#we lost our access to internet

[delirium-reflection]

your art is just perfect, whether intentional or not it looks like a bishop's hook which was definitely the style at the time in new york.

we are quite stuck calling it headcanon even if it's just canon. but we see your point 😅 !

• calling elliot a softy is funny to us. but yes, he's pretty tsundere so we suppose it fits. but he has a reputation to defend (like victor, because it totally runs in the family). we can see this being where victor learned to dodge his feelings so well...

• oh the poetry! we have a weakness for poetry beware 😖

• as for the gallows we imagine he likes the morbid imagery first off. the keeper stings up the animals as a warning to other animals to keep in line. and generally speaking elliot doesn't want to behave so he'd feel more kinship with the hung animals. a sort of rebellion thing. (the poet was really relaying a story his daughter[?] told him about a grounds keeper and was fascinated by the casual cruety of it, I think)

• leda and the swan. maybe loss of control (in leda's case bodily autonomy) at the hands of someone more powerful (even in disguise). but the last stanza is questioning that maybe leda gained her own power/knowledge siphoned off from zeus and maybe (kind of) became more powerful because of it. (so daddy issues for elliot I guess)

• kidnapping for ransom. yes because of being disowned, you're spot on there. he'd kidnap some rich guy's son or daughter for random and think he was doing them a favor. "giving them a dose of the real world" but let's be serious he'd be doing it out of bitterness. set the random money steep and taunt his victims if/when their parents didn't pay.

• ngl elliot is on the dumb side in some regards. victor probably realised this about age 15 and kind of realised he could manipulate elliot's decisions and plans subtly. (kind of like vox does to val.) hell, victor might have saved his brother from jail time by talking him away from some of his worst schemes lol

in our head we picture victor taking elliot to the pharmacy for a soda as a distraction. getting him a nice lithium water or soda. "you don't really want to rob an armored bank truck, el. you're just thirsty."

• as for lux/elliot fighting alastor and valentino it'd be a mess for sure. it is hard for us to say but we think val might be more reserved about fighting elliot because of not wanting to piss off his business partner/boyfriend. but he'd probably fight him anyway until vox came to break it up.

(edit: that's not to say we think val would pull his punches. but that he'd be more confused to why it was happening in the first place)

alastor would be like: "oh look it's another emotionally constipated idiot with electric powers yelling obscenities at me. guess I'll taunt him until he implodes like the other one."

(it's hard to say how the fight would end mostly because alastor would only end it on his own advantage. strike a deal maybe?)

• flirting with mimzy (aka molly) would happen instantly upon meeting her. we could see him throwing out some cheesy line like: "hey, darling, have you ever tried pole sitting because I've got the perfect place for you to practice." and point to his head.

(pole sitting was a pastime popular in the 20s, btw it reminds us of planking. people sat on top of poles for hours and days to beat each other's records)

we don't know if mimzy would find it charming, corny or creepy. but he'd keep it up for as long as she allowed especially if he thought he'd get some attention.

they could cause trouble for the hotel and hell in general together. vox and al could trauma bond over it.

our silly useless hazbin-oc headcanons for elliot/lux

@herringherringbones we love your artwork both of victor and are kind of blown away by your version of elliot! (so many! he's so perfect! is that a bishop's crook lamppost we see??)

we too confess we spent more time than we originally meant to thinking about elliot as a character. originally he was supposed to be just a throw away meant to give poor victor a reason to leave home. so without further ado we (sheepishly) present a list of random headcanons we have.

• in the great war he was a sharpshooter (sniper) trained in france

• fluent in french and laughably terrible at german

• initially thought of victor as just a tool for revenge but eventually became fond and even possessive of him

• taught victor a variety of skills over the years, mostly to aid him with his crimes, such as driving, lockpicking, pickpocketing, and marksmanship

• easily distracted by blood

• loves poetry ✨️ the gallows by edward thomas / leda and the swan w.b. yates ✨️

• bisexual (but due to the mental gymnastics of 1900's culture he considers himself 💯% straight.)

•favorite crime is kidnapping the rich for ransom

• technophile

• bought victor his first typewriter

• hired thugs, at least once, to intimidate/beat up rival newspaper writers that "bullied" victor

• would vehemently deny any involvement in ⬆️

• when teen!victor began to ask questions about the "birds and bees" elliot panicked, explained very things badly, then took vic to a brothel and paid one of the women to "teach" victor

• (the woman probably took victor aside and just gave him a basic sex ed course and sent him back to elliot. neither of them spoke about it again)

• hellverse!elliot goes by the name lux

• hits his head on things frequently

• probably continued doing petty crime even in hell. maybe formed a small gang but would lack in motivation to elevate himself like vox

• would hate alastor (and valentino) with a passion

• would fight them - even if it wasn't a good idea

• wouldn't care about violette, would be too interested in her cell phone

• probably would find mimsy attractive

[inkskinned]

it's easier to apply for jobs than ever! so what if you lost your insurance, anyone can get a job these days, even without meds. everyone is hiring! there's a "good employee" shortage!

well you just need to revamp your resume, here's a paid app subscription that can read it for you. rewrite the cover letter they won't read. google jobs in my area and then scrawl through Monster/Indeed/worbly. did you want to save the search? this was posted 98 days ago. over 1 billion applicants! this position is trending.

jobs i actively like doing and get paid for. your search returned no results. easy-apply with HireSpin! easy apply with SparkFire! easy apply with PenisFlash! with a few short clicks, get your information stolen.

watch out! the first 98 links on google are actually scams! they're false postings. oopsie. that business isn't even hiring. that other one is closed permanently. find one that looks halfway legit, google the company and the word "careers". go to their page. scroll past brightly-lit diversity stock photo JOIN US white sans serif. we are a unique, fresh, client-focused stock value capitalism. we are committed to excellence and selling your soul on ebay. we are DRIVEN with POWER to INNOVATE our greed. yippee! our company has big values of divisive decision making, sucking our dicks, and hating work-life balances. our values are to piss in your mouth. sign here and tell us if you have gender issues so we can get ahead of the sexual harassment claim. are you hispanic although let's be real we threw out the resume when we saw your last name.

sign up to LinkHub to access updates from this company. make a HirePlus account to apply. download the PoundLink app. your account has been created, click the link we sent you in 15 minutes. upload that resume. we didn't read the resume, manually fill in the lines now. what is your expected pay grade. oh actually we want hungry people, not people driven by a salary. cut a zero off that number, buddy, this is about opportunity, and we need to be thrifty. highest level of education. autofill is glitching. here is an AI generated set of questions. what is your favorite part of our sexy, sexy company. how do you resolve conflict. will you get our company logo tattooed on your person. warning: while our CEO is guilty of wage theft, we will absolutely refuse to hire a nonviolent felon.

thank you for your interest at WEEBLIX. we actually already filled this position internally. we actually never had that posting. we actually needed you to have 9 years of experience and since you have 10 years we think it might be too many? we'll be texting you. we'll email you. we'll keep your resume. definitely absolutely we won't just completely ignore you. look at your phone, there's already a spam text from Bethany@stealyouridentity. they're hiring!

