#unauthorized bread

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Autoenshittification

Forget F1: the only car race that matters now is the race to turn your car into a digital extraction machine, a high-speed inkjet printer on wheels, stealing your private data as it picks your pocket. Your car’s digital infrastructure is a costly, dangerous nightmare — but for automakers in pursuit of postcapitalist utopia, it’s a dream they can’t give up on.

Your car is stuffed full of microchips, a fact the world came to appreciate after the pandemic struck and auto production ground to a halt due to chip shortages. Of course, that wasn’t the whole story: when the pandemic started, the automakers panicked and canceled their chip orders, only to immediately regret that decision and place new orders.

But it was too late: semiconductor production had taken a serious body-blow, and when Big Car placed its new chip orders, it went to the back of a long, slow-moving line. It was a catastrophic bungle: microchips are so integral to car production that a car is basically a computer network on wheels that you stick your fragile human body into and pray.

The car manufacturers got so desperate for chips that they started buying up washing machines for the microchips in them, extracting the chips and discarding the washing machines like some absurdo-dystopian cyberpunk walnut-shelling machine:

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/desperate-times-companies-buy-washing-machines-just-to-rip-out-the-chips-187033.html

These digital systems are a huge problem for the car companies. They are the underlying cause of a precipitous decline in car quality. From touch-based digital door-locks to networked sensors and cameras, every digital system in your car is a source of endless repair nightmares, costly recalls and cybersecurity vulnerabilities:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/quality-new-vehicles-us-declining-more-tech-use-study-shows-2023-06-22/

What’s more, drivers hate all the digital bullshit, from the janky touchscreens to the shitty, wildly insecure apps. Digital systems are drivers’ most significant point of dissatisfaction with the automakers’ products:

https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-satisifaction-survey-jd-power

Even the automakers sorta-kinda admit that this is a problem. Back in 2020 when Massachusetts was having a Right-to-Repair ballot initiative, Big Car ran these unfuckingbelievable scare ads that basically said, “Your car spies on you so comprehensively that giving anyone else access to its systems will let murderers stalk you to your home and kill you:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

But even amid all the complaining about cars getting stuck in the Internet of Shit, there’s still not much discussion of why the car-makers are making their products less attractive, less reliable, less safe, and less resilient by stuffing them full of microchips. Are car execs just the latest generation of rubes who’ve been suckered by Silicon Valley bullshit and convinced that apps are a magic path to profitability?

Nope. Car execs are sophisticated businesspeople, and they’re surfing capitalism’s latest — and last — hot trend: dismantling capitalism itself.

Now, leftists have been predicting the death of capitalism since The Communist Manifesto, but even Marx and Engels warned us not to get too frisky: capitalism, they wrote, is endlessly creative, constantly reinventing itself, re-emerging from each crisis in a new form that is perfectly adapted to the post-crisis reality:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html

But capitalism has finally run out of gas. In his forthcoming book, Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis proposes that capitalism has died — but it wasn’t replaced by socialism. Rather, capitalism has given way to feudalism:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279

Under capitalism, capital is the prime mover. The people who own and mobilize capital — the capitalists — organize the economy and take the lion’s share of its returns. But it wasn’t always this way: for hundreds of years, European civilization was dominated by rents, not markets.

A “rent” is income that you get from owning something that other people need to produce value. Think of renting out a house you own: not only do you get paid when someone pays you to live there, you also get the benefit of rising property values, which are the result of the work that all the other homeowners, business owners, and residents do to make the neighborhood more valuable.

The first capitalists hated rent. They wanted to replace the “passive income” that landowners got from taxing their serfs’ harvest with active income from enclosing those lands and grazing sheep in order to get wool to feed to the new textile mills. They wanted active income — and lots of it.

Capitalist philosophers railed against rent. The “free market” of Adam Smith wasn’t a market that was free from regulation — it was a market free from rents. The reason Smith railed against monopolists is because he (correctly) understood that once a monopoly emerged, it would become a chokepoint through which a rentier could cream off the profits he considered the capitalist’s due:

https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/

Today, we live in a rentier’s paradise. People don’t aspire to create value — they aspire to capture it. In Survival of the Richest, Doug Rushkoff calls this “going meta”: don’t provide a service, just figure out a way to interpose yourself between the provider and the customer:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Don’t drive a cab, create Uber and extract value from every driver and rider. Better still: don’t found Uber, invest in Uber options and extract value from the people who invest in Uber. Even better, invest in derivatives of Uber options and extract value from people extracting value from people investing in Uber, who extract value from drivers and riders. Go meta.

This is your brain on the four-hour-work-week, passive income mind-virus. In Techno Feudalism, Varoufakis deftly describes how the new “Cloud Capital” has created a new generation of rentiers, and how they have become the richest, most powerful people in human history.

Shopping at Amazon is like visiting a bustling city center full of stores — but each of those stores’ owners has to pay the majority of every sale to a feudal landlord, Emperor Jeff Bezos, who also decides which goods they can sell and where they must appear on the shelves. Amazon is full of capitalists, but it is not a capitalist enterprise. It’s a feudal one:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is the reason that automakers are willing to enshittify their products so comprehensively: they were one of the first industries to decouple rents from profits. Recall that the reason that Big Car needed billions in bailouts in 2008 is that they’d reinvented themselves as loan-sharks who incidentally made cars, lending money to car-buyers and then “securitizing” the loans so they could be traded in the capital markets.

Even though this strategy brought the car companies to the brink of ruin, it paid off in the long run. The car makers got billions in public money, paid their execs massive bonuses, gave billions to shareholders in buybacks and dividends, smashed their unions, fucked their pensioned workers, and shipped jobs anywhere they could pollute and murder their workforce with impunity.

Car companies are on the forefront of postcapitalism, and they understand that digital is the key to rent-extraction. Remember when BMW announced that it was going to rent you the seatwarmer in your own fucking car?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers

Not to be outdone, Mercedes announced that they were going to rent you your car’s accelerator pedal, charging an extra $1200/year to unlock a fully functional acceleration curve:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price

This is the urinary tract infection business model: without digitization, all your car’s value flowed in a healthy stream. But once the car-makers add semiconductors, each one of those features comes out in a painful, burning dribble, with every button on that fakakta touchscreen wired directly into your credit-card.

But it’s just for starters. Computers are malleable. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing Complete Von Neumann Machine, which can run every program we know how to write. Once they add networked computers to your car, the Car Lords can endlessly twiddle the knobs on the back end, finding new ways to extract value from you:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

That means that your car can track your every movement, and sell your location data to anyone and everyone, from marketers to bounty-hunters looking to collect fees for tracking down people who travel out of state for abortions to cops to foreign spies:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7enex/tool-shows-if-car-selling-data-privacy4cars-vehicle-privacy-report

Digitization supercharges financialization. It lets car-makers offer subprime auto-loans to desperate, poor people and then killswitch their cars if they miss a payment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s

Subprime lending for cars would be a terrible business without computers, but digitization makes it a great source of feudal rents. Car dealers can originate loans to people with teaser rates that quickly blow up into payments the dealer knows their customer can’t afford. Then they repo the car and sell it to another desperate person, and another, and another:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/27/boricua/#looking-for-the-joke-with-a-microscope

Digitization also opens up more exotic options. Some subprime cars have secondary control systems wired into their entertainment system: miss a payment and your car radio flips to full volume and bellows an unstoppable, unmutable stream of threats. Tesla does one better: your car will lock and immobilize itself, then blare its horn and back out of its parking spot when the repo man arrives:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

Digital feudalism hasn’t stopped innovating — it’s just stopped innovating good things. The digital device is an endless source of sadistic novelties, like the cellphones that disable your most-used app the first day you’re late on a payment, then work their way down the other apps you rely on for every day you’re late:

https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/

Usurers have always relied on this kind of imaginative intimidation. The loan-shark’s arm-breaker knows you’re never going to get off the hook; his goal is in intimidating you into paying his boss first, liquidating your house and your kid’s college fund and your wedding ring before you default and he throws you off a building.

Thanks to the malleability of computerized systems, digital arm-breakers have an endless array of options they can deploy to motivate you into paying them first, no matter what it costs you:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

Car-makers are trailblazers in imaginative rent-extraction. Take VIN-locking: this is the practice of adding cheap microchips to engine components that communicate with the car’s overall network. After a new part is installed in your car, your car’s computer does a complex cryptographic handshake with the part that requires an unlock code provided by an authorized technician. If the code isn’t entered, the car refuses to use that part.

