald, Zeno Robinson, the list goes on. But seriously, it’s not that much effort to just show a little love to the creators you enjoy. The people who breathe life into the series’ that we all hold dear. AI does not breathe that life. Using AI, and supporting those companies, will destroy those pillars of our community. And if that happens, the AI would crumble too, it would have no new information to use. SO really, what’s the benefit? I’ll tell you. There is none.

Stop using AI. All it does is bring harm and slowly kill our community. It’s disgusting, appalling, and downright fucking egregious.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[visenyaism]

tyrannical king maegor dashboard simulator

🐉queen-visenya--outlives

Dowager Queen Visenya Targaryen has outlived her nephew the King Aenys I Targaryen. Her son King Maegor I Targaryen has returned to the capital to claim his father’s throne.

💫 sevensent Follow

crusty incest king died. FLOP!

💫 sevensent Follow

wait MAEGOR?

🥔 bowlofbrown

this job fucking sucks. finished my shift and i cant even clock out because i got lost underneath the site.

#dark as shit down here #never working construction again

💌 maidens-smile Follow

i literally cannot believe how many supporters of m*egor i see on my dashboard every day when he is literally flaying and torturing so many seven-blessed poor fellows just for practicing their religion and saying incest is bad??? he’s literally outside my city waiting to burn us all to death DNI if you support him

🪨 dragonstoner Follow

🐉 queen-visenya--outlives

Dowager Queen Visenya Targaryen has outlived the High Septon. He previously denounced King Maegor and his wives as “the abomination and his whores,” and passed shortly after Dowager Queen Visenya and King Maegor flew their dragons to the gates of Oldtown and threatened to burn the Starry Sept.

🪽 maegors-wins Follow

i for one think “the cruel” is a bit unfair given how he has done so much to uplift women’s voices and free us from religious tyranny like. named the first female heir in westerosi history? improving the infrastructure in king’s landing? decentralizing the power of the faith? he literally loves gay people so much he married three of them?

🦓 zorse-deactivated7849

op what does that eleven inch necromantic targaryen dick feel like because if you keep riding that hard I’m pretty sure it’ll rot off

🔮 tyanna

in seven days you will begin to cough

#twelve. btw

🐉 queen-visenya--outlives

Dowager Queen Visenya Targaryen has outlived her great-nephew Aegon Targaryen, henceforth to be known as “The Uncrowned.” Her son King Maegor I Targaryen has slain him and his dragon Quicksilver over the gods’ eye for trying to usurp his throne.

🌞 ullerihardlyknowher Follow

why is this always how i find out how do you know this before even cravings moste popular

#also what the fuck is going on up there

🪰 florian-and-jonquil-on-nymerias-ship Follow

guys the oversexualization of king maegor is so problematic and insane considering he’s not only shy and married as a 13 year old but also is literally neurodivergent (has CTE)

🤲 aegonfort-top

🤲 aegonfort-top

lost my left hand for posting this

#it was kind of hot though

🗣️ towerstower Follow

was not into targaryen rule at all but if we are going to do it it’s kind of fun that we are being ruled by a super powered animated blood corpse and his circle of freaky bisexual witches and also his mommy instead of like. a normie who also fucks his sister

🫀 imasharpknife Follow

seven hells you people would fuck a k*nslayer if they had valyrian silver hair

🐦‍⬛ raventooth Follow

during these trying times when our king is accused of depravity and tyrannies abound throughout the land we must remember the most important truth: the brackens are still a people spawned from the lowest of the seven hells

🐎 brackennation

KILL YOURSELF. Lord Gonzo Tully himself AS YOU KNOW literallyyyyyy gave us the right to move the boundary stones over the tributary. but i wouldn’t expect a blackwood to acknowledge basic laws and rights you’re just too busy doing blood sacrifices to your nasty heathen tree god.

🐦‍⬛ raventooth Follow

as soon as i figure out why balerion is overhead rn im coming over to kill you. btw

🐎 brackennation

wait looks like he’s headed towards harrentown

🐦‍⬛ raventooth Follow

oh cool. KILL YOURSELF

💐 floriansfool36 Follow

hi guys!!! sorry i’m a sennight late posting this, my brother got killed and then one of my other brothers got tortured to death and then my great-aunt died and i ended up having to flee dragonstone for storm’s end and it was kind of scary lol. anyways here’s the update as promised!!!

🌟 maidensgrace Follow

i wish Balerion did get you RPF is literally soooooo problematic. look to your sins op

#daenys the dreamer and nymeria weren’t even alive at the same time????