wait, did you get an interview? well that's special, aren't you lucky. out of 910 jobs you applied to, one answered, finally. and funny story! actually the position isn't exactly as advertised, we are looking for someone curious and dedicated. it's sort of more managerial. no, the pay doesn't change - you won't have any leadership title. now take this 90 minute assessment. in order to be a dog groomer, we need you to explain cell biology. in order to be a copyeditor, write a tiny dissertation about the dwindling supply of helium on the planet. answer our riddles three. great job! we just need to push this up to Tracy in HR who will send it to Rodney who is actually in charge. and then of course it's jay's decision and then greg will need to see you naked and if you survive you'll be given a drug test and a full anal examination.

and of course you'll be hungry this whole time, aren't you, months and months of the same shit. months of no insurance, no meds, no funding, barely able to afford the internet and the phone and the rent - all things you need in order to even apply for our thing. but do it again! do it again and again and again, until you flip inside out and turn into a being of pure dread!

you're not hired yet because you're lazy. there's over one million AI-generated hallucinated jobs in your area. don't worry. with zipruiter, hiring and firing is easier than ever. sign up. stay on-call.

in the meantime, little peon - why don't you just fucking suffer.

[sophiamcdougall]

You're a reasonably informed person on the internet. You've experienced things like no longer being able to get files off an old storage device, media you've downloaded suddenly going poof, sites and forums with troves full of people's thoughts and ideas vanishing forever. You've heard of cybercrime. You've read articles about lost media. You have at least a basic understanding that digital data is vulnerable, is what I'm saying. I'm guessing that you're also aware that history is, you know... important? And that it's an ongoing study, requiring ... data about how people live? And that it's not just about stanning celebrities that happen to be dead? Congratulations, you are significantly better-informed than the British government! So they're currently like "Oh hai can we destroy all these historical documents pls? To save money? Because we'll digitise them first so it's fine! That'll be easy, cheap and reliable -- right? These wills from the 1850s will totally be fine for another 170 years as a PNG or whatever, yeah? We didn't need to do an impact assesment about this because it's clearly win-win! We'd keep the physical wills of Famous People™ though because Famous People™ actually matter, unlike you plebs. We don't think there are any equalities implications about this, either! Also the only examples of Famous People™ we can think of are all white and rich, only one is a woman and she got famous because of the guy she married. Kisses!"

Yes, this is the same Government that's like "Oh no removing a statue of slave trader is erasing history :(" You have, however, until 23 February 2024 to politely inquire of them what the fuck they are smoking. And they will have to publish a summary of the responses they receive. And it will look kind of bad if the feedback is well-argued, informative and overwhelmingly negative and they go ahead and do it anyway. I currently edit documents including responses to consultations like (but significantly less insane) than this one. Responses do actually matter. I would particularly encourage British people/people based in the UK to do this, but as far as I can see it doesn't say you have to be either. If you are, say, a historian or an archivist, or someone who specialises in digital data do say so and draw on your expertise in your answers. This isn't a question of filling out a form. You have to manually compose an email answering the 12 questions in the consultation paper at the link above. I'll put my own answers under the fold. Note -- I never know if I'm being too rude in these sorts of things. You probably shouldn't be ruder than I have been.

Please do not copy and paste any of this: that would defeat the purpose. This isn't a petition, they need to see a range of individual responses. But it may give you a jumping-off point.

Question 1: Should the current law providing for the inspection of wills be preserved?

Yes. Our ability to understand our shared past is a fundamental aspect of our heritage. It is not possible for any authority to know in advance what future insights they are supporting or impeding by their treatment of material evidence. Safeguarding the historical record for future generations should be considered an extremely important duty.

Question 2: Are there any reforms you would suggest to the current law enabling wills to be inspected?

No.

Question 3: Are there any reasons why the High Court should store original paper will documents on a permanent basis, as opposed to just retaining a digitised copy of that material?

Yes. I am amazed that the recent cyber attack on the British Library, which has effectively paralysed it completely, not been sufficient to answer this question for you.  I also refer you to the fate of the Domesday Project. Digital storage is useful and can help more people access information; however, it is also inherently fragile. Malice, accident, or eventual inevitable obsolescence not merely might occur, but absolutely should be expected. It is ludicrously naive and reflects a truly unpardonable ignorance to assume that information preserved only in digital form is somehow inviolable and safe, or that a physical document once digitised, never need be digitised again..At absolute minimum, it should be understood as certain that at least some of any digital-only archive will eventually be permanently lost. It is not remotely implausible that all of it would be. Preserving the physical documents provides a crucial failsafe. It also allows any errors in reproduction -- also inevitable-- to be, eventually, seen and corrected. Note that maintaining, upgrading and replacing digital infrastructure is not free, easy or reliable. Over the long term, risks to the data concerned can only accumulate.

"Unlike the methods for preserving analog documents that have been honed over millennia, there is no deep precedence to look to regarding the management of digital records. As such, the processing, long-term storage, and distribution potential of archival digital data are highly unresolved issues. [..] the more digital data is migrated, translated, and re-compressed into new formats, the more room there is for information to be lost, be it at the microbit-level of preservation. Any failure to contend with the instability of digital storage mediums, hardware obsolescence, and software obsolescence thus meets a terminal end—the definitive loss of information. The common belief that digital data is safe so long as it is backed up according to the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies on 2 different formats with 1 copy saved off site) belies the fact that it is fundamentally unclear how long digital information can or will remain intact. What is certain is that its unique vulnerabilities do become more pertinent with age."  -- James Boyda, On Loss in the 21st Century: Digital Decay and the Archive, Introduction.

Question 4: Do you agree that after a certain time original paper documents (from 1858 onwards) may be destroyed (other than for famous individuals)? Are there any alternatives, involving the public or private sector, you can suggest to their being destroyed?

Absolutely not. And I would have hoped we were past the "great man" theory of history. Firstly, you do not know which figures will still be considered "famous" in the future and which currently obscure individuals may deserve and eventually receive greater attention. I note that of the three figures you mention here as notable enough to have their wills preserved, all are white, the majority are male (the one woman having achieved fame through marriage) and all were wealthy at the time of their death. Any such approach will certainly cull evidence of the lives of women, people of colour and the poor from the historical record, and send a clear message about whose lives you consider worth remembering.

Secondly, the famous and successsful are only a small part of our history. Understanding the realities that shaped our past and continue to mould our present requires evidence of the lives of so-called "ordinary people"!

Did you even speak to any historians before coming up with this idea?

Entrusting the documents to the private sector would be similarly disastrous. What happens when a private company goes bust or decides that preserving this material is no longer profitable? What reasonable person, confronted with our crumbling privatised water infrastructure, would willingly consign any part of our heritage to a similar fate?