VIN-locking has exploded in popularity. It’s in your iPhone, preventing you from using refurb or third-party replacement parts:

https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13

It’s in fuckin’ ventilators, which was a nightmare during lockdown as hospital techs nursed their precious ventilators along by swapping parts from dead systems into serviceable ones:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-ventilators-with-diy-dongles-from-poland

And of course, it’s in tractors, along with other forms of remote killswitch. Remember that feelgood story about John Deere bricking the looted Ukrainian tractors whose snitch-chips showed they’d been relocated to Russia?

https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8

That wasn’t a happy story — it was a cautionary tale. After all, John Deere now controls the majority of the world’s agricultural future, and they’ve boobytrapped those ubiquitous tractors with killswitches that can be activated by anyone who hacks, takes over, or suborns Deere or its dealerships.

Control over repair isn’t limited to gouging customers on parts and service. When a company gets to decide whether your device can be fixed, it can fuck you over in all kinds of ways. Back in 2019, Tim Apple told his shareholders to expect lower revenues because people were opting to fix their phones rather than replace them:

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/

By usurping your right to decide who fixes your phone, Apple gets to decide whether you can fix it, or whether you must replace it. Problem solved — and not just for Apple, but for car makers, tractor makers, ventilator makers and more. Apple leads on this, even ahead of Big Car, pioneering a “recycling” program that sees trade-in phones shredded so they can’t possibly be diverted from an e-waste dump and mined for parts:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks

John Deere isn’t sleeping on this. They’ve come up with a valuable treasure they extract when they win the Right-to-Repair: Deere singles out farmers who complain about its policies and refuses to repair their tractors, stranding them with six-figure, two-ton paperweight:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

The repair wars are just a skirmish in a vast, invisible fight that’s been waged for decades: the War On General-Purpose Computing, where tech companies use the law to make it illegal for you to reconfigure your devices so they serve you, rather than their shareholders:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

The force behind this army is vast and grows larger every day. General purpose computers are antithetical to technofeudalism — all the rents extracted by technofeudalists would go away if others (tinkereres, co-ops, even capitalists!) were allowed to reconfigure our devices so they serve us.

You’ve probably noticed the skirmishes with inkjet printer makers, who can only force you to buy their ink at 20,000% markups if they can stop you from deciding how your printer is configured:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty But we’re also fighting against insulin pump makers, who want to turn people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/10/loopers/#hp-ification

And companies that make powered wheelchairs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/08/chair-ish/#r2r

These companies start with people who have the least agency and social power and wreck their lives, then work their way up the privilege gradient, coming for everyone else. It’s called the “shitty technology adoption curve”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

Technofeudalism is the public-private-partnership from hell, emerging from a combination of state and private action. On the one hand, bailing out bankers and big business (rather than workers) after the 2008 crash and the covid lockdown decoupled income from profits. Companies spent billions more than they earned were still wildly profitable, thanks to those public funds.

But there’s also a policy dimension here. Some of those rentiers’ billions were mobilized to both deconstruct antitrust law (allowing bigger and bigger companies and cartels) and to expand “IP” law, turning “IP” into a toolsuite for controlling the conduct of a firm’s competitors, critics and customers:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

IP is key to understanding the rise of technofeudalism. The same malleability that allows companies to “twiddle” the knobs on their services and keep us on the hook as they reel us in would hypothetically allow us to countertwiddle, seizing the means of computation:

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

The thing that stands between you and an alternative app store, an interoperable social media network that you can escape to while continuing to message the friends you left behind, or a car that anyone can fix or unlock features for is IP, not technology. Under capitalism, that technology would already exist, because capitalists have no loyalty to one another and view each other’s margins as their own opportunities.

But under technofeudalism, control comes from rents (owning things), not profits (selling things). The capitalist who wants to participate in your iPhone’s “ecosystem” has to make apps and submit them to Apple, along with 30% of their lifetime revenues — they don’t get to sell you jailbreaking kit that lets you choose their app store.

Rent-seeking technology has a holy grail: control over “ring zero” — the ability to compel you to configure your computer to a feudalist’s specifications, and to verify that you haven’t altered your computer after it came into your possession:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/ring-minus-one/#drm-political-economy

For more than two decades, various would-be feudal lords and their court sorcerers have been pitching ways of doing this, of varying degrees of outlandishness.

At core, here’s what they envision: inside your computer, they will nest another computer, one that is designed to run a very simple set of programs, none of which can be altered once it leaves the factory. This computer — either a whole separate chip called a “Trusted Platform Module” or a region of your main processor called a secure enclave — can tally observations about your computer: which operating system, modules and programs it’s running.

Then it can cryptographically “sign” these observations, proving that they were made by a secure chip and not by something you could have modified. Then you can send this signed “attestation” to someone else, who can use it to determine how your computer is configured and thus whether to trust it. This is called “remote attestation.”

There are some cool things you can do with remote attestation: for example, two strangers playing a networked video game together can use attestations to make sure neither is running any cheat modules. Or you could require your cloud computing provider to use attestations that they aren’t stealing your data from the server you’re renting. Or if you suspect that your computer has been infected with malware, you can connect to someone else and send them an attestation that they can use to figure out whether you should trust it.

Today, there’s a cool remote attestation technology called “PrivacyPass” that replaces CAPTCHAs by having you prove to your own device that you are a human. When a server wants to make sure you’re a person, it sends a random number to your device, which signs that number along with its promise that it is acting on behalf of a human being, and sends it back. CAPTCHAs are all kinds of bad — bad for accessibility and privacy — and this is really great.

But the billions that have been thrown at remote attestation over the decades is only incidentally about solving CAPTCHAs or verifying your cloud server. The holy grail here is being able to make sure that you’re not running an ad-blocker. It’s being able to remotely verify that you haven’t disabled the bossware your employer requires. It’s the power to block someone from opening an Office365 doc with LibreOffice. It’s your boss’s ability to ensure that you haven’t modified your messaging client to disable disappearing messages before he sends you an auto-destructing memo ordering you to break the law.

And there’s a new remote attestation technology making the rounds: Google’s Web Environment Integrity, which will leverage Google’s dominance over browsers to allow websites to block users who run ad-blockers:

https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity

There’s plenty else WEI can do (it would make detecting ad-fraud much easier), but for every legitimate use, there are a hundred ways this could be abused. It’s a technology purpose-built to allow rent extraction by stripping us of our right to technological self-determination.

Releasing a technology like this into a world where companies are willing to make their products less reliable, less attractive, less safe and less resilient in pursuit of rents is incredibly reckless and shortsighted. You want unauthorized bread? This is how you get Unauthorized Bread:

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

[Image ID: The interior of a luxury car. There is a dagger protruding from the steering wheel. The entertainment console has been replaced by the text 'You wouldn't download a car,' in MPAA scare-ad font. Outside of the windscreen looms the Matrix waterfall effect. Visible in the rear- and side-view mirror is the driver: the figure from Munch's 'Scream.' The screen behind the steering-wheel has been replaced by the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.']

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

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

[macwantspeace]

I've got a six dollar toaster on the counter I bought thirty years ago. But Anova just bricked their cookers. Too bad.

*Goodbye

[merge-conflict]

Rereading the horror-story-as-wikipedia-article "Lena" again as inspiration for my next cyberhanami prompt and boy oh boy it is just as gut-wrenchingly awful (complimentary) as I remember. If you're into the struggle of autonomy and self-control parts of cyberpunk the game (e.g. the Relic and the accompanying contract people sign with Arasaka), you may enjoy checking it out as well: https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

[theresattrpgforthat]

Protect the Child: Digital Glitch

It was supposed to be a simple job. Get in, get a sample, get out, don't get caught. You didn't expect there to be a kid, locked up in a room like a mouse in a box. She says the corpos stole her away from her parents and stuck her full of needles. Now she's in your arms, hands over her ears while the alarm blares, and security drones are blocking your every exit. What do you do?

Digital Glitch is a new, cyberpunk setting for Protect the Child. It includes 7 pre-written characters, all members of a group of cyber-runners, criminals who go on high-stakes jobs to rob the mega-corporations called zaibatsus in order to keep themselves alive. Unfortunately, the lab they were attempting to rob also happened to hold a girl, whose genetic code has gave her super-senses and a hyper-sensitive nervous system after IrisLabs tried a new experimental procedure.

You need the rules for Protect the Child in order to be able to play this game, but right now, since PtC is in playtesting, the rules are free!! Currently downloading the game gives you access to a Google Sheets play-kit. There is also a pdf in the works to be released at a later date.

