straight up it should be illegal for a physical storefront not to accept physical currency, or for restaurants not to provide physical menus
I’m assuming the above is a normie opinion (as it should be) so i do wanna go a tiny step further and explicitly state any laundromat that requires digital payment should be burned to the fucking ground
if a business cooerces its customers to download an app, i should legally be allowed to set both the business and its board of directors on fire
The assumption that every single business, or service, is owed your personal data, and should be able to track you and mercilessly spam you and monetise the ability to sell off your contact details and so on it’s absolutely deranged.
I have flashlights that are borderline unusable because, while the hardware is fine, the company that made them (hello OLight!) demands that you install and login to the storefront before you can access the configuration software.
But they don’t actively maintain the software or provide any of the new utilities that they promise. They are mostly using it as a way to turn off functional hardware to try and force you to upgrade.
We are living in a society where you can pay for something and the manufacturer can turn it off because they’ve decided that you’ve owned it too long .
I’ve just had to warn my family not to buy electronic door locks because the chances are, if they are Internet connected they will be disabled once the company that owns them has decided that they’re not making enough money charging you a monthly fee to open your own front door.
This is part of an ongoing trend to turn money into something that is no longer usable by everybody .
The eventual aim is to be able to pay people company scrip: If you lose your job, or badmouth the company, or disagree with the dictator, they severely curtail what you are allowed to buy, and from who.
And at that point, you have to pick sides – do you want to be able to have drinking water from Coca-Cola, or Pepsi, and whose package allows you to buy Doritos, and use your smart oven to cook food? Because it won’t turn on unless you use the app to scan the appropriate barcode from the company who now owns your ability to eat drink, heat your home, and wear clothes from brands that they approve.
And if you think that Bezos wouldn’t do that or run his own ghetto where employees have to use Amazon brands and be paid in Amazon money… You haven’t been paying attention to what he’s been building lately.
Read “Unauthorized Bread” by Cory Doctorow, from his book Radicalized
I need everyone to know that my old neighbor (probably) died or (possibly) went to someplace with permanent medical care because she was a million years old, and she was replaced by (another) old man of similar age and haleness whose children put him into this house to be closer to them. This is significant because the previous neighbor lady hated me AND my birds, and the new guy is delighted by them and comes over to visit Bug.
Today I got to meet his daughter and he insisted she meet Bug too, so after foot dips, I walked them out to the pens. I called for Bug several times, but she did not appear. I don’t blame her. it’s cold and rainy out. So I went in to find her, and she was absolutely not budging at all. Nestled up with mantis on their heated perch, inside their curtained-off, decorated, insulated coop. I did end up letting the daughter walk through to come see her and give her a little pat, because I want to get along with my neighbors and want them to like the birds (much easier all around if everyone likes the birds).
But like imagine it’s the dead of winter in Michigan, and your elderly father insists that his new neighbor has peacocks and you go to see them thinking maybe they’re turkeys, or like, one random peacock like some farms have, and instead this is what you find
people love to say “your cat is just being cuddly because it’s cold out and he likes the warmth” like that detracts from it somehow. this weird little creature lives in my home and his paws and the tip of his nose are cold and his solution to this is to go to the big weird hairless ape who feeds him, and curl up on its stomach and fall asleep there bc it’s nice and warm. that too is love!!!!
People really want expressions of love to be some ‘pure’ thing done for no intrinsic gain for some reason and like being a living thing with wants and needs is bad somehow.
Sesame Workshop has announced that they have now uploaded over 100 full episodes of classic and modern Sesame Street to YouTube. This is now “the largest digital library of Sesame Street content.”
There are also shorts and 1-2 hour long compilations of segments organized by topics, such as STEM, counting, the alphabet, animals, play, and more.
(Photos taken by Petra Parker, who coincidentally also transitioned)
[ID: Image one is a tweet by Daily Bugle Janitorial @/abysmaldogwater that says, “Spider-Man transitions and Jonah starts panicking because on principle he wouldn’t contribute to trans panic and has to figure out how to write headlines that are clear it’s about the vigilantism and not that she’s transgender”.
Image two is a set of tags in all caps, here transcribed in title case. They read: “#Brave Transgender Icon Continues to Disappoint Many by Engaging in Vigilantism #Spider-Woman (The New One) and Green Goblin Destroy City Landmark: Trans Community Mourns Terrible Representation #Historic Trans Rights Association Tricked by Menace Spider-Woman Into Allowing Her to Be Official Spokeswoman for Important Cause”. End ID]
My favorite form of redemption arc is “I hate that I have morals now”
Like “I realized that I was in the wrong and now I will work hard to atone” is good and all, but “how dare you infect me with morals” will always be so much more entertaining
That moment the former baddie starts to walk away from some bad situation, almost gets out, and then just stops, curses, and turns around to go help?
How I think I’m writing: Using eye contact, or lack thereof, to display emotions such as intimacy, shock, denial, or nervousness.
How I’m actually writing: She looked at me, and I looked away. I tried to look back, but she was already looking at the sky. “Look,” she sighs, looking back at me for a split second. “I don’t know how to say this.” We looked at each other and time stopped, but then she looked her lookers at something else to look at, looking tired.