Question 5: Do you agree that there is equivalence between paper and digital copies of wills so that the ECA 2000 can be used?

No. And it raises serious questions about the skill and knowledge base within HMCTS and the government that the very basic concepts of data loss and the digital dark age appear to be unknown to you. I also refer you to the Domesday Project.

Question 6: Are there any other matters directly related to the retention of digital or paper wills that are not covered by the proposed exercise of the powers in the ECA 2000 that you consider are necessary?

Destroying the physical documents will always be an unforgivable dereliction of legal and moral duty.

Question 7: If the Government pursues preserving permanently only a digital copy of a will document, should it seek to reform the primary legislation by introducing a Bill or do so under the ECA 2000?

Destroying the physical documents will always be an unforgivable dereliction of legal and moral duty.

Question 8: If the Government moves to digital only copies of original will documents, what do you think the retention period for the original paper wills should be? Please give reasons and state what you believe the minimum retention period should be and whether you consider the Government’s suggestion of 25 years to be reasonable.

There is no good version of this plan. The physical documents should be preserved.

Question 9: Do you agree with the principle that wills of famous people should be preserved in the original paper form for historic interest?

This question betrays deep ignorance of what "historic interest" actually is. The study of history is not simply glorified celebrity gossip. If anything, the physical wills of currently famous people could be considered more expendable as it is likely that their contents are so widely diffused as to be relatively "safe", whereas the wills of so-called "ordinary people" will, especially in aggregate, provide insights that have not yet been explored.

Question 10: Do you have any initial suggestions on the criteria which should be adopted for identifying famous/historic figures whose original paper will document should be preserved permanently?

Abandon this entire lamentable plan. As previously discussed, you do not and cannot know who will be considered "famous" in the future, and fame is a profoundly flawed criterion of historical significance.

Question 11: Do you agree that the Probate Registries should only permanently retain wills and codicils from the documents submitted in support of a probate application? Please explain, if setting out the case for retention of any other documents.

No, all the documents should be preserved indefinitely.

Question 12: Do you agree that we have correctly identified the range and extent of the equalities impacts under each of these proposals set out in this consultation? Please give reasons and supply evidence of further equalities impacts as appropriate.

No. You appear to have neglected equalities impacts entirely. As discussed, in your drive to prioritise "famous people", your plan will certainly prioritise the white, wealthy and mostly the male, as your "Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin and Princess Diana" examples amply indicate. This plan will create a two-tier system where evidence of the lives of the privileged is carefully preserved while information regarding people of colour, women, the working class and other disadvantaged groups is disproportionately abandoned to digital decay and eventual loss. Current and future historians from, or specialising in the history of minority groups will be especially impoverished by this.  

[txttletale]

Saw a tweet that said something around:

"cannot emphasize enough how horrid chatgpt is, y'all. it's depleting our global power & water supply, stopping us from thinking or writing critically, plagiarizing human artists. today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools. this isn't a world we deserve"

I've seen some of your AI posts and they seem nuanced, but how would you respond do this? Cause it seems fairly-on point and like the crux of most worries. Sorry if this is a troublesome ask, just trying to learn so any input would be appreciated.

i would simply respond that almost none of that is true.

'depleting the global power and water supply'

something i've seen making the roudns on tumblr is that chatgpt queries use 3 watt-hours per query. wow, that sounds like a lot, especially with all the articles emphasizing that this is ten times as much as google search. let's check some other very common power uses:

running a microwave for ten minutes is 133 watt-hours

gaming on your ps5 for an hour is 200 watt-hours

watching an hour of netflix is 800 watt-hours

and those are just domestic consumer electricty uses!

a single streetlight's typical operation 1.2 kilowatt-hours a day (or 1200 watt-hours)

a digital billboard being on for an hour is 4.7 kilowatt-hours (or 4700 watt-hours)

i think i've proved my point, so let's move on to the bigger picture: there are estimates that AI is going to cause datacenters to double or even triple in power consumption in the next year or two! damn that sounds scary. hey, how significant as a percentage of global power consumption are datecenters?

1-1.5%.

ah. well. nevertheless!

what about that water? yeah, datacenters use a lot of water for cooling. 1.7 billion gallons (microsoft's usage figure for 2021) is a lot of water! of course, when you look at those huge and scary numbers, there's some important context missing. it's not like that water is shipped to venus: some of it is evaporated and the rest is generally recycled in cooling towers. also, not all of the water used is potable--some datacenters cool themselves with filtered wastewater.

most importantly, this number is for all data centers. there's no good way to separate the 'AI' out for that, except to make educated guesses based on power consumption and percentage changes. that water figure isn't all attributable to AI, plenty of it is necessary to simply run regular web servers.

but sure, just taking that number in isolation, i think we can all broadly agree that it's bad that, for example, people are being asked to reduce their household water usage while google waltzes in and takes billions of gallons from those same public reservoirs.

but again, let's put this in perspective: in 2017, coca cola used 289 billion liters of water--that's 7 billion gallons! bayer (formerly monsanto) in 2018 used 124 million cubic meters--that's 32 billion gallons!

so, like. yeah, AI uses electricity, and water, to do a bunch of stuff that is basically silly and frivolous, and that is broadly speaking, as someone who likes living on a planet that is less than 30% on fire, bad. but if you look at the overall numbers involved it is a miniscule drop in the ocean! it is a functional irrelevance! it is not in any way 'depleting' anything!

'stopping us from thinking or writing critically'

this is the same old reactionary canard we hear over and over again in different forms. when was this mythic golden age when everyone was thinking and writing critically? surely we have all heard these same complaints about tiktok, about phones, about the internet itself? if we had been around a few hundred years earlier, we could have heard that "The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth."

it is a reactionary narrative of societal degeneration with no basis in anything. yes, it is very funny that laywers have lost the bar for trusting chatgpt to cite cases for them. but if you think that chatgpt somehow prevented them from thinking critically about its output, you're accusing the tail of wagging the dog.

nobody who says shit like "oh wow chatgpt can write every novel and movie now. yiou can just ask chatgpt to give you opinions and ideas and then use them its so great" was, like, sitting in the symposium debating the nature of the sublime before chatgpt released. there is no 'decay', there is no 'decline'. you should be suspicious of those narratives wherever you see them, especially if you are inclined to agree!

plagiarizing human artists

nah. i've been over this ad infinitum--nothing 'AI art' does could be considered plagiarism without a definition so preposterously expansive that it would curtail huge swathes of human creative expression.