This play-set was designed for both the Kiwi Jam 2024, and the Dice Exploder Pregen Jam. It's list of inspirations include Hamixh Cameron's The Sprawl, Cory Doctorow's Unauthorized Bread, and ZebraMatt's 24XX Dire Pulse. It contains themes of Infertility, Exploitation, Police Violence, Capitalism, Disability, and Medical Horror.

Check it out today!

[p5x-theories]

P5X Third Arc Summary

(last updated 7/30/24!)

Only the first half of this arc has been added to the game as of the making of this post. Once the second half is added, that will be covered here as well!

Usual disclaimer: Please keep in mind this game still has no official English translation, so this summary uses a mix of what happens visually, what I understand of the Japanese dialogue, and Google translate for the Chinese text, in order to get the broader picture here. This will be focused on summing up everything that happens overall, without getting into a line-by-line translation.

Contrary to this blog’s name, this post is going to have as little speculation as possible, and stick to confirmed facts.

This post (and its reblogs) will cover the Katayama Arc.

The Phantom Thieves have gathered on the rooftop of Kokatsu Academy during lunch, after Ruferu apparently asked them to. He brings up the "person behind the scenes" that he suggested might exist after they stole Miyazawa's Treasure, and suggests that they should avoid talking about their Metaverse activities in areas with other people around, in order to protect their identities.

Motoha agrees that that's a good idea, but thinks the rooftop should be pretty safe, since it's big and no one else comes up here. Ruferu decides they should make this their hideout for now. Wonder can respond "Hideout...?" or "Very stylish". If the latter is picked, Ruferu is pleased he understands, and suggests it's "chic" as well. Motoha still doesn't understand the term, saying Ruferu's using difficult words again, to Shun's slight bafflement.

Putting that aside, Shun confirms that people rarely come to the roof during lunch, reminding Motoha he always eats alone up here. She hasn't been up here much, but really likes the idea of eating under the blue sky.

As they start to eat, she notices that Shun only brought ramen, and all Wonder has is bread, so she offers to share some of her food. Shun wants to focus on his ramen, but if Wonder accepts, Motoha mentions she made it herself. This catches Ruferu's attention, who now wants to try some as well.

Once they're done eating, Ruferu gets back to business, saying he wanted to discuss their next target. They don't have any clues, but since they stole Miyazawa's Treasure a few days ago, they can use that to open the next area of Mementos. Shun agrees they should look for the next Palace there, and it's decided they'll go there after school.

Before the bell rings, Motoha remembers Tomoko told her about a new teacher coming to Kokatsu, though he won't teach any classes.

Elsewhere in the school, the Dean of Academic Affairs, Yamanashi, is introducing the teachers to a man named Kei Akashi. He's an educational consultant sent by the school board. Akashi explains that, as he's sure they're all aware, teachers in the country are overworked, and the job of an educational consultant is to help ease their burden. While he's here, he'll be conducting an investigation to identify problems at Kokatsu, and assist in creating an environment that allows teachers to focus on educating students.

The teachers all like what Akashi proposes, and Yamanashi lets them know there will be a mandatory school assembly to introduce Akashi to the students. At first, Katayama is in favor as well, but when she says she'll be able to spend more time with her students, Yamanashi berates her for a recent unauthorized home visit she made, which a parent complained about.

Katayama explains that the student whose parent complained has been missing a lot of school lately, and leaving early. She tried calling their parents, but was unable to get in touch, and took this as a further sign that something was wrong. If her student is having family troubles, she wants to be able to support them.

Akashi tells her to stop, and switches his glasses over to another pair, suddenly knowing her full name is Kumi Katayama, to her surprise.

He explains that they're smart glasses, and he checked the information he has on her using them. He then agrees with Yamanashi that she shouldn't be making house visits, citing the fact that students complain about them, and calling her mindset outdated. Katayama continues to try to argue her perspective, that some students need more support, especially if they're clearly not getting any, but Yamanashi shuts her down, saying Akashi is correct. He then forbids her from seeing any students outside of school- saying that goes for the other teachers as well- and ends the meeting.

Katayama and Akashi stare at each other for another moment as everyone else leaves, and Akashi tells her he looks forward to working with her before leaving as well. Outside of the office, however, he mutters to himself that, as he suspected, she'll be the perfect bait, and he needs to let "that person" know everything is going well. He pulls out a cellphone, and the scene ends.

Back in her classroom, Katayama struggles to get the attention of her class, eventually yelling at them all to be quiet.

She immediately seems to regret it, but awkwardly informs them of the mandatory assembly tomorrow morning. She then ends the class for the day. Some murmurs go through the class about her reaction.

Motoha turns around in her seat, and comments that Katayama seems to be in a bad mood. While she understands Katayama couldn't get them to settle down, the yelling was alarming.

The other students start gossiping again, saying Katayama must be a phantom. At this moment, Shun walks into the classroom.

He warns them not to say things like that behind Katayama's back, then heads over to Wonder's desk and asks about going to Mementos today.

In Mementos, they head right to the door, and sure enough, it opens. The MetaNav informs them a new area has opened up, to Soy's surprise. He wonders where the app came from, and Closer admits she never really thought about it since it's so strange already; it works with no signal, and can't be deleted.

Soy asks Cattle if he has any idea, but Cattle doesn't, though it's possible he might remember something as he regains more of his memories. All he knows is that people with strong desires can use it. Closer starts to think it's a little scary, if even Cattle doesn't know anything about it, and the snake icon doesn't help.

Cattle explains that the ouroboros is rather famous, as a snake that eats its own tail... but Closer points out this icon isn't actually eating its own tail, to Cattle's shock. Eventually, they brush it off as overthinking; the important thing is that the MetaNav lets them steal the hearts of people like Kiuchi and Miyazawa.

With that, Cattle attempts to locate the next Palace by listening for the voices of the collective unconscious. He's startled out of his focus by the feeling of a powerful presence approaching, which forms into a shadow. Cattle and Wonder immediately recognize it.

They're forced to fight it again, and find it significantly more powerful this time. When they beat it, Cattle explains to Closer and Soy that he and Wonder fought this shadow before, when Wonder first came to Mementos. Closer asks if that means it came back, and Cattle mutters to himself wondering if it can somehow reform and steal desires infinitely, but then brushes that off, deciding the world would have fallen into chaos long ago if that were the case. Still, they'll have to keep an eye out for more like it in the future.

Cattle then tries to listen to the voices again, but has no luck. Closer guesses maybe that means the next Palace ruler hides their evil actions like Miyazawa did, and Cattle agrees-- they'll need to find more information first. Soy asks how they'll get it here, and the others clarify they'll need to get information in the real world, which reminds him of when they were asking about Miyazawa.

As they leave Mementos, the scene cuts elsewhere, to the Cyler Eats deliveryperson speeding down Shibuya Central Street, rushing right past people and nearly knocking them over.

As people complain, one of them recalls that was a phantom, the "Rush Rider".

That night, Wonder visits the Velvet Room. Igor congratulates him on his desire winning out over another Palace ruler, and Merope applauds. Igor says his desire is strong enough to guide the current world, and he's using the power he was given very skillfully. When Wonder asks, Merope clarifies Igor was referring to the power to enter the Metaverse, and Igor mentions the MetaNav by name, saying that, depending on the user's will, it can be a key to avoid the coming ruin, or the culprit that brings it about.

Wonder can ask "Key?" or "Culprit?", and at least if he chooses the latter, Igor says outright "A person with this power... You're not the only ones." Wonder tries to ask about this, but Igor can't give him the answers; the ending has to be decided by Wonder. With that, Wonder wakes up.

The next day, Wonder sees Yamagoshi taking down the closure notice on Toraiken's front door.

Yamagoshi recognizes him as Shun's friend, and explains that Toraiken is resuming business now that he's feeling better, even if he hasn't completely recovered. He wants to see his customers' happy expressions again. Ruferu comments that his desires have returned to him now that they changed Miyazawa's heart and opened another area of Mementos.

Yamagoshi does lament that Miyazawa drove away all his part-time workers, but then realizes Wonder must live near here, and invites him to come work at Toraiken part time if he ever wants to. He then warns Wonder that it looks like it's going to rain, so he should hurry to school.

Ruferu asks Wonder if he brought an umbrella; he did not, but there's no time to run back home and grab it. Sure enough, they get caught in the rain at Shibuya station, and they run into Motoha, who's in the same situation. Luckily, as they're running through the rain, a car pulls up: it's Riko, who offers a ride. Motoha eagerly accepts, and Wonder follows after Riko clarifies they're both welcome.

In the car, Riko types away at a keyboard as Motoha thanks her. Riko explains she happened to be passing by. Wonder can comment either "Going to school by car?" or "Rich people..."; if he chooses the former, Riko clarifies that she usually takes the train, but she had work to get done, and Motoha sympathizes that it's impossible to get anything done on a packed morning train.