❤️ lanadelrhaena

i think you did a great job. glad you’re safe xx

💐 floriansfool36 Follow

YOU HAVE INTERNET IN THE KEEP???? HIIIII

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Reverse engineers bust sleazy gig work platform

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/23/hack-the-class-war/#robo-boss

A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION

Supposedly, these lines were included in a 1979 internal presentation at IBM; screenshots of them routinely go viral:

https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1385565737167724545?lang=en

The reason for their newfound popularity is obvious: the rise and rise of algorithmic management tools, in which your boss is an app. That IBM slide is right: turning an app into your boss allows your actual boss to create an "accountability sink" in which there is no obvious way to blame a human or even a company for your maltreatment:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

App-based management-by-bossware treats the bug identified by the unknown author of that IBM slide into a feature. When an app is your boss, it can force you to scab:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

Or it can steal your wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But tech giveth and tech taketh away. Digital technology is infinitely flexible: the program that spies on you can be defeated by another program that defeats spying. Every time your algorithmic boss hacks you, you can hack your boss back:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

Technologists and labor organizers need one another. Even the most precarious and abused workers can team up with hackers to disenshittify their robo-bosses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

For every abuse technology brings to the workplace, there is a liberating use of technology that workers unleash by seizing the means of computation:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/13/solidarity-forever/#tech-unions

One tech-savvy group on the cutting edge of dismantling the Torment Nexus is Algorithms Exposed, a tiny, scrappy group of EU hacker/academics who recruit volunteers to reverse engineer and modify the algorithms that rule our lives as workers and as customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Algorithms Exposed have an admirable supply of seemingly boundless energy. Every time I check in with them, I learn that they've spun out yet another special-purpose subgroup. Today, I learned about Reversing Works, a hacking team that reverse engineers gig work apps, revealing corporate wrongdoing that leads to multimillion euro fines for especially sleazy companies.

One such company is Foodinho, an Italian subsidiary of the Spanish food delivery company Glovo. Foodinho/Glovo has been in the crosshairs of Italian labor enforcers since before the pandemic, racking up millions in fines – first for failing to file the proper privacy paperwork disclosing the nature of the data processing in the app that Foodinho riders use to book jobs. Then, after the Italian data commission investigated Foodinho, the company attracted new, much larger fines for its out-of-control surveillance conduct.

As all of this was underway, Reversing Works was conducting its own research into Glovo/Foodinho's app, running it on a simulated Android handset inside a PC so they could peer into app's data collection and processing. They discovered a nightmarish world of pervasive, illegal worker surveillance, and published their findings a year ago in November, 2023:

https://www.etui.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/Exercising%20workers%20rights%20in%20algorithmic%20management%20systems_Lessons%20learned%20from%20the%20Glovo-Foodinho%20digital%20labour%20platform%20case_2023.pdf

That report reveals all kinds of extremely illegal behavior. Glovo/Foodinho makes its riders' data accessible across national borders, so Glovo managers outside of Italy can access fine-grained surveillance information and sensitive personal information – a major data protection no-no.

Worse, Glovo's app embeds trackers from a huge number of other tech platforms (for chat, analytics, and more), making it impossible for the company to account for all the ways that its riders' data is collected – again, a requirement under Italian and EU data protection law.

All this data collection continues even when riders have clocked out for the day – its as though your boss followed you home after quitting time and spied on you.

The research also revealed evidence of a secretive worker scoring system that ranked workers based on undisclosed criteria and reserved the best jobs for workers with high scores. This kind of thing is pervasive in algorithmic management, from gig work to Youtube and Tiktok, where performers' videos are routinely suppressed because they crossed some undisclosed line. When an app is your boss, your every paycheck is docked because you violated a policy you're not allowed to know about, because if you knew why your boss was giving you shitty jobs, or refusing to show the video you spent thousands of dollars making to the subscribers who asked to see it, then maybe you could figure out how to keep your boss from detecting your rulebreaking next time.

All this data-collection and processing is bad enough, but what makes it all a thousand times worse is Glovo's data retention policy – they're storing this data on their workers for four years after the worker leaves their employ. That means that mountains of sensitive, potentially ruinous data on gig workers is just lying around, waiting to be stolen by the next hacker that breaks into the company's servers.

Reversing Works's report made quite a splash. A year after its publication, the Italian data protection agency fined Glovo another 5 million euros and ordered them to cut this shit out:

https://reversing.works/posts/2024/11/press-release-reversing.works-investigation-exposes-glovos-data-privacy-violations-marking-a-milestone-for-worker-rights-and-technology-accountability/

As the report points out, Italy is extremely well set up to defend workers' rights from this kind of bossware abuse. Not only do Italian enforcers have all the privacy tools created by the GDPR, the EU's flagship privacy regulation – they also have the benefit of Italy's 1970 Workers' Statute. The Workers Statute is a visionary piece of legislation that protects workers from automated management practices. Combined with later privacy regulation, it gave Italy's data regulators sweeping powers to defend Italian workers, like Glovo's riders.