AI art models do not contain or reproduce any images. the result of them being trained on images is a very very complex statistical model that contains a lot of large-scale statistical data about all those images put together (and no data about any of those individual images).

to draw a very tortured comparison, imagine you had a great idea for how to make the next Great American Painting. you loaded up a big file of every norman rockwell painting, and you made a gigantic excel spreadsheet. in this spreadsheet you noticed how regularly elements recurred: in each cell you would have something like "naturalistic lighting" or "sexually unawakened farmers" and the % of times it appears in his paintings. from this, you then drew links between these cells--what % of paintings containing sexually unawakened farmers also contained naturalistic lighting? what % also contained a white guy?

then, if you told someone else with moderately competent skill at painting to use your excel spreadsheet to generate a Great American Painting, you would likely end up with something that is recognizably similar to a Norman Rockwell painting: but any charge of 'plagiarism' would be absolutely fucking absurd!

this is a gross oversimplification, of course, but it is much closer to how AI art works than the 'collage machine' description most people who are all het up about plagiarism talk about--and if it were a collage machine, it would still not be plagiarising because collages aren't plagiarism.

(for a better and smarter explanation of the process from soneone who actually understands it check out this great twitter thread by @reachartwork)

today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools

i mean, this is true! AI tools are definitely going to destroy livelihoods. they will increase productivty for skilled writers and artists who learn to use them, which will immiserate those jobs--they will outright replace a lot of artists and writers for whom quality is not actually important to the work they do (this has already essentially happened to the SEO slop website industry and is in the process of happening to stock images).

jobs in, for example, product support are being cut for chatgpt. and that sucks for everyone involved. but this isn't some unique evil of chatgpt or machine learning, this is just the effect that technological innovation has on industries under capitalism!

there are plenty of innovations that wiped out other job sectors overnight. the camera was disastrous for portrait artists. the spinning jenny was famously disastrous for the hand-textile workers from which the luddites drew their ranks. retail work was hit hard by self-checkout machines. this is the shape of every single innovation that can increase productivity, as marx explains in wage labour and capital:

“The greater division of labour enables one labourer to accomplish the work of five, 10, or 20 labourers; it therefore increases competition among the labourers fivefold, tenfold, or twentyfold. The labourers compete not only by selling themselves one cheaper than the other, but also by one doing the work of five, 10, or 20; and they are forced to compete in this manner by the division of labour, which is introduced and steadily improved by capital. Furthermore, to the same degree in which the division of labour increases, is the labour simplified. The special skill of the labourer becomes worthless. He becomes transformed into a simple monotonous force of production, with neither physical nor mental elasticity. His work becomes accessible to all; therefore competitors press upon him from all sides. Moreover, it must be remembered that the more simple, the more easily learned the work is, so much the less is its cost to production, the expense of its acquisition, and so much the lower must the wages sink – for, like the price of any other commodity, they are determined by the cost of production. Therefore, in the same manner in which labour becomes more unsatisfactory, more repulsive, do competition increase and wages decrease”

this is the process by which every technological advancement is used to increase the domination of the owning class over the working class. not due to some inherent flaw or malice of the technology itself, but due to the material realtions of production.

so again the overarching point is that none of this is uniquely symptomatic of AI art or whatever ever most recent technological innovation. it is symptomatic of capitalism. we remember the luddites primarily for failing and not accomplishing anything of meaning.

if you think it's bad that this new technology is being used with no consideration for the planet, for social good, for the flourishing of human beings, then i agree with you! but then your problem shouldn't be with the technology--it should be with the economic system under which its use is controlled and dictated by the bourgeoisie.

[averagegazan]

Stand with Alaa: A Family's Fight for Survival

Hello Everyone,

I am Alaa from the war-torn Gaza. I am reaching out to seek your help in taking care of my family amidst the hardships of war. I am a husband and father of two beautiful kids, 3-year old Ayman and 6-year old Maram. My beloved wife, Sahar, is pregnant, and so our family is soon expecting a new member, filling our hearts with joy and concern.

Before the war disrupted our lives, I worked tirelessly as a translator at the public secter and as a freelancer. I took on multiple jobs to ensure my children had everything they desired. I was proud of my achievements both in my career and as a father. However, when the war began, everything changed.

A year ago, we were forced to leave our home in search of safety, leaving behind not only our belongings but also the stability we once knew. We lost everything—our clothes, mattresses, and my laptops. With my job gone and limited access to the internet, I’ve been unable to continue my freelance work.

Now, I find myself in a desperate situation. The cost of living has skyrocketed due to the ongoing blockade, making it impossible for me to afford even the most basic necessities for my children. Simple things like winter clothes and mattresses have become luxuries we can’t afford.

As we prepare to welcome our new baby, I feel an overwhelming sense of worry. I cannot provide for this little one as I wish to—I can’t buy a cradle, baby clothes, or even diapers. The price of a single bag of diapers is around $70—ten times what it should be. Additionally, Sahar needs essential nutrients and vitamins to ensure her health and the health of our baby.

As a father, my heart aches for my children. I worry constantly about their safety and future amid this relentless turmoil. If you can find it in your heart to help us during this difficult time, I would be eternally grateful. Your support could make a profound difference in our lives and help me provide for my family.

✅️ My campaign is vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #252 ) ✅️

Thank you for taking the time to read our story. Your kindness means the world to us.

Warm regards,

Alaa

[sniperct]

okay so listen, I've railed about this before, but I'll rail about it again

We say the internet is forever, but also, its not.

Servers die, data gets lost, technology changes and old file types can't be read.

Say the worst happens. Solar flares, EMP, whatever. Our entire online history could be lost. Every beautiful artwork, every fic, every story, every news, all those photos and records of historical events, all the memes, they could be wiped out.

In a thousand years this could be a dark age, where huge parts of our cultures and our knowledge is lost because it was all digital.

We need to preserve our physical media, AND preserve ways to access and read it. Not just for us but for the future to know we existed and what we were like.

[paper-mario-wiki]

An Urgent Call for Help 🚨🚨

I am Mona , I live in Gaza… 🍉, Palestine…

All communications and internet were cut off hours ago. This might be our final message to you, pleading for help to stop the genocide being committed against us in Palestine.😔😔

Please share this so it reaches everyone. We are dying. Very few can access the internet, and doing so puts their lives at risk through a weak and special electronic chip that requires high elevation.🙏🙏🚀

We need financial support, even $10 - $20, to save us from diseases and buy essential supplies, as prices have skyrocketed. It’s not easy for us to ask, but we have lost everything, and this may be our last message to reach you.

If you are unable to donate, please share these words so they reach others. We need your support in any way possible.🙏

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ To donate please

https://gofund.me/eef61a3c

vetted by : 90-ghost click here9

As of a few hours ago, I've lost contact with Mohammed, who I have been talking with regularly for the past several weeks, as I've spoken about before.

Communications have once again been cutoff, and the people are being plunged back into the dark.

Please, do not hesitate to donate and share. Additionally,

please consider donating an esim card to help mend the constant blows to Gaza's information infrastructure.

Please do not look away. We cannot afford it.

[familyfaten]

Attention ...‼️‼️

Hello to all friends, how are you? I am talking to you now and I am in a very bad and difficult situation that you cannot imagine. I am Faten Baroud, 27 years old. I have a family of 6 people, 3 girls, and my older brother Nidal has been missing since the beginning of the war😔. My younger brother Ahmed, who is 14 years old, is a "child."