Riko and Wonder then formally introduce themselves to each other.

Once they reach the school, Riko parts ways with them, and Motoha exclaims again about how lucky they were to run into her. Ruferu comments that Riko's car was very comfortable, nearly on par with his own car form. Motoha teases him, saying Riko's car is more advanced, but it makes sense, given Riko is the eldest daughter of the president of UMETANE.

When neither Wonder nor Ruferu know what she's talking about, Motoha explains that UMETANE is a company that sells a wide variety of plum products, and even has ads on TV. She's surprised they haven't heard of it. She used to drink plum juice from Riko after training, back when she was in a little league and Riko would cheer her on. They don't talk much anymore, though.

Students start to pass by Motoha, Wonder, and Cattle, and after a moment of confusion, Motoha realizes they're headed to the assembly Katayama told them about yesterday. They have to hurry to make it in time.

At the assembly, Riko introduces Akashi, then steps aside to let him speak. Akashi introduces himself, and says he's here for an investigation to help make Kokatsu better, which includes any student suggestions. He lets them know they'll be seeing him around school and in classrooms, but he's not a suspicious person... although saying that probably makes him sound suspicious.

The other students seem to have mixed opinions on him, but Motoha thinks he's interesting, and Ruferu comments that he may be able to help strengthen the students' desires. Riko dismisses the assembly.

After the assembly, Yamanashi formally introduces Akashi to Riko, as the head of the disciplinary committee. Putting on his smart glasses, Akashi identifies her as the UMETANE heiress. Riko asks about the smart glasses, so he explains that he has information about the students that serve as the backbone of the school uploaded onto them. He further identifies her as someone who is popular and has excellent grades.

Yamanashi is impressed by how much background research Akashi did, and tells him he's free to order Riko around for whatever information or busywork purposes he may have. Akashi points out that using the phrase "order around" sounds like a violation, and Yamanashi backtracks. Stepping around that, he invites Akashi to make use of the student guidance room and his office as much as he needs. Akashi thanks him, mentioning that though he was already given a desk in the teachers' office, much of his work is a bit more confidential than that affords.

Yamanashi then has Riko hand a file of information that he'd requested over to Akashi. Riko says she'll also send him electronic copies. Yamanashi again brags about how much work Riko did for him, and this time, Akashi wonders if it's appropriate to hand over so much work to a student, not to mention the potential confidentiality issues. Yamanashi, sheepish again, clarifies Riko's very good in this regard, and much better than the other students at getting things done. Akashi pushes a bit more, but Yamanashi insists this is preparation for the family business she plans to inherit. Riko agrees, saying her father encourages her to help out the teachers.

With this, Akashi accepts her help during school hours.

Back in class, Katayama wraps up a lesson, then, somewhat downcast, reminds the class to be polite if they do ask Akashi for any help or have suggestions. Motoha, turning around to talk to Wonder, wonders if something's bothering Katayama, and Ruferu speculates it has something to do with Akashi based on how she talked about him. Motoha starts to sidetrack, and thinks about what suggestions she'd have for Akashi, like less exams, a better cafeteria menu, and more sweet bread types in the school store.

The next day, Wonder runs into Shun during lunch, who apparently bought several "rare flavors" of instant ramen this morning to try for lunch. He asks Wonder if he wants to join in at the hideout. Wonder's thought bubble declares him to be a bit uneasy about the weird flavors, but curious enough to say yes anyway. They take a detour to buy drinks.

However, the vending machine is blocked by two girls filming a video, claiming they're going to buy and try every drink in the machine. Shun complains, and the students nearby say the girls have been doing this for a bit without caring about anyone else, so someone should probably call a teacher.

One of the girls expresses doubt that their video will really get much attention, and the other asks her what they could do instead. The first girl suggests they do the thing that phantom did, and pulls out a lighter and hairspray, saying she's going to make fire spray~! in a cutesy tone.

Shun, alarmed, says they have to stop them, but before they have a chance, Katayama runs over and slaps the lighter out of the first girl's hand. The second girl holds up her phone.

Katayama demands to know what they thought they were doing, and the first girl innocently says they were just filming a video. The second girl then declares she took a picture of Katayama's violent action, and she's going to post it on Magatsushin, hoping it'll go viral.

Shun comes over and grabs the second girls' wrist, saying that's enough, and Katayama was just stopping them from doing something stupid. The first girl immediately takes out her own phone, and takes a picture of him, mockingly calling him a violent boy. Katayama asks Shun to let her go, and he reluctantly does.

Katayama then tells them to stop taking pictures, and confiscates the first girl's phone, to her anger. The second girl refuses to hand hers over when asked, saying Katayama's just trying to cover up the evidence they got, since she's a phantom. She starts to chant "Tyrannical teacher, tyrannical teacher!"

Riko appears, and tells them to quiet down.

Riko asks what happened, and the girls declare that Katayama used violence against them and confiscated one of their phones. Shun immediately says it was because they took out a lighter first, and the girls call him cruel. Riko shakes her head, and continues to try to get the actual story.

As this happens, Akashi approaches, and, seeing this is an argument between a teacher and some students, says he'd like to know what's going on as well.

He decides that he'll hear our Katayama's side of the story, while Riko will talk to the students involved. Katayama protests, saying the girls were going to do something dangerous, so a teacher should be supervising them. He should at least call another teacher over to oversee things, if he wants to talk to her. Akashi brushes this off, saying students should deal with student problems, and dismissing Katayama's further arguments with a line about "outdated thinking" again.

Riko assures Katayama that she can handle them, though this seems to trouble Katayama. Akashi then takes the confiscated phone from Katayama, telling her she can't confiscate personal belongings from students, and if she deleted things from them, it could be seen as destroying evidence. He says he'll look over the videos himself, as an outside party, and then delete them afterward if they're not evidence of anything.

The girls protest this, and he advises them that controversial videos aren't the best way to earn views, but offers to show them some other techniques for video editing that are more popular later. The girls immediately fawn over how cool and mature he is, causing Riko to shake her head again before taking them with her.

Shun mutters that he was there, too, and Katayama says she'll talk to Riko later. With that, she and Akashi leave as well. Shun tries to tell her she did nothing wrong, but she just holds up a hand as she walks away.

The next day at school, some of the students in Wonder's class are gossiping about something that is "definitely Katayama" and a "girl getting beaten". Motoha watches something on her phone, then turns around and shows it to Wonder: it's an edited video of the incident yesterday with Katayama and the girls, posted to Magatsushin and calling Katayama a phantom. Motoha mentions the face is blurred, and the name is changed to "Teacher K", but anyone at Kokatsu can immediately tell the teacher in the video is Ms. Katayama.

Elsewhere, Yamanashi is outraged at this scandal, having one of their school's teachers posted as a phantom. He confirms whether Akashi deleted the video like he was supposed to, and Akashi says he did, but, well, the situation was chaotic. It's possible another student filmed everything. Yamanashi, distraught, now forbids Katayama from interacting with students outside of teaching her classes, and she's also not allowed to confiscate any student's belongings.

Katayama asks if he's forbidding her from stopping students from doing something dangerous, and Yamanashi insists she just call another teacher, or Akashi, or even Riko to deal with it instead. Katayama, alarmed, asks if he's trying to make teachers depend on students, and he declares that Riko's more reliable than her. Akashi adds that after Riko talked to them, the two girls wrote letters of apology, unlike the boy that Katayama dismissed.

Yamanashi then sends a defeated Katayama home for the day, saying they'll have other teachers cover her. He warns the other teachers not to get involved in students' business. Akashi and Riko should be relied on as the go-betweens.

Later, instead of Katayama, Mr. Hakozaki enters the classroom, and clumsily tries to explain that Katayama went home because she was "sick" when students ask about her. The students gossip, speculating she got fired because she appeared on Magatsushin, and Mr. Hakozaki frantically admits she just got sent home early today.

After class, Motoha expresses concern about Katayama, and Ruferu points out that, no matter the truth of the situation, their homeroom teacher is now technically a phantom. Motoha clarifies she was only posted once, and not officially recognized by Magatsukami, but Ruferu points out that that doesn't really matter in the eyes of everyone else.

He then mentions that Kiuchi and Miyazawa were also phantoms, so that could mean Katayama could become a Palace ruler, even as Motoha says it's impossible. He's not set on the idea, but he wanted to address the possibility.

After Wonder goes to sleep that night, we see a whale swimming through a body of water, and then several of those shadows (that Wonder and Cattle fought before) spawn in Mementos.