Italy is also a leader in recognizing gig workers as de facto employees, despite the tissue-thin pretense that adding an app to your employment means that you aren't entitled to any labor protections. In the case of Glovo, the fine-grained surveillance and reputation scoring were deemed proof that Glovo was employer to its riders.

Reversing Works' report is a fascinating read, especially the sections detailing how the researchers recruited a Glovo rider who allowed them to log in to Glovo's platform on their account.

As Reversing Works points out, this bottom-up approach – where apps are subjected to technical analysis – has real potential for labor organizations seeking to protect workers. Their report established multiple grounds on which a union could seek to hold an abusive employer to account.

But this bottom-up approach also holds out the potential for developing direct-action tools that let workers flex their power, by modifying apps, or coordinating their actions to wring concessions out of their bosses.

After all, the whole reason for the gig economy is to slash wage-bills, by transforming workers into contractors, and by eliminating managers in favor of algorithms. This leaves companies extremely vulnerable, because when workers come together to exercise power, their employer can't rely on middle managers to pressure workers, deal with irate customers, or step in to fill the gap themselves:

https://projects.itforchange.net/state-of-big-tech/changing-dynamics-of-labor-and-capital/

Only by seizing the means of computation, workers and organized labor can turn the tables on bossware – both by directly altering the conditions of their employment, and by producing the evidence and tools that regulators can use to force employers to make those alterations permanent.

Image: EFF (modified) https://www.eff.org/files/issues/eu-flag-11_1.png

CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

[garbageday]

This post from a verified X account recently received 17 million “views,” about 14,000 retweets and around 500 replies. But the replies aren’t what you’d normally see on Twitter pre-Elon Musk’s takeover. Instead, they’re almost exclusively from other verified accounts, who aren’t even attempting to actually reply to the post. Even weirder, some of the accounts replying underneath this post appear to be trying to start a completely different reply thread.

It's bizarre new trend on X that I’ve noticed becoming more popular recently. And I’m going to call it a Verified Meme Dump. And it’s sort of a perfect example of how paid verification and user monetization has broken a platform that was primarily powered by conversations.

On Twitter, back when it was Twitter, the incentive to be funny or interesting or informative was retweets and likes, which if you gained enough of you might get a media job, or a book deal, or get laid. On X, Musk’s pay-to-play model of virality has turned the site into an environment of pure capitalism where conversation simply gets in the way. And after scrolling through enough of these Verified Meme Dumps, I slowly realized what they actually reminded me of. These replies are just galleries of refried edgy memes with no coherent theme, posted by scammers and weirdos, surrounded by ads for brands I’ve never heard of and products that probably don’t exist, with poorly-aggregated headlines sitting next to them on the sidebar. It’s 9gag. Elon Musk paid $44 billion to make 9gag. And his big plan to improve it, according to Fortune this week, is to start charging new users $1 a year to use it.

[Read more at Garbage Day]

[welinkjobs]

Job Market Trends What to Expect in Your Industry This Year

Introduction: 

As we move further into the year, the job market continues to evolve at a fast pace, driven by advancements in technology, shifts in workplace expectations, and changing economic conditions. Whether you're an employer seeking talent or a professional navigating your next career move, understanding this year's job market trends is key to staying competitive and making informed decisions. Here’s what you can expect across various industries in 2024.

1. The Growing Demand for Tech Skills Across Industries

As industries continue their digital transformation, tech skills have become essential, not only in traditional tech sectors but in virtually every industry. 

Increased Demand for Data Analysis and AI: With data-driven decision-making on the rise, skills in data analysis and artificial intelligence (AI) are highly sought after in sectors ranging from healthcare to retail.

Cybersecurity Specialists in Demand: As cyber threats evolve, organisations are focusing on data security, pushing demand for cybersecurity specialists. Job openings in cybersecurity and network security are expected to see continued growth across all industries.

2. Remote and Hybrid Work Set to Stay

Remote work has become the norm rather than an exception, and companies are now embracing more flexible work arrangements:

Hybrid Roles on the Rise: Many organisations are finding a balance between remote and on-site work through hybrid roles, allowing employees flexibility while retaining a degree of in-office collaboration.

Increased Focus on Digital Collaboration Tools: With remote work firmly established, digital collaboration tools are becoming indispensable, leading to a growing demand for proficiency in these technologies.

3. Focus on Skills-Based Hiring Over Traditional Qualifications

The value placed on specific skills over traditional qualifications is reshaping recruitment, making job openings more accessible to diverse talent pools:

Rise of Skills-Based Hiring: More employers are prioritizing practical skills over formal degrees, assessing candidates based on their ability to perform tasks rather than academic credentials.

Reskilling and Upskilling as a Requirement: Companies are increasingly providing reskilling and upskilling opportunities for current employees to align with emerging roles and technologies.