We depend on him to carry water, food and drink. He works hard to provide us with only bread and water and nothing more. He endures hardships for us.

For a month or more, I have not received any donations. My campaign is going badly and slowly. Gfm is our only hope for survival. 🙏🏻

⚠️The largest donation I receive does not exceed $10. I am suffering to access the internet and communicate with you. I am telling you about my suffering because I am in a place where the internet is not available. I am forced to go out to another place and risk myself to communicate with you and buy an internet card to get better internet to communicate with you, but unfortunately to no avail. I don't find any interaction or any attention...

🚫Unfortunately, I resorted to making a donation campaign to help my family, and this is the best way I did as a girl to help her family in these difficult and dangerous circumstances...

Despite all this, we are now suffering from famine, not just food famine. I am now living a food and drink famine. For 3 months, I have been speaking and spreading that I need clean drinking water, but there is no response to my suffering. No one feels. There are children in my family, and they are the children of my brother who was lost at the beginning of the war. We are responsible for them. They sleep every day thirsty. Imagine that your children sleep thirsty every day! 💔😭

Even the simplest basics of food, which is bread, the price of a bag of bread has reached $40, and a bag of flour has reached 700 shekels, which is about $200, and it will not be worth this amount. It is flour full of worms, weevils, and disgusting insects, but this is what is available. I cannot buy it. It has a bad smell, but this is the best available.

Even as I am talking to you now, I am sick and infected with the influenza virus and a high temperature (fever), and I can't even buy a fever reducer. This is all due to malnutrition and the lack of warm clothes and blankets to warm our bodies in the winter.

I feel ashamed and helpless that I can't buy medicine for me and my family. I was a doctor who treated all patients, and now I do not have $1 to treat myself.

You can save us this time, the situation is very difficult ...

Our life is in your hands

@c-u-c-koo-4-40k @a-shade-of-blue @roadimusprime @90-ghost @quezify @wellwaterhysteria @wellfine @wander-bunnies @dlxxv-vetted-donations @lesbianmaxevans @jezior0 @zivazivc @zigcarnivorous @z0urcherri @heydreamchild @girlinafairytale @bunnypotions @labutansa @maester-cressen @magic-can @noble-kale @neptunerings @importantt-reblogs @iphigeniacomplex @phenakistoskope @appsa @greenwingspino @nytirri @naggingatlas @classychassiss @pcktknife @paper-mario-wiki @crapscicle @90-ghost @yetisidelblog @yellowis4happy @sporesgalaxy @vilethot @mushroomjar @xxlunawarriorxx @eastgaysian @escaramelo @rinboz @rottencore @turtletoria @thundergrace @the-meme-monarch @komsomolka @killy @thatsonehellofabird

[mahmoudna]

“My Dream Is Still Alive Despite the Rubble”

My dream has always been to become a UX/UI designer and a web developer. This dream has been my compass toward a better future for me and my family, giving my life meaning and hope despite the challenges.

But the war in Gaza turned our lives upside down. We lost our home, my university, and even the laptop I relied on for learning and work. We were displaced to the southern part of Gaza, where we suffer daily from power outages and limited internet access. Despite these circumstances, my heart still clings to hope, and I refuse to give up on my dream.

I am not just asking for support to acquire equipment; I am asking for a chance to rebuild my future—not just for myself, but for my family as well. I believe that every challenge holds an opportunity, and I am determined to turn this hardship into a story of success.

Why Do I Need Your Support?

To continue my education and pursue my dream, I need some essential tools to help me learn and work under these harsh conditions:

• Laptop: $2,000

• Solar Panel: $2,000

• Power Inverter: $1,000

• 100Ah Battery: $1,000

Total Cost: $6,000.

So far, I’ve managed to raise €975 through my GoFundMe campaign, but I need to reach €7,000 to cover all costs.

My Vision for the Future:

My ambition is not just to complete my studies but also to use my skills to support my community in Gaza. I aim to train young people in programming and design so we can contribute to building a better future despite the challenges we face.

Why Your Contribution Matters:

Your donation is not just helping me personally but is an investment in a young man determined to empower his community. I aspire to become a role model for Palestinian youth, showing that resilience and creativity can overcome any obstacle.

A Heartfelt Thank You:

I live under difficult conditions, but I believe that goodness exists everywhere. Every person who contributes to my dream brings hope back into my life and gives me the strength to keep going.

How You Can Help:

1. Donate to the campaign:

GoFundMe

OR USDT

TLns8czyFHsJQWkaAEeza3of5cgEH7vi3n

2. Share my story with your friends and family. It might reach someone who can help.

3. Offer advice or opportunities that could help me develop my skills and achieve my dream.

Finally:

I promise to share every step of my journey with you—from acquiring the equipment to completing my education and realizing my dream. You are part of this story, and your support is the light I need right now.

“In the darkest times, there is always a ray of light. That light is you and your support, which gives me the strength to carry on.”

Special Thanks:

I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has supported me so far. A special thanks to:

@gaza-evacuation-funds @gaza-relief-fund @wellwaterhysteria @ayeshjourney @nabulsi @catnapdreams @vetted-gaza-funds @vetted

[lostintransist]

Seamstress | Part 3

Check out part 1 here. AO3

Simon noticed first. Some of his pants, he only had five pairs he rotated between, had gone missing from the laundry. Not terribly unusual, things get mixed up all the time. But when they reappeared worn spots had been patched, his pockets had been fixed, and all the little annoying seams that didn’t lay flat had been tacked down.

Kyle put a hole in the armpit of his favorite shirt, it went missing the next day and reappeared better than before. Roach lost many of his hats to the laundry, but within a week they all reappeared, cleaner and fixed. It wasn’t until Johnny couldn’t find his favorite pair of pants, his lucky pants that he couldn’t take on a mission because they were missing, that they started to talk to each other about the matter.

John called them a bunch of muppets, rolled his eyes, and walked away when the conversation started up about their laundry going missing. First, they examined the schedule for any overlap of their clothes being put into the laundry and their clothes going missing. Nothing stands out, most of the people serving in the laundry are there on assignment and rotate out before clothes are returned.

With this avenue exhausted the guys sit around thinking, pondering.

“What if they aren’t getting picked up by the laundry?” Roach slowly voices his question, as if putting it together only as the words leave his mouth.

Simon picks up the thread next.

“Who has access to our rooms? Laundry obviously, but we have ruled them out. Who else?”

“Base commanders, cleaning staff, Price. I can’t think of anyone else,” Soap shifts, stretching the toe of his boot to sit against Ghost’s.

“Has anyone looked into where Price has been going when he is in late some mornings?” Gaz squints as he thinks.

“Now there’s a thought,” Ghost tilts his head to one side. “Question becomes, do we access his bank account or follow him?”

They all looked at him, waiting for his decision.

“Price guards his phone harder than nuclear codes, I vote we follow him,” Roach chimes in.

“Good point. Anyone have a requisitioned tracker we could tag him or his car with?” Ghost looks over each of his men.