The scene then cuts to Katayama entering a public restroom, and the Cyler Eats deliveryperson, also known as the Rush Rider phantom, stepping out of the same restroom and getting onto a bike.

With her speech bubble now identifying her as Katayama, the Rush Rider complains that her head hurts, and, sounding like she's in significant pain, wonders why she became a phantom, and why she's like this. She rides off on her bike, and the camera pans over to show Akashi walk up to where she was just standing. He laughs to himself, and does something with his smart glasses.

The next day, Wonder runs into Motoha and Tomoko on his way to the school store during lunch. They invite him to come eat with them up on the roof after buying some food. However, the school store is being monopolized by the same two girls from the other day, filming another video.

This time, they're planning to buy and review all the bread in the school store. Tomoko and some of the other students recognize them as the girls from the video with Katayama, and several of them complain that they're not letting anyone else buy anything. However, the girls just threaten to take videos of anyone who gets in their way and post them online.

Motoha moves to talk to them, but Tomoko stops her, warning her that those are the girls that got Katayama identified as a phantom. This just makes Motoha angrier with them. Someone else suggests they call Riko, but another says they already called her. Wonder wonders why they don't get a teacher, but Tomoko tells him that everyone is supposed to go to Riko now. The teachers are unreliable these days, since all anyone needs to do is take out a phone and say they're filming, and the teachers will back off immediately. Motoha can't believe this.

Riko finally arrives, led by another student, and is disappointed to see these two causing trouble again. She asks if their apology letters were a lie, but they claim they weren't doing anything, just buying stuff at the school store. Riko tells them they're causing problems for the other students, but they whine about wanting to finish filming their video first.

At this, Akashi arrives, and their demeanor immediately shifts, happy to see him and pleasantly asking about what he's doing here as if he's a friend they ran into by chance. Akashi offers to teach them more secrets to making popular videos, and they happily agree to come with him to the student guidance room.

Akashi then turns to Riko, and somewhat dismissively (though smiling) tells her he can handle this, and she should enjoy her lunch. After all, fixing problems here is his job. Riko looks slightly downtrodden at this.

As Riko leaves, she runs into Motoha, Tomoko, and Wonder, and they step aside to talk.

Motoha marvels at how quickly and easily Akashi resolved the situation, but seeing that Riko seems a bit off, asks if she's okay, considering she has to deal with all the students' problems now. Riko admits there have been a lot of people coming to her, but Yamanashi comes over before she can answer further.

He asks about the incident, noting it was the same two girls, but then tells Riko she shouldn't be needing Akashi to solve problems, as their evaluation will look better if he's less involved. This strikes a nerve with Motoha, who steps forward and says the teachers should be taking care of things, not Riko. Yamanashi nervously explains that Akashi's new policy is that students solve students' problems, to help with student autonomy and let teachers focus on teaching. Motoha fires back that that sounds like an excuse, but Riko tells her to stop.

Once Motoha backs off, Riko asks what Yamanashi wanted from her. Yamanashi informs her he forwarded her an email from Akashi, and wants her to take care of organizing the data he requested. Once Yamanashi leaves, Motoha and Wonder are shocked that he'd blatantly push his work onto Riko.

Riko, however, says it doesn't matter, because as long as she takes care of it, she'll also get the evaluation she deserves, from the dean. But then she makes a pained face, and calls him a "shallow" and "easily manipulated" person. Her focus is on protecting herself and her own interests, and as long as people see her as a pawn to be used, they won't betray her. She can trust Akashi to an extent, since he's not the type to sever a useful relationship with someone as long as they don't get in his way, but she finds him a bit suspicious, since she's unsure what he really thinks.

Motoha asks what she's saying, and Tomoko tells her no one would treat her like that. Riko turns back to them, and asks them if they think the idea of relationships maintained on those principles are scary. She can't trust anyone without considering their personal interests first. Motoha and Tomoko insist they care about Riko, and even offer to help her with the dean's work for nothing in return, but Riko says they haven't changed, and politely turns them down. After she leaves, Tomoko says Riko must have changed, because she wouldn't have said something like that in the past.

The next day, the Phantom Thieves gather at their hideout again, and Motoha asks if they're heading to Mementos to keep looking for the Palace. Ruferu mentions that having a full name makes it much easier for him to focus in on the Palace while listening to the voices of the collective unconscious, and the topic of Kiuchi and Miyazawa both being phantoms comes up again. Motoha adds that they were both confirmed phantoms, and Shun comments that it makes sense that bad people like them would have Palaces.

Motoha tries checking Magatsushin for phantoms, and the first two she finds are the Rush Rider (who she says she knows nothing about), and then "Teacher K", the "tyrannical teacher", otherwise known as Ms. Katayama. Motoha tries to brush past her, but Ruferu advises they take the possibility more seriously. Shun immediately goes on the defensive for Katayama, saying she was just filmed by some troublemakers, but Ruferu is unfazed, as the public considers her a phantom, no matter what the truth of the situation is. Shun is still skeptical, because Katayama's not a bad person.

At that moment, Katayama herself comes up to them, Ruferu barely noticing her in time to fly away. She says she wants to talk to them, and brings up the video of the Flavor Fight on her phone. Shun is surprised, as Miyazawa's channel was deleted, but Katayama says his channel was popular enough that people probably reposted the videos. She asks if it's Shun in the video, and Shun awkwardly avoids answering, so she pushes, saying the three of them must have gone to the Flavor Fight the day they skipped part of their afternoon classes.

Wonder can tell her the truth or lie; if he tells the truth, Shun frantically tries to shush him, while Katayama thanks him for being honest. She says she doesn't blame them, and won't tell the other teachers, but she hopes they'll come to her if they have any problems in the future, because as their teacher, she wants to help them. She also expresses concern about how much they've suddenly been spending time together; it's fine if they're just becoming better friends, but she worries they've gotten into more trouble.

Shun starts to ask her how she knows- then cuts himself off, makes a guilty, nervous face, and says there's no trouble at all. Katayama laughs, calling him a kid who can't lie, and asks them to come to her before doing anything dangerous. Shun apologizes, and admits there is a problem, but he can't tell her, no matter what. Katayama seems distraught to hear this, so he tries to assure her that they'll figure it out and be fine for sure, but it doesn't help much, as she mutters to herself that she must be unworthy of trust.

Akashi then interrupts, reminding her the dean forbid her from talking to students outside of class, to Motoha's surprise. He calls her an "internet celebrity" who can't be allowed to influence students, which immediately angers Shun, though Katayama tells him it's fine. Katayama then dismisses herself, but quietly pleads with them to talk to an adult, even if it's not her, before she leaves.

Walking over to them with a smile, Akashi calls that a disaster, though Motoha insists Katayama was just worried about them. Akashi says he can help them instead, and uses his smart glasses to immediately identify them. At their surprise, he explains they can compare faces with the student registry. With that, he invites them to come to him with any concerns, and exits the roof.

Ruferu returns, as Motoha decides Akashi is actually a little scary, though she thought he was a good teacher originally. Shun declares that he doesn't like him. Ruferu complains about their meeting being interrupted, and says he wants to try using Katayama's name to find the next Palace. At Shun's reluctance, Ruferu points out that this could also prove she's not a Palace ruler, while narrowing down their search options, and Shun relents.

After school, they head to Mementos. Though Soy and Closer are convinced it won't work...

Cattle is shocked to be able to locate the Palace after saying "Kumi Katayama" and listening for a moment.

Closer and Soy are also in disbelief, but Cattle insists there's no mistaking it. However, while he's positive her name led him to the Palace, he does describe the atmosphere as "a bit strange", with "something like noise mixed in, interfering with the signal". Miyazawa's Palace didn't have anything like that.

Wonder, Closer, and Soy decide they'll have to see the Palace with their own eyes, so they set off towards where Cattle heard it coming from.

To be continued in the next reblog!

[thesmpisonfire]

brunim was a VAMPIRE??? forever was a mostly-unwilling bloodbag??? what the heck happened there wow

Stonkscraft (1-3) is so out of pocket JANDNSMDNS

Season 1 was basically Forever being head over hills for Brunim and being reciprocated, they are practically married but the ceremony didn't happen because the season ended, but they even had the church built

Season 2 had then this whole break between the two as Brunim became a vampire and now they were on opposite sides of a war, but Brunim wouldn't let Forever go and kept stalking him to drink his blood unauthorized

(thats him with an axe :D ngl this scene is funny as fuck in Portuguese bc forever keeps yelling "ILLEGAL SUCKING ILLEGAL SUCKING" while Brunim keeps saying "You Like It™, I'll give you some bread after")

[gooseberryboy]

WHO IS COMMITTING CROISSANT CRIMES IN THIS HOUSE??