4. Increased Emphasis on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Factors

Corporate responsibility is becoming a top priority, with companies focusing on sustainability, social impact, and ethical practices:

Sustainability Roles Growing: Many industries are hiring roles focused on sustainability, including positions for environmental analysts, renewable energy consultants, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) specialists.

Focus on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion): Employers are expanding diversity and inclusion initiatives to create more inclusive workplaces, with specific roles emerging in this space.

5. Healthcare Industry Demand for Specialized Talent

With an aging global population and healthcare advancements, demand for healthcare professionals remains strong, particularly in specialised fields:

Growth in Telemedicine: Telehealth has surged in popularity and continues to grow, prompting demand for telemedicine coordinators, digital health experts, and IT specialists within healthcare.

Aging Population Driving Demand: As the population ages, the need for geriatric specialists, home health aides, and rehabilitation services is rising.

6. Focus on Employee Wellness and Mental Health

More employers are prioritising the mental health and well-being of their employees, introducing wellness programs, flexible working arrangements, and enhanced benefits:

Dedicated Mental Health Resources: Roles dedicated to employee mental health, such as wellness coordinators and mental health advocates, are becoming more common.

Wellness as a Key Benefit: Companies are offering wellness perks, such as gym memberships, meditation classes, and flexible working hours, as a way to attract and retain talent.

7. E-commerce and Digital Marketing Expansion

The rapid growth of online shopping is creating job opportunities in e-commerce, logistics, and digital marketing.

E-commerce Logistics and Supply Chain Roles: Roles in supply chain management, warehouse operations, and logistics are on the rise to meet the demands of online shopping.

Digital Marketing and Social Media: The focus on digital presence means continued growth for digital marketing, social media management, and content creation roles.

8. Artificial Intelligence and Automation in the Workplace

Automation is redefining workflows and business operations, creating a demand for workers skilled in AI and robotic process automation (RPA):

AI Implementation Roles: As automation spreads, roles in AI development, process optimization, and RPA implementation are in high demand.

Focus on Human-AI Collaboration: Jobs that emphasise collaboration between humans and AI, such as AI trainers and ethicists, are emerging.

9. Expansion of Financial Services and Fintech

As financial technology (fintech) innovations continue, the finance industry is embracing new services, including cryptocurrency, mobile banking, and digital payments:

Fintech Specialization: Expertise in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and digital transactions is increasingly relevant.

Compliance and Regulation: As fintech grows, roles in compliance, fraud detection, and financial regulations are on the rise.

Conclusion: 

This year, the job market is set to change quickly across various industries, emphasizing the importance of tech skills, adaptability, and interpersonal abilities such as communication and teamwork. By recognizing these trends and aligning your skills with them, you can enhance your chances of standing out and progressing in your career.

[goryhorroor]

horror of 2025

here's the list (hoping i get every movie but mostly will be kinda focusing on the ones i'm either excited for or is super popular)

the wolfman - leigh whannell's take on the classic

final destination: bloodlines - tormented by recurring violent nightmares, stefanie returns home to break the cycle

black phone 2: sequel

sax xi: eleventh installment in the saw franchise

28 years later - it's been three decades since the rage virus escaped a laboratory and some groups have been able to live amongst the infected but when they leave the safety of their island they'll discover dark secrets

m3gan 2.0 - sequel

companion - after being invited to a weeekend trip at her new beau's lakeside estate, iris uncovers a terrible secret

they follow: sequel to it follows

frankenstein: guillermo's del toro's take on the original

the strangers: chapter 2 - sequel

the strangers: chapter 3 - end of a trilogy

scary movie: return to the horror spoof series

sinners - trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back

untitled jordan peele film - plot tba

poohniverse: monsters assemble - a team of evil childhood cartoon characters i didn't know we needed but i guess we're getting one

vicious - a young woman must spent the night fighting for her existence as she slips down a disturbing rabbit hole contained inside a mysterious gift from a late-night visitor

blade - i mean i hope so but i'm not sure if we're actually getting it this year

the bride - in the 1930s, a lonely frankenstein travels to chicago to seek the aid of dr. euphronius in creating a companion for himself. they murder a young woman and the bride is born

scary stories to tell in the dark 2 - sequel

thanksgiving 2 - sequel

the auditors - nikki, grappling with post-job loss financial strain, inadvertently ignores the fine print of their MDPOPE purchase, and their descent into horror begins with the arrival of the auditors who subject them to torture

grind - a group of college students host a midnight grindhouse film festival. they discover a cursed arthouse horror movie called the creeping chaos. in screening the movie, they unleash absolute mayhem

you take can now - plot tba

scream 7 - plot tba

kraken - marine biologist johanne is doing research on a fish farm in vangshe, a rural community located by the fjord. when she encounters strange occurances along with two brutal deaths, she discovers that a mythical creature rests