Soap, and Roach both shake their heads. Gaz scrunches his nose and then sighs.

“I want it back when this is over. It was a hard one to get my hands on.”

Ghost nods, accepting the responsibility to get it back to him. They tagged Price’s car that same day. Waiting for any of their clothes to go missing they watched the tracker. Johnny got a tad impatient and ended up ripping off a belt loop off when it got caught on a door handle instead of walking back and getting unstuck. He made a big deal of it too.

“Christ on a cracker,” he growled at the annoyance. Johnny, being a smooth operator, made sure John saw it before he turned in for the night.

Sure enough, the next night the pants were missing from the laundry. Johnny checked the laundry room for them before confirming to the guys that John had taken the bait. The tracker placed John near the manufacturing district in a designated parking lot, but nothing specific.

Johnny’s pants reappeared, clean, the next day with the regular laundry delivery. But they had a starting point. Roach scoured the internet for any business that might fix clothes but found nothing within walking distance. Must be an unlisted or newer business they figured. The following morning, they all skived off morning training that, while encouraged, was not mandatory.

Parking in the same lot that John had the guys split up. Each man took one side of the street and started down a direction eyes scouring each storefront and entrance until Ghost sent out a shrill whistle. Barely checking for cars the men darted for their L.T. who stood in front of a small shop squished between a cobbler and a bakery. The front window simply read ‘Seamstress’.

🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡

You sang along to Disney music this morning. It seemed fitting, as you were stitching together a party dress for a small princess. Her birthday was coming, and she wanted a purple princess dress like Rapunzel but big like Cinderella. Gotta hand it to the kid, that made it easy to design with her dad. This would be the second version she stitched up. The first one fit, until kiddo woke up one morning an inch taller.

When the shop bell dinged you reached around your sewing machine to lower the volume of your music.

“One moment!” You called over the sound of the small engine working loudly. You remembered it was about time for a tune-up on the old thing.

The stitches completed you turn and stand. Four men of varying sizes and heights stand at your counter. Two of them are pretty, no other word for it, and the other two are covered up than some of your niqab-wearing customers.

“Hi, what can I help you with?”

One of the pretty ones, with a mohawk, spoke for the group.

“We were wondering if you could tell us what you do here.”

Leaning to one side you confirmed that your sign still clung to the window in paint. Standing straight again you cocked an eyebrow at the man.

“Pretty sure I’m a seamstress, window says so.”

The tall covered one snorts.

Mohawk sends a glare back at his companion.

“What does that mean? What do you do exactly?” The shorter covered one asks.

“Seamstresses typically create clothes, though I do a lot of repairs too. Why? Are any of you needing repairs done? I can work on suits however I would recommend you out to a local tailor for that, suits are something they specialize in.”

You weren’t nervous. They all had a deadly energy about them, but it wasn’t directed at you.

“How much for a kilt repair?” Mohawk asked, confirming the placement of the accent.

“That would depend on the damage and the cost of the cleaning. Any articles that stay with me overnight get sent to a dry cleaner, it’s built into the charge.”

Waking your tablet you pull up pricing.

“Restoration will run you more than run-of-the-mill repairs, but with the repairs, the kilt will be stored in acid-free paper to keep it from deteriorating.” Glancing up once again you find every pair of eyes on you.

You were starting to regret the lack of a panic button in your shop.

The other pretty one spoke up now.

“Can you tell us if a certain customer has been here? A John Price for example?”

“I am not in the habit of sharing my customer’s habits, no.”

Both pretty men lifted a brow.

“If I show you a picture, would you tell us if you’ve seen this man then, without confirming if he is a customer?” The tallest one asked.

“I think you should leave. Though feel free to call for a recommendation for a seamstress if you need any work done,” you give them your pretty, I’m a weak woman and don’t yell at me smile.

The breath between your words ending and their bodies moving drags into eternity. When their bodies edged through the door and down the sidewalk a way you flicked the lock shut on the front door.

🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡

“You have one new message.” The robotic voice droned at John. “First new message: Hi John, this is the owner of Your Local Seamstress calling. I have your repairs completed, feel free to come and pick them up during business hours, six am to one pm or four pm to seven pm Tuesday through Saturday.”

A lingering pause, John can tell the message hasn’t ended.

“I did want to mention I had a…weird interaction today with a group of men looking for you. Two pretty men and two men covered tip to toe, asked for you by name. Not sure if you might know who they are but I figured I would pass along the information. Please feel free to give me a call if you have any questions.” She gave the shop number as if he didn’t have it memorized at this point.

“To replay this message press one, to delete press seven, to save press nine, for more options press six.” The robot is speaking to him again.

Slamming his thumb into the end call button John missed corded phones and the satisfaction of slamming the phone into the cradle. His muppets had scared his girl.

Part 2 | Part 4

Masterlist

[thrashkink-coven]

Don’t forget that you live in a very incredibly crazy age of maximum information. We often forget how magical that is in itself. I know that most folks don’t consider bluetooth and wifi to be “magic” but I very much do.

It may not seem very aesthetically pleasing to look up the meanings of your tarot cards on Google, or to download the e-book version of an ancient grimoire, but don’t forget how fucking crazy it is that you can even do that. In an instant we can translate entire works into a language we can understand. We can research the histories of cultures we have no chance of witnessing irl. We can learn the names of Gods and demons that should have been lost to time. We can learn the benefits and dangers of any herb, we can learn which plants are native to our environment, how to care for them, and where to find them. We can predict the damn WEATHER!!! We can even converse with other witches all the way across the globe without a moment’s delay!!! That’s some crazy magic right there!!! Any ancient witch, mage, or practitioner would find these things to be absolutely incredible!! There’s so much to learn, and it’s so easily accessible!!!

Don’t ever feel apprehensive about looking stuff up on the regular old internet. It might not look as cool, but you’re probably gaining a lot more knowledge than any of those ancient mages could have even dreamed of. It’s always nice to have a collection of books and grimoires you can actually hold and study. But the fact that you have literally, all of humanity’s knowledge at the tip of your fingertips is amazing!!! Use it!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Utah’s getting some of America’s best broadband

TOMORROW (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the country, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.

This broadband service is, of course, delivered via fiber optic cable. Of course it is. Fiber is vastly superior to all other forms of broadband delivery, including satellites, but also cable and DSL. Fiber caps out at 100tb/s, while cable caps out at 50gb/s – that is, fiber is 1,000 times faster:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/why-fiber-vastly-superior-cable-and-5g

Despite the obvious superiority of fiber, America has been very slow to adopt it. Our monopolistic carriers act as though pulling fiber to our homes is an impossible challenge. All those wires that currently go to your house, from power-lines to copper phone-lines, are relics of a mysterious, fallen civilization and its long-lost arts. Apparently we could no more get a new wire to your house than we could build the pyramids using only hand-tools.