THE CRIME: TORN PACKAGE AND UNAUTHORIZED NIBBLING

SUSPECT #1: GERTRUDE (unlikely, she is a good girl)

SUSPECT #2: GOOSE (possible, but alibi checks out)

PRIME SUSPECT: GIZMO (has committed bread crimes in the past)

[kylodendron]

We all have our fun out here on the interwebs and even with the perceived safety and anonymity sitting behind a screen provides us, when that shit bleeds over into real life, it’s rude and disrespectful at best, and can become downright dangerous at its worst.

None of this is news, fandom is always gonna fandom. Unfortunately I had to experience it first hand this weekend while seeing Hold On To Me Darling. And it wasn’t pretty.

I’m not gonna put anyone on blast by name, but I’ll just say this as a general PSA based on the behavior I experienced:

Don’t push people to move out of your way.

You chose to sit at the front of the theater in the middle of the row, and when I turned around to say something like “please stop pushing me, I can’t move even if I wanted to because there are people in front of me” as we were leaving, you were already catapulting yourself over the first row seats and pushing your way up the aisle.

Don’t record the play.

I know lots of people aren’t able to make the trip and see the show. It’s a privilege to be able to do that, especially in this economy. I am incredibly grateful that I had this opportunity to experience something I never dreamed would be possible. But recording a show, even if it’s just audio, is not only rude and disrespectful to the actors and the audience but it’s also a crime:

“New York Arts and Cultural Affairs Law § 31.01: Prohibits photographing or recording a performance without the written permission of the theater management. Offenders may be ejected and face damages and other legal remedies.

New York Penal Law § 275.33: Prohibits using a recording device in a live theater or movie theater without the permission of the theater operator. This is considered a crime and can be charged as a violation or a felony.

New York Penal Law § 275.20: Prohibits making or selling an unauthorized recording of a performance.

Penalties for illegally recording a performance can include jail time and large monetary fines.”

If anyone really needs to hear Adam put on a southern accent, they can watch Logan Lucky. But hooray for you and your internet points I guess. Congrats on the validation of internet strangers blessing you and calling you legend or queen or whatever.

You’re not as anonymous as you may think you are.

This is a very general point and good practice for anyone, but be careful and think twice about what you share online, especially on Twitter or facespace or whatever. I don’t know you. But it wasn’t hard to figure out who you are when you posted pictures from the stage door and I am in them, or from the illegal recording you posted because I can hear my own laugh.

This is a good reminder that the internet is not an invisibility cloak that lets you do whatever you want because No OnE wIlL eVeR kNoW wHo I aM. There are a lot of people out there who would not think twice about doxxing - and that is a dangerous thing for everyone.

Aside from this post, I’m not gonna say or do anything else. I mind my own business and prefer to cherish the otherwise wonderful experience I had both in watching this performance and at the stage door. I had thought to maybe share that experience but now I’m thinking twice.

And so I’ve deleted everything. My stupid little videos I made during lockdown because I couldn’t possibly have made more banana bread or that terrible whipped coffee, my illustrations, my minifigs, my remixes, photos, whatever. There’s a reason I don’t really engage in fandom - I don’t want to be associated with this type of behaviour. I’ve tried to find a little place to share my silly little things for whoever may happen to stumble across it and maybe it’ll bring them a little bit of joy. I don’t care about popularity or likes.

There’s more that I could share but I’m really not trying to get into any fandom drama bullshit. If you’re offended by this post perhaps you need to take some time and reflect on your actions and how they affect those around you.

Adam is very kind and gracious to even come to the stage door and engage with fans. He doesn’t have to do that and no one is entitled to anything from him or anyone else, except respect for others - no matter how much you paid to be there.

As a general rule, do the things that make you happy and bring you joy! Be a fangirl, support your faves. But please be respectful of others and try not to do any illegal shit while you’re at it.

[butchfalin]

i've been listening to the audiobook of thirteen storeys by jonny sims and it's been very interesting .. the best way i can describe it is clue (1985) meets house of leaves meets unauthorized bread with a healthy dose of tma mixed in. which is a wild combination and certainly not the best way to pitch it but it's what i'm going with anyway

[jenny-from-the-bau]

i'm so glad i've found other mgg haters bc everyone on tiktok acts like he's the best thing since sliced bread. i actually liked spencer when i watched the show but i'm starting to dislike him simply because of how insufferable his and mgg's fanbase are. i keep getting videos of his unauthorized docs on tiktok and all the comments are about how quirky and funny and hot he is but to me it just comes across like he is irritating, unfunny, and not the kind of person i would want to spend any time around at all. like he seems so full of himself like he knows he's hot and he's got an army of teenage girls and it inflates his ego or something. also other people have mentioned it but all the stuff with aj's pregnancy in the unauthorized doc just rubs me the wrong way especially the comment ab "has anyone noticed that aj's getting rlly fat" like ik it's a joke about her being pregnant but that's like not the kind of comment you should make about anyone ever -🐙

No, I'm an MGG hater forever and all my friends are too lmaooo He's got such a big ego and he thinks he's so fun and quirky, but it's so cringy and bad. Like an army of teenage girls doesn't make you cool fr fr

Also yeah, I'm anti-fat jokes in general, but also specifically for women in hollywood who have to deal with that all the time!

[cpastry]

Grandma’s Chocolate Bread Recipe

Recipe Serves 16

Ingredients:

4 Cups /500g Sifted flour 2.5 oz/70g Sugar 0.3 oz/8g Dry Yeast 170 mL Water 2 Large Eggs 2.5 oz/70g Butter RT 1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract 0.4 oz/10g Salt

Steps:

1-Mix flour, sugar, and yeast on low speed 2-Add water and eggs and increase the speed to medium low 3-Add vanilla extract 4-Add butter 5-Add salt and mix until all ingredients are well combined 6-Knead on medium low until the dough is smooth 7-Place the dough in lightly oiled bowl 8-Oil brush the dough and cover it 9-Place it to rest in room temperature for an hour 10-Gently knock the dough to remove air pockets 11-Spread it evenly and shape it into a rectangular 12-Brush the dough with butter 13-Evenly spread the chocolate filling 14-Apply pan spray to bundt pan 15-Roll the dough into a cylinder 16-Shape it evenly to fit the bundt pan 17-Cover and place it to proof for an hour 18-Spray the dough with water and bake at 355 F°/180 C° for 40 minutes 19-Let it cool 20-Dust it with powdered sugar

Filling Ingredients:

0.5 oz/15g Cacao Powder 50 mL Vegetable Oil 5.3 oz/150g Sugar 0.5 oz/15g Sifted Flour 3 oz/ 85g Crushed Dark Chocolate

Steps:

1-Combine cacao powder, vegetable oil and sugar and mix 2-Add flour and chocolate and mix until all is well combined

By following the step by step instructions of the recipes you should be able to succeed. Please let me know and comment down below. I will be posting a new video every Saturday so please join and subscribe to my channel.

Thank you for your support! Enjoy.

info@cpastry.com

All rights and ownership reserved to Cpastry. Unauthorized use of my videos or 2nd edit and re-upload is prohibited.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Orphaned neurological implants

The startup world’s dirty not-so-secret is that most startups fail. Startups are risky ventures and their investors know it, so they cast a wide net, placing lots of bets on lots of startups and folding the ones that don’t show promise, which sucks for the company employees, but also for the users who depend on the company’s products.

You know what this is like: you sink a bunch of time into familiarizing yourself with a new product, you spend money on accessories for it, you lock your data into it, you integrate it into your life, and then, one morning — poof! All gone.

Now, there are ways that startups could mitigate this risk for their customers: they could publish their source code under a free/open license so that it could be maintained by third parties, they could refuse to patent their technology, or dedicate their patents to an open patent pool, etc.

All of this might tempt more people to try their product or service, because the customers for digital products are increasingly savvy, having learned hard lessons when the tools they previously depended were orphaned by startups whose investors pulled the plug.

But very few startups do this, because their investors won’t let them. That brings me to the other dirty not-so-secret of the startup world: when a startup fails, investors try to make back some of their losses by selling the company’s assets to any buyer, no matter how sleazy.

A startup’s physical assets are typically minimal: used ergonomic chairs and laptops don’t exactly hold their value, and there’s not much of a market for t-shirts and stickers advertising dead businesses.