the woman in the yard - a mysterious woman who repeatedly appears in a family's front yard, often giving chilling warnings, and leaving residents to question her identity, motive, and potential danger

i know what you did last summer - reboot of classic

fear street: prom queen - prom season at shadyside high is underway, but when an outsider is unexpectedly nominated to the court, and other girls start disappearing, the class of '88 is in for a hell of a prom night

until dawn - live action of the video game

let the evil go west - a railroad worker stumbles upon a fortune teller in distubring circumstances and horrifying visions drive him towards madness

the monkey - when twin brothers hal and bill discover their father's old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths start occurring around them

hell house llc: lineage - fifth installment

screamboat: a late night boat ride turns into a desperate fight for survival in new york city when a mouse becomes a monstrous reality (what the fuck)

body farm - the forester johann only wants to warn his ex-wife sophie of a forensic research facility, but when he gets to the site, fast-growing slime has infested the corpses of the dead and brings them to life

i know exactly how you die - when his slasher-fiction novel manifests in real life, rian burman has to finish his story without getting his protagonist killed

le fanu's carmilla - retelling of the book

devil's work - when a couple, traveling on their vacation, meet a desperate girl seeking for her missing sister, they encounter terror and up as hostages to a twisted family and their son

the seductress from hell - hollywood actress undergoes a horrific transformation after being pushed to the edge by her husband

hyde - modern take on the classic novella by robert louis stevenson

crawlers - in the year 2030, a zombie pandemic decimates the united states population. american surviors rush to mexico where a plateau is believed to be zombie free

the children of the woods - in january 1999, a group of five disappeared after they went into the woods of york, south carolina for a camping trip, their story is being told 25 years later (inspired by blair witch project)

the dreadful - in the backdrop of the war of roses, anne and her mother-in-law morwen who live in solidary, run into a man from their past

presence - a family moves into a suburban house and become convinced they're not alone

victorian psycho - winifred notty arrives at a remote gothic manor, and as she assimilates into life, staff members begin to disappear

heart eyes - when the heart eyes killer strikes seattle, a pair of co workers pulling overtime are mistaken for a couple by the couple-hunting killer. now they must spend their valetine's day running for their lives

peter pan's neverland nightmare - after her brother michael is abducted by "the boy who won't grow up," peter pan, wendy darling goes on a rescue mission

[aashi-heartfilia]

Where can I read "Kusuriya no Hitorigoto" Light Novel?

Since a lot of you have been asking this question lately, here is everything you need to know in brief...

What is a Web Novel (WN) and Light Novel (LN)?

A WN is basically weekly chapters released by the main author on a weekly basis. You can find it on a lot of Japanese sites. Some amazing people also translate them on a regular basis and post those chapters. LN is a compilation of WN chapters. A number of Chapters from the WN are taken, translated, properly rewritten and edited to publish a final LN. It has a few illustrations as well like the one you can see below...

Manga, Light Novel and Anime

Basically, the LN is taken and illustrated by an artist and we call it a manga. And when the manga has reached a certain number of Chapters, and gained a lot of popularity, it is converted into an anime. So that's the flow of things. We have

WN -> LN -> Manga -> Anime

I think that clears up a lot of misunderstandings. Firstly, the WN is published on a weekly basis, some chapters from WN are taken and translated properly to make a LN. The LN is illustrated by an artist to make the manga and the manga is generally adapted to make the anime.

In case of 'Kusuriya no Hitorigoto' or 'The Apothecary Diaries', the anime is doing a great job of adapting the overall story because not only are they properly animating every scene from the manga but also adding their own scenes from the LN.

Where can I read WN, LN and Manga?

WNs are the hardest to find, since they are released on a weekly basis by the Japanese author. They are written in Japanese and a few fans translate them for everyone. You can find it here...

(They have translated chapters of vol 10, 11 and 12)

The LN has reached until vol 9 and vol 10 is scheduled to release in Jan 2024. Currently, there is no source where you can find it for free (not that I know of, because even I have purchased the e book from Amazon) though the first few pages are available to read for free! So you can check them out!

Where did the Anime, Manga left off?

The Manga has reached ch 68. If you want to start reading the light novel from where the manga left off, you can start reading from vol 4, chapter 4.

The Anime has released ep 12 and it has covered manga material till ch 20, if you want to read manga after finishing the anime.

If you have any other questions regarding the LN, WN, Anime or Manga, feel free to ask!

~ Sunshine

[feminist-space]

"Artists have finally had enough with Meta’s predatory AI policies, but Meta’s loss is Cara’s gain. An artist-run, anti-AI social platform, Cara has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users within the last week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts.

Instagram is a necessity for many artists, who use the platform to promote their work and solicit paying clients. But Meta is using public posts to train its generative AI systems, and only European users can opt out, since they’re protected by GDPR laws. Generative AI has become so front-and-center on Meta’s apps that artists reached their breaking point.

“When you put [AI] so much in their face, and then give them the option to opt out, but then increase the friction to opt out… I think that increases their anger level — like, okay now I’ve really had enough,” Jingna Zhang, a renowned photographer and founder of Cara, told TechCrunch.

Cara, which has both a web and mobile app, is like a combination of Instagram and X, but built specifically for artists. On your profile, you can host a portfolio of work, but you can also post updates to your feed like any other microblogging site.

Zhang is perfectly positioned to helm an artist-centric social network, where they can post without the risk of becoming part of a training dataset for AI. Zhang has fought on behalf of artists, recently winning an appeal in a Luxembourg court over a painter who copied one of her photographs, which she shot for Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam.

“Using a different medium was irrelevant. My work being ‘available online’ was irrelevant. Consent was necessary,” Zhang wrote on X.

Zhang and three other artists are also suing Google for allegedly using their copyrighted work to train Imagen, an AI image generator. She’s also a plaintiff in a similar lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway AI.

“Words can’t describe how dehumanizing it is to see my name used 20,000+ times in MidJourney,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “My life’s work and who I am—reduced to meaningless fodder for a commercial image slot machine.”

Artists are so resistant to AI because the training data behind many of these image generators includes their work without their consent. These models amass such a large swath of artwork by scraping the internet for images, without regard for whether or not those images are copyrighted. It’s a slap in the face for artists – not only are their jobs endangered by AI, but that same AI is often powered by their work.

“When it comes to art, unfortunately, we just come from a fundamentally different perspective and point of view, because on the tech side, you have this strong history of open source, and people are just thinking like, well, you put it out there, so it’s for people to use,” Zhang said. “For artists, it’s a part of our selves and our identity. I would not want my best friend to make a manipulation of my work without asking me. There’s a nuance to how we see things, but I don’t think people understand that the art we do is not a product.”

This commitment to protecting artists from copyright infringement extends to Cara, which partners with the University of Chicago’s Glaze project. By using Glaze, artists who manually apply Glaze to their work on Cara have an added layer of protection against being scraped for AI.

Other projects have also stepped up to defend artists. Spawning AI, an artist-led company, has created an API that allows artists to remove their work from popular datasets. But that opt-out only works if the companies that use those datasets honor artists’ requests. So far, HuggingFace and Stability have agreed to respect Spawning’s Do Not Train registry, but artists’ work cannot be retroactively removed from models that have already been trained.

“I think there is this clash between backgrounds and expectations on what we put on the internet,” Zhang said. “For artists, we want to share our work with the world. We put it online, and we don’t charge people to view this piece of work, but it doesn’t mean that we give up our copyright, or any ownership of our work.”"

Read the rest of the article here:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/06/a-social-app-for-creatives-cara-grew-from-40k-to-650k-users-in-a-week-because-artists-are-fed-up-with-metas-ai-policies/

[erika-xero]

Beware, the long post incoming. Pro tips for artists who work on commissions!

DISCLAIMER: I do not have, like, a HUGE online following and can’t be called a popular or viral artist, but I do have some experience and I’ve been working as a freelance artist for more that five years, so I could share a few tips on how to work with clients with my fellow artists. Scroll down for the short summary!

First of all, you always need to have your Terms of Service written down in a document that is accessible for your potential clients. And by terms of service I don’t mean a set of rules like “I don’t draw mecha, anthro and N/S/F/W”. There is much more into it, than you may think when you first start drawing commissions.

You’ll need to understand how copyright law/author’s rights in your country works (for example, US copyright or Russian author’s rights, be sure to check your local resources). There are a bunch of sites where you can actually read some legal documents (. I know it might be boring, but TRUST me, you WILL need this knowledge if you choose this career path.

Russia, for example, is plagued with shops selling anime merchandise. The merchandise is usually printed somewhere in the basement of the shop and the shop owners literally rip off other people’s intellectual property. If the artist ask them to remove their IP from the shop the owners usually try to fool them with lies about how the IP works. They will tell you, that you have to register copyright on every single drawing and if you don’t do it anyone can reproduce and sell your artwork. In reality, copyright law in most countries simply doesn’t work this way. Once you create an original work and fix it, take a photograph, write a song or blog entry, paint an artwork, you already are the author and the owner. Yes, there are certain procedures of copyright registration, which is only a step to enhance the protection, but you become an author the very moment you create a piece of art, and no one have a right to take your creation from you. Knowing your rights is essential.

Some of your commissioners may try to scam you too, but most of them might simply not be aware of how copyright law works. I literally had people asking me questions whether or not the character I am commissioned to draw becomes MY intellectual property. I literally had to convince the person (who was legit scared, since the commissioned piece was going to be a first image of his character ever created) otherwise. If you have an idea of the character written down or fixed in any other form such as a collage, a sketch, or a concept art -- the character is yours. Artist may have rights to the image they create, but not the character itself. Your potential commissioner must acknowledge that their characters, settings and etc. is still theirs, while your artwork is yours, if your contract doesn’t state otherwise. You can sell the property rights on your artwork to your commissioner if you want, but it is unnecessary for non-commercial commissions. And I strongly advice you to distinguish the non-commercial commissions from commercial ones and set the different pricing for them. Even if you sell ownership of your artwork to your commissioner, you can not sell the authorship. You will always remain an author of your artwork, thus you still have all the author’s rights stated in the legal documents.

Another thing that is absolutely necessary to be stated in your terms of service is information whether (and when) it is possible to get a refund from you. You absolutely have to write it down: no. refunds. for finished. artworks.

You have already invested time and effort to finish an artwork. The job is done and the money is yours. I’ve heard stories of commissioners demanding refund a few months later after the commission was finished and approved by the commissioners, because, quote “I do not want it anymore”. Commissioning an artist doesn’t work this way, artwork is not an item purchased on shein or aliexpress that can be sent back to the seller. It is not a mass production. It is a unique piece of art. Example: My friend once drew a non-commercial commission for a client who tried to use it commercially later on. She contacted him and reminded of the Terms of Service he agreed with, offering him to pay a fee for commercializing the piece instead of taking him to the court or starting a drama. He declined and suddenly demanded a full refund for that commission via Paypal services. My friend contacted the supports and showed them the entire correspondence with that client. She also stated that the invoice he paid included a link to the Terms and Service he had to agree with if he pays that invoid. The money were returned to her.

However, partial refund can be possible at the certain stage of work. For example, the sketch is done, but something goes horribly wrong. Either the client appeared to be a toxic person, or an artist does not have a required skill to finish the job. I suggest you keep the money for the sketch, but refund the rest of the sum. It might be 50/50 like I suggested to my clients before (when I still could work with Paypal), but it really depends on your choise. I suggest not doing a full refund though for many reasons: not only you make yourself vulnerable, but you also might normalize a practice harmful to other artists this way.

The main reason why full refund when the sketch/line-art are done must not be an option is that some clients may commission other artists with lower prices to finish the job. This brings us to the next important point: you absolutely need to forbid your clients from altering, coloring or overpainting your creation or commission other artists to do so. This also protects your artwork from being cropped, changed with Instagram filters or even being edited into a N/S/F/W image. Speaking of which. If you create adult content, you absolutely need to state that to request such a commission, your commissioner must at least be 18/21 years old (depending on your country). And as for the SFW commissions you also have to state that if someone underage commissions an artwork from you it is automatically supposed that they have a parental concern.

There is also a popular way to scam artist via some payment systems, called I-did-not-receive-a-package. Most of the payment systems automatically suppose that you sell goods which have to be physically delivered via postal services. This is why it is important to state (both in the Terms of Service and the payment invoice itself) that what commissioner is about to receive is a digital good.

And the last, but not the least: don’t forget about alterations and changes the commissioner might want to make on the way. Some people do not understand how difficult it may be to make a major change in the artwork when it is almost finished. Always let your commissioners know that all the major changes are only acceptable at early stages: sketch, line-art, basic coloring. Later on, it is only possible to make the minor ones. I prefer to give my commissioner’s this info in private emails along with the WIPs I send, but you can totally state it in your Terms of Service. I do not limit the changes to five or three per commission, but I really do appreciate it when I get all the necessary feedback in time.

To sum this post up, the info essential for your Terms of Service doc is:

- The information on whether or not your commissions are commercial or non-commercial. If they are non-commercial, is there a way to commercialize them? At what cost?

- The information on author’s and commissioner’s rights;

- The information on whether (and when) refunds are possible;

- The prohibition of coloring, cropping, overpainting and other alterations;

- The information on whether or not you provide the commissioner with some physical goods or with digital goods only;

- Don’t forget about your commissioner’s age! If you work with client who is a minor, a parental consern is required. And no n/s/f/w for underage people!

- You may also want to include that you can refuse to work on the commission without explanation in case you encounter a toxic client or feel like it might be some sort of scam.

- I also strongly suggest you work with prepay, either full or 50% of total sum, it usually scares off the scammers. I take my prepay after me and my client agree on a rough doodle of an overall composition.

- I also include the black list of the themes: everyting offensive imaginable (sexism, homophobia, transfobia, racism, for N/S/F/W artists it also might be some certain fetishes and etc). Keep your reputation clean!

- Ban N/F/T and blacklist the commissioners who turn your artworks into them anywayss, don’t be shy <3

These are the things that are absolutely necessary but are so rarely seen in artists’ Terms of Service that it makes me sad. Some of these tips really helped me to avoid scams and misunderstandings. I really hope it helps you all!

[skythealmighty]

gang ngl i miss object universe. i should rewatch it again and get way too emotionally attached to Ice Cream and Map

#rocket talk #i made fanart of them with a steven universe song once i'm unwell

(1 note)

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

why does gamey get to be on ii TWICE. who gave him permission

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

thanks for the suggestion @cabtube-truther

📟 knockoff-gameboy Follow

You don't hear PBSB complaining about this...

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

well they're in a show that's super popular

📟 knockoff-gameboy Follow

Yeah, and you're in one that got cancelled

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

shut up you didnt even finish season one

#just one more cameo mephone4 thats all i ask

(316 notes)

anonymous asked: not sure you're gonna want a cameo rn mephone is going Through it

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

hold on im not actually caught up lemme see

🪟 im-not-electric Follow

holy shit

#I TAKE IT BACK

(58 notes)

anonymous asked: omg fan pleaaaase marru me ill do anythinggg ❤❤❤🥵🥵🥵

💥 fans-fantastic-features Follow

hey @test-tubular just checking was i ever this weird

🧪 test-tubular Follow

Weird? Always. This weird? No.

💥 fans-fantastic-features Follow

COOL just checking anyway

no please stop sending me these

#fans fantastic asks #this is the least weird anon ask from i think this specific anon #ive blocked them but oh my god #NO!!!

(83 notes)

💥🔃 fans-fantastic-features Follow reblogged 4️⃣ four-therecord

2️⃣ hey-two Follow

Hello everyone!! 👋 Since I've gotten many an ask about my cheesecake recipe from previous TPOT episodes, I've decided to make a longpost and put it here for you all to use!! Feel free to use without credit but credit is still appreciated 😊

Keep reading

4️⃣ four-therecord Follow

i hate you

#so they ARE on here #followed both immediately #how did i not come across them earlier...

(2,613 notes)

💊 the-cringe-one Follow

Recovery across different universes, a scientific theory

(Full post below the cut)

((Thank you to @not-tally-hall for the testimony regarding the S*n!))

Keep reading

😎 the-chad-one Follow

boring 👎👎👎👎

💊 the-cringe-one Follow

Get off my post

⛳ bossy-bot Follow

This is incredibly fascinating and an enjoyable read! There are some points of debate I've brought up in DMs, but otherwise this is a very solid theory. Good job!

💊 the-cringe-one Follow

Thank you, that means a lot!!

#I follow your papers closely so hearing that coming from you is an honor #anyway back to my regularly scheduled nonsense

(13 notes)

🟧 julian-waiting Follow

Bonjour! J'ai découvert ce cite grâce à des vidéos amusantes

Je suis encore en train de m'habiteur à la société et je pense que c'est une bonne façon de me faire des amis! Enchanté de vous recontrer tous 😃

🥖 shut-up-about-boto Follow

bienvenue sur le site de l'enfer ! la plupart des gens ici ne parlent qu'anglais, vous pouvez donc m'envoyer un message si vous voulez parler à quelqu'un en français. je peux également vous montrer des endroits en ligne pour apprendre l'anglais

🟧 julian-waiting Follow

Cela signifierait beaucoup pour moi, merci

🥖 shut-up-about-boto Follow

bien sûr!

🍐 betterthanpearaib Follow

Baguette we all know you're not actually French you don't need to keep pretending 😒...

🥖 shut-up-about-boto Follow

K

(172 notes)

anonymous asked: your iconic quote from episode 10 has unfortunately become a vocal stim for me. please help, i'm suffering

🍿 stevecobseviltwin Follow

Hey? This is the funniest ask anyone's ever sent me. Can we make out behind a Denny's

#my condolences though oh my god 😭

(4 notes)

⚾️ take-me-out-to-theballgame Follow

Guys, this site is easy! Just watch

⚾️ take-me-out-to-theballgame Follow

Based ball? Based on what?

⚾️ take-me-out-to-theballgame Follow

#hey. are you doing okay

No

(42,526 notes)

🍐 betterthanpearaib Follow

Finally watched II! Good show. I want that twink OJ dead why is he like that

☝ i-date-iconic-posts Follow

Date of origin: November 2nd, 2020

🍐 betterthanpearaib Follow

I DIDNT MEAN IT I DIDNT MEAN IT I DIDNT MEAN JT I DIDNT

#😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

(26,942 notes)

🎒 liam-plecak Follow

Thanks everyone for the help so far! I'm not too much of a science nerd, unfortunately, @bossy-bot, so I didn't understand everything in the papers you sent me- but they still helped a ton! Especially the coding help. I was a telemarketer, not an IT person...

Now that I know what I'm doing, I have some free time. With some recommendations from @fans-fantastic-features:

If you have any other recommendations, just leave them in the comments. And please go and send help to @fire-cartoon-schtick while you're at it!