In a sense, the people who say we can't pull wires anymore are right: these are relics of a lost civilization. Specifically, electrification and later, universal telephone service was accomplished through massive federal grants under the New Deal – grants that were typically made to either local governments or non-profit co-operatives who got everyone in town connected to these essential modern utilities.

Today – thanks to decades of neoliberalism and its dogmatic insistence that governments can't do anything and shouldn't try, lest they break the fragile equilibrium of the market – we have lost much of the public capacity that our grandparents took for granted. But in the isolated pockets where this capacity lives on, amazing things happen.

Since 2015, residents of Jackson County, KY – one of the poorest counties in America – have enjoyed some of the country's fastest, cheapest, most reliable broadband. The desperately poor Appalachian county is home to a rural telephone co-op, which grew out of its rural electrification co-op, and it used a combination of federal grants and local capacity to bring fiber to every home in the county, traversing dangerous mountain passes with a mule named "Ole Bub" to reach the most remote homes. The result was an immediately economic uplift for the community, and in the longer term, the county had reliable and effective broadband during the covid lockdowns:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Contrast this with places where the private sector has the only say over who gets broadband, at what speed, and at what price. America is full of broadband deserts – deserts that strand our poorest people. Even in the hearts of our largest densest cities, whole neighborhoods can't get any broadband. You won't be surprised to learn that these are the neighborhoods that were historically redlined, and that the people who live in them are Black and brown, and also live with some of the highest levels of pollution and its attendant sicknesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

These places are not set up for success under the best of circumstances, and during the lockdowns, they suffered terribly. You think your kid found it hard to go to Zoom school? Imagine what life was like for kids who attended remote learning while sitting on the baking tarmac in a Taco Bell parking lot, using its free wifi:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/02/elem-s02.html

ISPs loathe competition. They divide up the country into exclusive territories like the Pope dividing up the "new world" and do not trouble one another by trying to sell to customers outside of "their" turf. When Frontier – one of the worst of America's terrible ISPs – went bankrupt, we got to see their books, and we learned two important facts:

The company booked one million customers who had no alternative as an asset, because they would pay more for slower broadband, and Frontier could save a fortune by skipping maintenance, and charging these customers for broadband even through multi-day outages; and

Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose to strand their customers with aging copper connections and to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table, so that their personal net worth didn't suffer a temporary downturn:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

ISPs maintain the weirdest position: that a) only the private sector can deliver broadband effectively, but b) to do so, they'll need massive, unsupervised, no-strings-attached government handouts. For years, America went along with this improbable scheme, which is why Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave the carriers $45 billion in public funds to string slow, 19th-century-style copper lines across rural America:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Now, this is obviously untrue, and people keep figuring out that publicly provisioned broadband is the only way for America to get the same standard of broadband connectivity that our cousins in other high-income nations enjoy. In order to thwart the public's will, the cable and telco lobbyists joined ALEC, the far-right, corporatist lobbying shop, and drafted "model legislation" banning cities and counties from providing broadband, even in places the carriers chose not to serve:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

Red states across America adopted these rules, and legislators sold this to their base by saying that this was just "keeping the government out of their internet" (even as every carrier relied on an exclusive, government-granted territorial charter, often with massive government subsidies).

ALEC didn't target red states exclusively because they had pliable, bribable conservative lawmakers. Red states trend rural, and rural places are the most likely sites for public fiber. Partly, that's because low-density areas are harder to make a business case for, but also because these are also the places that got electricity and telephone through New Deal co-ops, which are often still in place.

Just about the only places in America where people like their internet service are the 450+ small towns where the local government provides fiber. These places vote solidly Republican, and it was their beloved conservative lawmakers whom ALEC targeted to enact laws banning their equally beloved fiber – keep voting for Christmas, turkeys, and see where it gets you:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

But spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible.

Which brings me back to Utah, a red state with a Republican governor and legislature, and a national leader in passing unconstitutional, unhinged, unworkable legislation as part of an elaborate culture war kabuki:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165975112/utah-passes-an-age-verification-law-for-anyone-using-social-media

For more than two decades, a coalition of 21 cities in Utah have been building out municipal fiber. The consortium calls itself UTOPIA: "Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency":

https://www.utopiafiber.com/faqs/

UTOPIA pursues a hybrid model: they run "open access" fiber and then let anyone offer service over it. This can deliver the best of both worlds: publicly provisioned, blazing-fast fiber to your home, but with service provided by your choice of competing carriers. That means that if Moms for Liberty captures you local government, you're not captive to their ideas about what sites your ISP should block.

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, Utahns in UTOPIA regions have their choice of 18 carriers, and competition has driven down prices and increased speeds. Want uncapped 1gb fiber? That's $75/month. Want 10gb fiber? That's $150:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/15/utah-locals-are-getting-cheap-10-gbps-fiber-thanks-to-local-governments/

UTOPIA's path to glory wasn't an easy one. The dismal telco monopolists Qwest and Lumen sued to put them out of business, delaying the rollout by years:

https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/22/19903471/utopia-responds-to-qwest-lawsuit/

UTOPIA has been profitable and self-sustaining for over 15 years and shows no sign of slowing. But 17 states still ban any attempt at this.

Keeping up such an obviously bad policy requires a steady stream of distractions and lies. The "government broadband doesn't work" lie has worn thin, so we've gotten a string of new lies about wireless service, insisting that fiber is obviated by point-to-point microwave relays, or 5g, or satellite service.

There's plenty of places where these services make sense. You're not going to be able to use fiber in a moving car, so yeah, you're going to want 5g (and those 5g towers are going to need to be connected to each other with fiber). Microwave relay service can fill the gap until fiber can be brought in, and it's great for temporary sites (especially in places where it doesn't rain, because rain, clouds, leaves and other obstructions are deadly for microwave relays). Satellite can make sense for an RV or a boat or remote scientific station.

But wireless services are orders of magnitude slower than fiber. With satellite service, you share your bandwidth with an entire region or even a state. If there's only a couple of users in your satellite's footprint, you might get great service, but when your carrier adds a thousand more customers, your connection is sliced into a thousand pieces.

That's also true for everyone sharing your fiber trunk, but the difference is that your fiber trunk supports speeds that are tens of thousands of times faster than the maximum speeds we can put through freespace electromagnetic spectrum. If we need more fiber capacity, we can just fish a new strand of fiber through the conduit. And while you can increase the capacity of wireless by increasing your power and bandwidth, at a certain point you start pump so much EM into the air that birds start falling out of the sky.

Every wireless device in a region shares the same electromagnetic spectrum, and we are only issued one such spectrum per universe. Each strand of fiber, by contrast, has its own little pocket universe, containing a subset of that spectrum.