Wily investors are more interested in intangible assets: user data and patents, which are sold off to the highest bidder. That bidder is almost certainly a bottom-feeding scumbag, because the best way to maximize the value of user data is to abuse it, and the best way to maximize a failed business patent is to use it for patent trolling.

If you let your investors talk you into patenting your cool idea, there’s a minuscule chance that the patent will be the core of a profitable business — and a much larger chance that it end up in a troll’s portfolio. Real businesses make things that people want. Patent trolls are parasites, “businesses” whose only products are legal threats and lawsuits, which they use to bleed out real businesses.

The looming threat of dissolution gives rise to a third startup dirty secret: faced with a choice of growth or sustainability, companies choose growth. There’s no point in investing in sustainability — good information security, robust systems, good HR — if it costs you the runway you need to achieve liftoff.

Your excellent processes won’t help you when your investors shut you down, so a “lean” startup has only the minimum viable resiliency and robustness. If you do manage to attain liftoff — or get sold to a Big Tech firm — then you can fix all that stuff.

And if the far more likely outcome — failure — comes to pass, then all the liabilities you’ve created with your indifferent security and resiliency will be someone else’s problem. Limited liability, baby!

Combine these three dirty secrets and it’s hard to understand why anyone would use a startup’s product, knowing that it will collect as much data as it can, secure it only indifferently, and sell that data on to sleazy data-brokers. Meanwhile, the product you buy and rely upon will probably become a radioactive wasteland of closed source and patent trolling, with so much technology and policy debt that no one can afford to take responsibility for it.

Think of Cloudpets, a viral toy sensation whose manufacturer, Spiral Toys, had a successful IPO — and then immediately started hemorrhaging money and shedding employees. Cloudpets were plush toys that you connected to your home wifi; they had built-in mics that kids could activate to record a voice-memo, which was transmitted to their parents’ phones by means of an app, and parents could send messages back via the toys’ speakers.

But Spiral Toys never bothered to secure those voice memos or the system for making new ones. The entire database of all recordings by kids and parents sat on an unencrypted, publicly accessible server for years. It was so indifferently monitored that no one noticed that hackers had downloaded the database multiple times, leaving behind threats to dump it unless they were paid ransoms.

By the time this came to light, Spiral Toys’ share price was down more than 99% and no one was answering any of its email addresses or phones. The data — 2.2 million intimate, personal communications between small children and their parents — just hung out there, free for the taking:

https://www.troyhunt.com/data-from-connected-cloudpets-teddy-bears-leaked-and-ransomed-exposing-kids-voice-messages/

Data leakage is irreversible. Those 2,200,000 voice memos are now immortal, child-ghosts that will haunt the internet forever — after the parents are dead, after the kids are dead.

Data breaches are permanent. Filling a startup’s sandcastle with your important data is a high-risk bet that the company will attain liftoff before it breaches.

It’s not just your data that goes away when a startup folds — it’s also the money you invest in its hardware and systems, as well as the cost of replacing devices that get bricked when a company goes bust. That’s bad enough when it’s a home security device:

https://gizmodo.com/spectrum-kills-home-security-business-refuses-refunds-1840931761

But what about when the device is inside your body?

Earlier this year, many people with Argus optical implants — which allow blind people to see — lost their vision when the manufacturer, Second Sight, went bust:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete

Nano Precision Medical, the company’s new owners, aren’t interested in maintaining the implants, so that’s the end of the road for everyone with one of Argus’s “bionic” eyes. The $150,000 per eye that those people paid is gone, and they have failing hardware permanently wired into their nervous systems.

Having a bricked eye implant doesn’t just rob you of your sight — many Argus users experience crippling vertigo and other side effects of nonfunctional implants. The company has promised to “do our best to provide virtual support” to people whose Argus implants fail — but no more parts and no more patches.

Second Sight wasn’t the first neural implant vendor to abandon its customers, nor was it the last. Last week, Liam Drew told the stories of other neural abandonware in “Abandoned: the human cost of neurotechnology failure” in Nature:

https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-022-03810-5/index.html

Among that abandonware: ATI’s neural implant for reducing cluster headaches, Nuvectra’s spinal-cord stimulator for chronic pain, Freehand’s paralysis bypass for hands and arms, and others. People with these implants are left in a precarious limbo, reliant on reverse-engineering and a dwindling supply of parts for maintenance.

Drew asked his expert subjects what is to be done about this. The least plausible answer is to let the market work its magic: “long-term support on the commercial side would be a competitive advantage.” In other words, wait for companies to realize that promising a durable product will attract customers, so that the other companies go out of business.

A better answer: standardization. “If components were common across devices, one manufacturer might be able to step in and offer spares when another goes under.” 86% of surgeons who implant neurostimulators back this approach.

But the best answer comes from Hunter Peckham, co-developer of Freehand and a Case Western biomedical engineer: open hardware. “Peckham plans to make the design specifications and supporting documentation of new implantable technologies developed by his team freely available. ‘Then people can just cut and paste.’”

This isn’t just the best answer, it’s the only one. There’s no ethical case for permanently attaching computers to people’s nervous systems without giving them the absolute, irrevocable right to nominate who maintains those computers and how.

This is the case that Christian Dameff, Jeff Tully and I made at our Defcon panel this year: “Why Patients Should Hack Medtech.” Patients know things about their care and their needs that no one else can ever fully appreciate; they are the best people to have the final say over med-tech decisions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i1BF5YGS0w

This is the principle that animates Colorado’s HB22–1031, the “Consumer Right To Repair Powered Wheelchairs Act,” landmark Right to Repair legislation that was signed into law last year:

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

Opponents of this proposal will say that it will discourage investment in “innovation” in neurological implants. They may well be right: the kinds of private investors who hedge their bets on high-risk ventures by minimizing security and resilience and exploiting patents and user-data might well be scared off of investment by a requirement to make the technology open.

It may be that showboating billionaire dilettantes will be unwilling to continue to pour money into neural implant companies if they are required to put the lives of the people who use their products ahead of their own profits.

It may be that the only humane, sustainable way to develop neural implants is to publicly fund that research and development, with the condition that the work products be standard, open, and replicable.

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: The staring eye of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Centered in it is a medieval anatomical engraving of the human nervous system, limned in a blue halo.]

[azspot]

The villains of Cory’s books aren’t really people; they’re systems. They wear punchable Human faces but those tend to be avatars, mere sock-puppets operated by the institutions that comprise the real baddies. In Little Brother the enemy was the Surveillance State, jacked up and hypertrophied on post-911 paranoia. “Unauthorized Bread” takes on ubiquitous DRM; For the Win ports sweat-shop economics and union busting into digital ecosystems. With Red Team Blues it’s Crypto, the paramount tech-bro wet dream of recent years (which would probably still be the paramount tech-bro wet dream if they hadn’t all got distracted by chatbots last month). It’s your typical Doctorow novel; entertaining, educational, contemptuous of realpolitik and all the greater-good rationalizations our rulers invoke to protect the status quo. It doesn’t come with Little Brother‘s appendix explicitly instructing readers on available countermeasures, but you’re not going to finish this book without understanding at least the basics of crypto and its associated dark sides, from security holes to carbon footprints.

Red Team Blues

[bravecrab]

Book recommendation: "Unauthorized Bread" by Cory Doctorow (also included in his novella collection, "Radicalized")

this gallon of milk is disabled because it has not been linked to a google account! to enable drinking, make sure to visit milk.google.com/activate before the expiration date and click "yes" when prompted for full device administrator permissions

[cpastry]

Handmade Multigrain Bread Recipe Healthy and Fiber Rich Bread

Ingredients:

12.3 oz/350g Sifted Flour 5.3 oz/150g White Whole Wheat Flour 1.1 oz/30g Chia Seeds 1.4 oz/40g Flaxseeds 1.4 oz/40g Sunflower Seeds 1.4 oz/40g Pumpkin Seeds 0.5 oz/15g Sugar 0.4 oz/10g Dry Yeast 320 mL Warm Water 0.4 oz/10g Salt 20 mL Olive Oil

Steps:

1-In a large bowl combine sifted flour and whole wheat flour 2-Add the ingredients and mix well 3-Gradually add water 4-Add olive oil 5-Work the dough by hand until it becomes less sticky 6-Fold and press until the dough becomes smooth 7-Cover and place it to rest for 30 minutes 8-Knock the dough to remove air pockets 9-Fold the top and the bottom into the center 10-Shape the dough into a round shape 11-Overturn the dough onto the multigrain 12-Place it to proof in room temperature for 1 hour 13-Score the dough 14-Sprinkle water on the dough and on the bottom of the oven 15-Bake at 375 F°/C°190 for 45 minutes 16-Let it cool until it reaches room temperature