Despite all its disadvantages, satellite broadband has one distinct advantage, at least from an investor's perspective: it can be monopolized. Just as we only have one electromagnetic spectrum, we also only have one sky, and the satellite density needed to sustain a colorably fast broadband speed pushes the limit of that shared sky:

https://spacenews.com/starlink-vs-the-astronomers/

Private investors love monopoly telecoms providers, because, like pre-bankruptcy Frontier, they are too big to care. Back in 2021, Altice – the fourth-largest cable operator in America – announced that it was slashing its broadband speeds, to be "in line with other ISPs":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

In other words: "We've figured out that our competitors are so much worse than we are that we are deliberately degrading our service because we know you will still pay us the same for less."

This is why corporate shills and pro-monopolists prefer satellite to municipal fiber. Sure, it's orders of magnitude slower than fiber. Sure, it costs subscribers far more. Sure, it's less reliable. But boy oh boy is it profitable.

The thing is, reality has a pronounced leftist bias. No amount of market magic will conjure up new electromagnetic spectra that will allow satellite to attain parity with fiber. Physics hates Starlink.

Yeah, I'm talking about Starlink. Of course I am. Elon Musk basically claims that his business genius can triumph over physics itself.

That's not the only vast, impersonal, implacable force that Musk claims he can best with his incredible reality-distortion field. Musk also claims that he can somehow add so many cars to the road that he will end traffic – in other words, he will best geometry too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Geometry hates Tesla, and physics hates Starlink. Reality has a leftist bias. The future is fiber, and public transit. These are both vastly preferable, more efficient, safer, more reliable and more plausible than satellite and private vehicles. Their only disadvantage is that they fail to give an easily gulled, thin-skinned compulsive liar more power over billions of people. That's a disadvantage I can live with.

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/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Image: 4028mdk09 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_LED_Fiberglasleuchte.JPG

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

[copperbadge]

I hope you get better soon Sam and that the connection issues get fixed too.

Take care! :3

Thank you! I am feeling SO much better today. I think getting a solid night's sleep for the first time in ages really helped -- either I couldn't sleep because of heat regulation or sore throat or, honestly, itching, but last night I finally got solid uninterrupted hours and I feel ages better this morning.

I also got the ENTIRE saga of the internet outage at once because it turns out all the emails from the building were going to my spam folder. We share our building with what I refer to in my own mind as a Shadowy Private Intelligence Agency because they seem like what would happen if you got a bunch of dedicated tech support agents to run the CIA; I'm not entirely sure what it is they do (I have guesses) but they have secure offices in the building that we as tenants don't have access to.

They somehow caused the outage, and then initially refused to allow our ISP access, then admitted they couldn't provide access to the areas needed (someone lost the key? it seems like they can normally they just couldn't this weekend) and a national cellphone carrier who also uses that Special Secret Room had to get involved, all of which sounds very exciting and I'm so glad I was unconscious for most of it.

I'm going to pretend Leverage was getting up to something in the building involving financial crimes and high-level Chicago graft, and just keep an eye out for suspiciously built nerds speaking Klingon.

[connorthevgfan78]

A Quick Word on the Internet Archive:

On October 9 2024, the Internet Archive suffered not only a massive DDOS attack that took several services (including the Wayback Machine) offline, but also a data breach that saw the emails, usernames, and passwords of nearly 31 million accounts leaked.

As of the last time I checked, the Internet Archive remains down, and the hacker group claiming responsibility has openly stated that they took down the Archive because it’s “owned by the US Government” (Spoiler Alert: it’s not, it’s an independent non-profit that happens to be based in the US):

I was very upset, to say the least, when I heard of the Archive getting taken offline, and appalled at the reason given as to why it was targeted. The fact that someone would want to, or in this case, go through with taking down such a rich and diverse center of information, as well as the Internet’s very own history book in the form of the Wayback Machine, is disturbing. Additionally, to have this come nearly months after the Archive lost a landmark copyright case against book publishers, and two months after record companies announced their own lawsuits against the Archive, makes this situation feel like a cup of salt being poured into an open wound.

The Internet Archive is such a vital source of information for everyone on the Internet, whether it be people wanting to revisit an old website from their childhood on the Wayback Machine, or looking for any other form of media from digitized VHS recordings to full books and magazines that are out of print. The Archive is a vital resource for all, and one that we must defend and support now more than ever.

At this moment, the Internet Archive remains down and the details of the breach have been imported to Have I Been Pwned (if you have an IA account, I highly encourage you to check your email address on HIBP to see if it was in the breach data). When it comes back online, I feel like we need to evaluate how we can help the Internet Archive going forward. Whether it be with downloading and storing Archive content on our own systems or supporting the Archive monetarily when able. One thing is clear: going forward, supporting the Internet Archive is going to need to be a community effort, like it has always been since the first files were uploaded to its oldest servers. We’ll all need to contribute in our own ways, so that content from the Internet Archive continues to be preserved and accessible, even in a catastrophic event like this one.

[shalaaex]

Stand with Palestine

The gaza strip no longer have a voice to fight for themselves as theyve lost power, internet, and now have low access to food water and medicine. That is why we need tk stand up for them. There is no excuse for no reposting, resharing, or posting about palestine. The louder our voices, the more they will be heard. If you cant donate to

fundraisers, then do what you can to raise awareness. Use tags like #ceasefire #ceasefirenow #freepalestine #istandwithpalestine , reblog posts, educate classmates and people around you. Just speak.

They need us more than ever.

I want to help, so im opening commissions that are purely for raising money for the Gaza Strip emergency. If you have money to spare, if you want to help, then please consider sharing or commissioning me. If you cant, then use your voice!!

I will send proof of sending the money you payed to a fundraiser or you may send the money due to a fundraiser yourself with PROOF, after the really rough sketch. I will not move forward with commission until i see enough proof.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for being upset my friend made new friends?

So me (15M) and my two friends have been childhood friends for almost 10 years - we'll call them K (14F) and S (14M). We grew up in the same neighborhood and always hung out together. Me and S would butt heads every now and then as friends usually do, but I'd still consider him one of my best friends.

But one day we lost contact with each other. It wasn't any of our faults, we both moved and didn't have a way to communicate anymore (none of us had phones/internet access/etc.). It was really hard for me. I felt lost and alone, and I kinda fell into a depressive state. But despite all that, I still tried my best to try to find my friends again.

Recently, someone helped me track down S. I didn't think I'd ever see him again so I was desperate to meet up. I didn't have any way to contact him to let him know I found him, so I decided to just walk up to him while he was out in public and surprise him. Probably not the best idea, but I didn't have many other options. It ended up working out though. He seemed more shocked than angry that I was there. He even grabbed my face to make sure I was real, which honestly was kinda weird but whatever.

This is where the problem comes in. I was excited to continue our friendship from where we left off, but apparently he didn't agree. I wanted us to team up to try to find K, but I guess while we were separated, he made new friends. He tried introducing me to them, but I ended up leaving without saying goodbye. I didn't like seeing them getting along so well. How was he able to move on so quickly? Did our friendship mean so little to him?

The person who helped me find him agrees with me. She's saying he replaced me and doesn't care about me or K. She's trying to convince me to succumb to the darkness in my heart, and tbh, I kinda want to. So, AITA?

What are these acronyms?