By following the step by step instructions of the recipes you should be able to succeed. Please let me know and comment down below. I will be posting a new video every Saturday so please join and subscribe to my channel. Thank you for your support! Enjoy.

info@cpastry.com

All rights and ownership reserved to Cpastry. Unauthorized use of my videos or 2nd edit and re-upload is prohibited.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Quinque gazump linkdump

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

It's Saturday and any fule kno that this is the day for a linkdump, in which the links that couldn't be squeezed into the week's newsletter editions get their own showcase. Here's the previous 23 linkdumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Start your weekend with some child's play! Ada & Zangemann is a picture book by Matthias Kirschner and Sandra Brandstätter of Free Software Foundation Europe, telling the story of a greedy inventor who ensnares a town with his proprietary, remote-brickable gadgets, and Ada, his nemesis, a young girl who reverse engineers them and lets their users seize the means of computation:

https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann/index.en.html

Ada & Zangemann is open access – you can share it, adapt it, and sell it as you see fit – and has been translated into several languages. Now, there's a cartoon version, an animated adaptation that is likewise open access, with digital assets for your remixing pleasure:

https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann//movie

Figuring out how to talk to kids about important subjects is a clarifying exercise. Back in the glory days of SNL, Eddie Murphy lampooned Fred "Mr" Rogers style of talking to kids, and it was indeed very funny:

https://snl.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Robinson

But Mr Rogers' rhetorical style wasn't as simple as "talk slowly and use small words" – the "Fredish" dialect that Mr Rogers created was thoughtful, empathic, inclusive, and very effective:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/09/the-nine-rules-of-freddish-the-positive-inclusive-empathic-language-of-mr-rogers/

Lots of writers have used the sing-songy fairytale style of children's stories to make serious political points (see, e.g. Animal Farm). My own attempt at this was my 2011 short story "The Brave Little Toaster," for MIT Tech Review's annual sf series. If the title sounds familiar, that's because I nicked it from Tom Disch's tale of the same name, as part of my series of stolen title stories:

https://locusmag.com/2012/05/cory-doctorow-a-prose-by-any-other-name/

My Toaster story is a tale of IoT gone wild, in which the nightmare of a world of "smart" devices that exert control over their owners is shown to be a nightmare. A work colleague sent me this adaptation of the story as part of an English textbook, with lots of worksheet-style exercises. I'd never seen this before, and it's very fun:

http://ourenglishclass.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/09/bravetoaster.pdf

If you like my "Brave Little Toaster," you'll likely enjoy my novella "Unauthorized Bread," which appears in my 2019 collection Radicalized and is currently being adapted as a middle-grades graphic novel by Blue Delliquanti for Firstsecond:

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

Childlike parables have their place, but just because something fits in a "just so" story, that doesn't make it true. Cryptocurrency weirdos desperately need to learn this lesson. The foundation of cryptocurrency is a fairytale about the origin of money, a mythological marketplace in which freely trading individuals who struggled to find a "confluence of needs." If you wanted to trade one third of your cow for two and a half of my chickens, how could we complete the transaction?

In the "money story" fairy tale, we spontaneously decided that we would use gold, for a bunch of nonsensical reasons that don't bear even cursory scrutiny. And so coin money sprang into existence, and we all merrily traded our gold with one another until a wicked government came and stole our gold with (cue scary voice) taaaaaaxes.

There is zero evidence for this. It's literally a fairy tale. There is a rich history of where money came from, and the answer, in short is, governments created it through taxes, and money doesn't exist without taxation:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

The money story is a lie, and it's a consequential one. The belief that money arises spontaneously out of the needs of freely trading people who voluntarily accept an arbitrary token as a store of value, unit of account, and unit of exchange (coupled with a childish, reactionary aversion to taxation) inspired cryptocurrency, and with it, the scams that allowed unscrupulous huxters to steal billions from everyday people who trusted Matt Damon, Spike Lee and Larry David when they told them that cryptocurrency was a sure path to financial security:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/15/your-new-first-name/#that-dagger-tho

It turns out that private money, far from being a tool of liberation, is rather just a dismal tool for ripping off the unsuspecting, and that goes double for crypto, where complexity can be weaponized by swindlers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/13/the-byzantine-premium/

We don't hear nearly as much about crypto these days – many of the pump-and-dump set have moved on to pitching AI stock – but there's still billions tied up in the scam, and new shitcoins are still being minted at speed. The FBI actually created a sting operation to expose the dirtiness of the crypto "ecosystem":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/10/24267098/fbi-coin-crypto-token-nexgenai-sec-doj-fraud-investigation

They found that the exchanges, "market makers" and other seemingly rock-ribbed institutions where suckers are enticed to buy, sell, track and price cryptos are classic Big Store cons:

http://www.amyreading.com/the-9-stages-of-the-big-con.html

When you, the unsuspecting retail investor, enter one of these mirror-palaces, you are the only audience member in a play that everyone else is in on. Those vigorous trades that see the shitcoin you're being hustled with skyrocketing in value? They're "wash trades," where insiders buy and sell the same asset to one another, without real money ever changing hands, just to create the appearance of a rapidly appreciating asset that you had best get in on before you are priced out of the market.

This scam is as old as con games themselves and, as with other scams- S&Ls, Enron, subprime – the con artists have parlayed their winnings into social respectability and are now flushing them into the political system, to punish lawmakers who threaten their ability to rip off you and your neighbors. A massive, terrifying investigative story in The New Yorker shows how crypto billionaires stole the Democratic nomination from Katie Porter, one of the most effective anti-scam lawmakers in recent history:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/14/silicon-valley-the-new-lobbying-monster

Big Tech – like every corrupt cartel in history – is desperate to conjure a kleptocracy into existence, whose officials they can corrupt in order to keep the machine going until they've maximized their gains and achieved escape velocity from consequences.

No surprise, then, that tech companies have adopted the same spin tactics that sowed doubt about the tobacco-cancer link, in order to keep the US from updating its anemic privacy laws. The last time Congress gave us a new consumer privacy law was 1988, when they banned video store clerks from disclosing our VHS rental history to newspapers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

By preventing confining privacy law to the VCR era, Big Tech has been able to plunder our data with impunity – aided by cops and spies who love the fact that there's a source of cheap, off-the-books, warrantless surveillance data that would be illegal for them to collect.

Writing for Tech Policy Press, the Norcal ACLU's Jake Snow connects the tobacco industry fight over "pre-emption" to the modern fight over privacy laws:

https://www.techpolicy.press/big-tech-is-trying-to-burn-privacy-to-the-ground-and-theyre-using-big-tobaccos-strategy-to-do-it/

In the 1990s, Big Tobacco went to war against state anti-smoking laws, arguing that the federal government had the right – nay, the duty – to create a "harmonized" national system of smoking laws that would preempt state laws. Strangely, politicians who love "states' rights" when it comes to banning abortion, tax-base erosion and "right to work" anti-union laws suddenly discovered federal religion when their campaign donors from the Cancer-Industrial Complex decided that states shouldn't use those rights to limit smoking.

This is exactly the tack that Big Tech has taken on privacy, arguing that any update to federal privacy law should abolish muscular state-level laws, like Illinois's best-in-class biometric privacy rules, or California's CPPA.

Like Big Tobacco, Big Tech has "funded front groups, hired an armada of lobbyists, donated millions to campaigns, and opened a firehose of lobbying money," with the goal of replacing "real privacy laws with fake industry alternatives as ineffective as non-smoking sections."

Whether it's understanding the origin of money or the Big Tobacco playbook, knowing history can protect you from all kinds of predatory behavior. But history isn't merely a sword and shield, it's also just a delight. Internet pioneer Ethan Zuckerman is road-tripping around America, and in August, he got to Columbus, IN, home to some of the country's most beautiful and important architectural treasures:

https://ethanzuckerman.com/2024/08/29/road-trip-the-company-town-and-the-corn-fields/

The buildings – clustered in within a few, walkable blocks – are the legacy of the diesel engine manufacturing titan Cummins, whose postwar president J Irwin Miller used the company's wartime profits to commission a string of gorgeous structures from starchitects like the Saarinens, IM Pei, Kevin Roche, Richard Meier, Harry Weese, César Pelli, Gunnar Birkerts, and Skidmore. I had no idea about any of this, and now I want to visit Columbus!

I'm planning a book tour right now (for my next novel, Picks and Shovels, which is out in February) and there's a little wiggle-room in the midwestern part of the tour. There's a possibility that I'll end up in the vicinity, and if that happens, I'm definitely gonna find time for a little detour!

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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: