#Repos Production

[taytaythehufflepuff]

Why is it that I can write 6.5k words of R.E.P.O. fanfiction in a single sitting (absolutely no breaks, from around 8:30pmish to 12:00am), but when I want to write a book -- a silly minecraft book, no less -- I can't go a single hour (1 to 2k words) without getting up or finding myself getting distracted?

Frustrations towards my inability to write anything but fanfiction aside, ideally you will have an etho-centric REPO based fanfic based on Thursday's stream to read sometime today or tomorrow. Not that anyone other than myself was asking for it.

[revcleo]

Why would I do that when I'm talking about my experience at work and what I deal with on a daily basis rather than personal life?

Open source is great but it's not going to happen to Adobe any time soon. You're just trying to pull on any thread to appear in the right on this. Sometimes you just need to accept you don't know what you're talking about and take the L

The humble and beautiful PDF does not deserve to now have the term “PDF file” be a censored version of the word pedophile. She has been nothing but good to us. You all apologize right now

[ctommyisnt]

Me: I'm going to quickly grab a snack before I start getting productive!

+1 Side Quest Discovered

+1 Side Quest Discovered

+1 Side Quest Discovered

[vampirecorleone]

"According to Director Darren Lynn Bousman, Paris Hilton was so passionate about the film being made, that when production was going to be halted due to the budget going over by $50,000, Hilton made a paid appearance at a nightclub for that sum to make up the difference and keep filming going. Despite this, she is not credited as a producer." Horror Character Appreciation - Paris Hilton as Amber Sweet in Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) dir. Darren Lynn Bousman

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cars bricked by bankrupt EV company will stay bricked

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

There are few phrases in the modern lexicon more accursed than "software-based car," and yet, this is how the failed EV maker Fisker billed its products, which retailed for $40-70k in the few short years before the company collapsed, shut down its servers, and degraded all those "software-based cars":

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker billed itself as a "capital light" manufacturer, meaning that it didn't particularly make anything – rather, it "designed" cars that other companies built, allowing Fisker to focus on "experience," which is where the "software-based car" comes in. Virtually every subsystem in a Fisker car needs (or rather, needed) to periodically connect with its servers, either for regular operations or diagnostics and repair, creating frequent problems with brakes, airbags, shifting, battery management, locking and unlocking the doors:

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-worry-about-vehicles-working-bankruptcy-2024-4

Since Fisker's bankruptcy, people with even minor problems with their Fisker EVs have found themselves owning expensive, inert lumps of conflict minerals and auto-loan debt; as one Fisker owner described it, "It's literally a lawn ornament right now":

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-describe-chaos-to-keep-cars-running-after-bankruptcy-2024-7

This is, in many ways, typical Internet-of-Shit nonsense, but it's compounded by Fisker's capital light, all-outsource model, which led to extremely unreliable vehicles that have been plagued by recalls. The bankrupt company has proposed that vehicle owners should have to pay cash for these recalls, in order to reserve the company's capital for its creditors – a plan that is clearly illegal:

https://www.veritaglobal.net/fisker/document/2411390241007000000000005

This isn't even the first time Fisker has done this! Ten years ago, founder Henrik Fisker started another EV company called Fisker Automotive, which went bankrupt in 2014, leaving the company's "Karma" (no, really) long-range EVs (which were unreliable and prone to bursting into flames) in limbo:

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

Which raises the question: why did investors reward Fisker's initial incompetence by piling in for a second attempt? I think the answer lies in the very factor that has made Fisker's failure so hard on its customers: the "software-based car." Investors love the sound of a "software-based car" because they understand that a gadget that is connected to the cloud is ripe for rent-extraction, because with software comes a bundle of "IP rights" that let the company control its customers, critics and competitors:

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

A "software-based car" gets to mobilize the state to enforce its "IP," which allows it to force its customers to use authorized mechanics (who can, in turn, be price-gouged for licensing and diagnostic tools). "IP" can be used to shut down manufacturers of third party parts. "IP" allows manufacturers to revoke features that came with your car and charge you a monthly subscription fee for them. All sorts of features can be sold as downloadable content, and clawed back when title to the car changes hands, so that the new owners have to buy them again. "Software based cars" are easier to repo, making them perfect for the subprime auto-lending industry. And of course, "software-based cars" can gather much more surveillance data on drivers, which can be sold to sleazy, unregulated data-brokers:

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

Unsurprisingly, there's a large number of Fisker cars that never sold, which the bankruptcy estate is seeking a buyer for. For a minute there, it looked like they'd found one: American Lease, which was looking to acquire the deadstock Fiskers for use as leased fleet cars. But now that deal seems dead, because no one can figure out how to restart Fisker's servers, and these vehicles are bricks without server access:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/08/fisker-bankruptcy-hits-major-speed-bump-as-fleet-sale-is-now-in-question/

It's hard to say why the company's servers are so intransigent, but there's a clue in the chaotic way that the company wound down its affairs. The company's final days sound like a scene from the last days of the German Democratic Republic, with apparats from the failing state charging about in chaos, without any plans for keeping things running:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/east-germany-stasi-surveillance-documents/

As it imploded, Fisker cycled through a string of Chief Financial officers, losing track of millions of dollars at a time:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/31/fisker-collapse-investigation-ev-ocean-suv-henrik-geeta/

When Fisker's landlord regained possession of its HQ, they found "complete disarray," including improperly stored drums of toxic waste:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/05/fiskers-hq-abandoned-in-complete-disarray-with-apparent-hazardous-waste-clay-models-left-behind/

And while Fisker's implosion is particularly messy, the fact that it landed in bankruptcy is entirely unexceptional. Most businesses fail (eventually) and most startups fail (quickly). Despite this, businesses – even those in heavily regulated sectors like automotive regulation – are allowed to design products and undertake operations that are not designed to outlast the (likely short-lived) company.

After the 2008 crisis and the collapse of financial institutions like Lehman Brothers, finance regulators acquired a renewed interest in succession planning. Lehman consisted of over 6,000 separate corporate entities, each one representing a bid to evade regulation and/or taxation. Unwinding that complex hairball took years, during which the entities that entrusted Lehman with their funds – pensions, charitable institutions, etc – were unable to access their money.

To avoid repeats of this catastrophe, regulators began to insist that banks produce "living wills" – plans for unwinding their affairs in the event of catastrophe. They had to undertake "stress tests" that simulated a wind-down as planned, both to make sure the plan worked and to estimate how long it would take to execute. Then banks were required to set aside sufficient capital to keep the lights on while the plan ran on.

This regulation has been indifferently enforced. Banks spent the intervening years insisting that they are capable of prudently self-regulating without all this interference, something they continue to insist upon even after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

The fact that the rules haven't been enforced tells us nothing about whether the rules would work if they were enforced. A string of high-profile bankruptcies of companies who had no succession plans and whose collapse stands to materially harm large numbers of people tells us that something has to be done about this.

Take 23andme, the creepy genomics company that enticed millions of people into sending them their genetic material (even if you aren't a 23andme customer, they probably have most of your genome, thanks to relatives who sent in cheek-swabs). 23andme is now bankrupt, and its bankruptcy estate is shopping for a buyer who'd like to commercially exploit all that juicy genetic data, even if that is to the detriment of the people it came from. What's more, the bankruptcy estate is refusing to destroy samples from people who want to opt out of this future sale:

https://bourniquelaw.com/2024/10/09/data-23-and-me/

On a smaller scale, there's Juicebox, a company that makes EV chargers, who are exiting the North American market and shutting down their servers, killing the advanced functionality that customers paid extra for when they chose a Juicebox product:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/2/24260316/juicebox-ev-chargers-enel-x-way-closing-discontinued-app

I actually owned a Juicebox, which ultimately caught fire and melted down, either due to a manufacturing defect or to the criminal ineptitude of Treeium, the worst solar installers in Southern California (or both):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/27/here-comes-the-sun-king/#sign-here

Projects like Juice Rescue are trying to reverse-engineer the Juicebox server infrastructure and build an alternative:

https://juice-rescue.org/

This would be much simpler if Juicebox's manufacturer, Enel X Way, had been required to file a living will that explained how its customers would go on enjoying their property when and if the company discontinued support, exited the market, or went bankrupt.

That might be a big lift for every little tech startup (though it would be superior than trying to get justice after the company fails). But in regulated sectors like automotive manufacture or genomic analysis, a regulation that says, "Either design your products and services to fail safely, or escrow enough cash to keep the lights on for the duration of an orderly wind-down in the event that you shut down" would be perfectly reasonable. Companies could make "software based cars" but the more "software based" the car was, the more funds they'd have to escrow to transition their servers when they shut down (and the lest capital they'd have to build the car).

Such a rule should be in addition to more muscular rules simply banning the most abusive practices, like the Oregon state Right to Repair bill, which bans the "parts pairing" that makes repairing a Fisker car so onerous:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24097042/right-to-repair-law-oregon-sb1596-parts-pairing-tina-kotek-signed

Or the Illinois state biometric privacy law, which strictly limits the use of the kind of genomic data that 23andme collected:

https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3004

Failing to take action on these abusive practices is dangerous – and not just to the people who get burned by them. Every time a genomics research project turns into a privacy nightmare, that salts the earth for future medical research, making it much harder to conduct population-scale research, which can be carried out in privacy-preserving ways, and which pays huge scientific dividends that we all benefit from:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership

Just as Fisker's outrageous ripoff will make life harder for good cleantech companies:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

If people are convinced that new, climate-friendly tech is a cesspool of grift and extraction, it will punish those firms that are making routine, breathtaking, exciting (and extremely vital) breakthroughs:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/10/08/norways-national-football-stadium-has-the-worlds-largest-vertical-solar-roof-how-does-it-w

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:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/10/software-based-car/#based

[pforestsims]

Not much to say other than I'm glad I finally managed to finish these but I still need more bar stuff :S

Bar Decor Set

Download: SFS | BOX

13 decorative objects plus bar mat (tray) and Bar OMSP (single slot, bar worktop height) . Reasonable polycount and texture size (512x256px or smaller, mostly 256x256 px).

Updated : 04.05.2024 - Fixed NonSlip Bar Mat, now it can be placed on all surfaces. 08.04.2024 - edited bar worktop OMSP so it doesn't block bar functions. Added second OMSP for lower bar shelf.

*Flavoured Syrup features simlish versions of RL product labels.

I used fonts: Simlish Western, Immajer-Simlish, CherryVanilla.

More pics under the cut:

*This is for The Sims 2

If you've downloaded the WIP version please update the files.

Retro Blender mesh and Red recolor was edited, drinking straw box is unchanged.

New stuff: flipped version of straw box (repo), two types of shakers, jiggers & ice tongs, mixing glass, small six pack and separate bottles, glass with straws and empty glass. There's also a bar mat - has 9 placement slots.

Enjoy!

-----------------------------------------------

Boring technical notes for CC creators:

My Syrup bottle has two recolorable subsets - the cap and Label - both opaque, but there's also a transparent 'Glass' subset with its own TXMT. When switching Label recolors, the glass color changes along with it.

It's possible thanks to 'tsDesignModeSlaveSubsets'. It allows you to have two different TXMTs linked together.

You add 'tsDesignModeSlaveSubsets' to GMND just like you would tsMaterialsMeshName, but the difference is you link recolorable subset to an extra subset inside your mesh. So in case of my bottle:

label = (String) glass

The important thing is to have TXMTs inside your file named as follows:

[CRES name]_[unique subset name]_[suffix shared between subsets]

For example:

[CRES name]_glass_bottle for the glass, [CRES name]_label_bottle for the label and so on.

When creating a recolor for both subsets, it should contain three TXMTs.

[withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus]

Masterpost: Visual Kei movies & other types jrockers were involved

So, it came to my attention some of you want to watch more visual kei movies so I thought of listing what I know, in case you've missed any of those. Please feel free to add anything I've missed with reblogs or in the comments.

Thank you @kirk-goes-to-gallifrey for the three movie links! ^^ And thank you @waretamado for helping with the titles of Plastic Tree's movies! Btw most of the vkei only movies must still be available on YT guys, however not all of them will be on HD.

Visual Kei movies:

Seth et Holth (1993) (Hide) YT link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx_laJCEpew)

Moon Child (2003) (Gackt & Hyde)

Verte Aile/Bel Air (1997) (Malice Mizer) YT link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdd58pTaK8A)

Bara no Konrei/Bridal of the Rose (2001) (Malice Mizer) YT link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1d_cFRnxs)

BeatRock☆Love (2009) (Takeru ex.SuG)

Number Six (2006) (Alice Nine)

Yuku Pura Kuru Pura... Edokawa Puranpo no 「Ougon otoko」~「Visual bako no bijo」 (Plastic Tree) YT link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Bb-3L4l2E)

Yuku Pura Kuru Pura... Edokawa Puranpo no 「Onan tokage」~「Bishounen wo kuu bijo」 (Plastic Tree) YT link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAha6vDCE0Q)

Yuku Pura Kuru Pura...Edokawa Puranpo no「Angura Kaijin」~「Remon no bijo」 (Plastic Tree) YT link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzt3ai5LSXc)

Ascendead Master (2009) (Versailles)

Onegai Kanaete (2011) (Versailles)

Oresama (2004) (Miyavi) YT link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcBvKQfVKNM)

Soundtrack (2002) (Sugizo) (I don't know if it's a vkei movie but since the theme appears to be music-oriented, I put it here)

Ochanomizu Rock (2018) (series) (Chiyu of Sug & Ryuji Sato of The Brow Beat) (it gives more jrock than vkei vibes but it's band-focused so maybe it's better I put it under this section)

Non Visual Kei movies jrockers acted in:

Kagen no Tsuki (2004) (this is a live action of a manga) (Hyde)

Aquarian Age: Juvenile Orion (2008) (live action) (Takeru of Sug & Alice Nine)

Paracelcus' Homonculus (2015) (this is an artsy film based off a photographer's exhibition) (Takeru of SuG)

Midori: the Camellia girl (2016) (live action of a manga) (Takeru of SuG)

Bunraku (2010) (Gackt)

Akumu-chan (2014) (Gackt)

Karanukan (2018) (Gackt)

Tonde Saitama 1 (2019) & 2 (2023) (Gackt)

Moshimo Tokugawa Ieyasu ga Sori Daijin ni Nattara (2024) (Gackt)

Furin Kazan (2007) (Gackt)

Mr. Brain (2009) (it must have been 1 episode or 2) (Gackt)

Tempest (2011) (Gackt)

Sengoku Basara (2012) (Gackt)

Time Spiral (2014) (Gackt)

BLEACH (2018) (live action) (Miyavi)

Hell Dogs (2022) (Miyavi)

Familia (2023) (Miyavi)

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) (Miyavi)

Kate (2021) (Miyavi)

Stray (2019) (Miyavi)

Unbroken (2014) (Miyavi)

30-thirty (2000) Hakuei

The Legend of the The Stardust Brothers (1985) (Issay)

溺れる魚 / Drowning Fish (2001) (Izam of Shazna)

Longinus (2004) (more of a short than a full movie I guess) (Atsushi Sakurai)

Other

REPO! The Genetic Opera (2008) (Yoshiki was involved with the music production of this film. Personally I learnt it years after I'd watched it)

Death Trance (2005) (It features many Dir en Grey songs in its soundtracks)

Hamlet (1998) (A rock opera version of the famous play, by Penicillin) YT link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hljXGPsUU1Q)

黒蝶の秘密 / The Secret of the Black Butterfly (2018) (It features a song Chiyu of Sug wrote, called Aiyoku no Hana / Flower of Lust)

I hope you can find anything you like and enjoy!

[lemotmo]

I had no idea this was how it worked 😂

Q. I don't understand why ABC just didn't fire Tim then instead of Peter. I believe that Tim is their ultimate headache at this point so why punish cast members for that. But at the same time I'm not sure of the structure of stuff like this. If Tim/Ryan Murphy are he ones paying the cast then Tim could have and should have said Peter was not fireable. So I'm just confused.

A. Well Tim doesn't pay anyone, first off. The cast is paid by the Network/Production company, which is usually one and the same. The actors salaries are built into the overall production cost of the show. That's why advertising and streaming numbers are the most important financial points for television today. They're what brings in the money. That is why the fact that ABC has almost exclusively used Buddie for their marketing campaign is such a big deal. That's how ABC is marketing the show to advertisers. That trend continued at the Upfronts as well. Buddie was front and center, and the focus of most of their presentation. And yes Oliver was basically made the face of the show at the Upfronts. That's why I, and others, are saying that it's pretty clear the network wants Buddie, and an overall focus shift for the show in general (more of the core 4). Rolling their advertisement campaign out with Buddie front and center was a somewhat risky move because that is not how the show had ever been marketed before. But it paid off big time. They brought in the clicks, the online views, and the streaming numbers were spectacular (yes that's show wide in general, but the marketing campaign contributes to people streaming the show so it still counts as a point for them). That's why ABC marketing the show one way and Tim writing and focusing the show in an entirely different way would be something the network had a problem with. Advertisers are paying for what ABC is selling. And Tim was not delivering what they were selling.

Firing Tim is not likely because he's a co-creator of the show. There's probably a way to relieve him of his show running duties but that probably requires approval from Ryan Murphy to some degree. Ryan Murphy is problematic in many ways, and people are right to criticize a lot of what he does, but one of the things he is, is loyal, to a fault sometimes, to the people in his inner circle. And Tim definitely counts as part of that circle. So while ABC can't necessarily or easily remove Tim from the show, they do control the budget for the show. So they have power. They have plenty of power. But again we don't really know what happened with Peter because no one involved is talking. All we're doing is speculating. The bottom line is ABC clearly wants to try something else. Tim, up to this point anyway, did not show any inclination to deliver what ABC wants. That's all we know for sure. Changes were made, but we don't know what ultimately led to that change. We just have theories and speculation. We're just going to have to wait and see what the season brings.

Thank you Nonny! 🤗 Sorry for sending this out a bit later, but I've had so much on my plate lately and I needed a short break from Tumblr.

This is all so fascinating to me. I am so curious right now. I wish I knew exactly what happened behind the scenes, but it's very likely we'll never fully know the truth.

Ali is right that their marketing was built up around Buddie for season 9. Oliver seems to be more relax and in a better headspace than after season 7 when he just disappeared from the radar during hiatus. Ryan is everywhere as well. Even more so than the hiatus between season 6 and 7.

I really truly believe that season 9 will feature more of the core four and there will be a focus on Buddie. 🤷‍♀️😁

But it is as Ali says:

All of these are theories and speculation. Take it with a grain of salt. Let's just stay openminded and see where this goes in season 9. That's really all we can do.

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[whereserpentswalk]

Someone used "ungood" to describe disney remakes and it's so perfect. "Bad" does not sum up the horrible soulless products created to only fulfil capitalist desires, using artists as tormented vessels, ungood captures it so well.

Artists with passion and vision create bad art. Bad art can have entertaining qualities, and value, and sparks of life inside of them. Teenage fanfic, and b movies, and a young musicians first attempt at smoke on the water are bad, and that's ok. Ungood art does not have the same saving graces as bad art. Ungood art is empty, not just failing at quality but devoid of it.

We need to start using the term ungood. Neither Star Wars episode one, nor Star Was episode nine are good movies, but they don't possess the same lack of quality. The "live action" Lion King movie, and Repo! The Genetic Opera might both be failures at putting musicals on film, but I know which one I'd rather watch, which one still has moments I love, and which one was made to make someone at Disney see a line go up.

[ofmdrecaps]

10/26/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; S2 Finale Anniversary! Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; Con O'Neill; Kristian Nairn; Samba Schutte & Damien Gerard; Rory Kinnear; Other Fandom Petition; Fan Spotlight: Cast Cards; AMuseOfFyre; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Today's Taika;

== S2 Finale Anniversary ==

It's been a year since the finale of S2 aired crew! What a year it has been! Our friends over at @adoptourcrew asked some important questions and would love to hear from you on their various socials!

Source: Adopt Our Crew Twitter

== Rhys Darby ==

Rhys is announcing his Midwest Comedy tours going on in Indiana and Missouri! The Helium Comedy Club in Indiana information is here and Missouri is here!

Source: Rhys' Instagram

== Taika Waititi ==

Taika out and about!

Source: Instagram

== Con O'Neill ==

Con was so appreciative of everyone coming to join him and the folks of The Men out at Alnwick Playhouse!

Source: Con O'Neill's Instagram

Deepest thank yous to the super sweet Radical Hysteria on Instagram for being kind enough to share these adorable shots with Con! It looked like everyone had such an amazing time!

Source: radical_hysteria on Instagram

== Kristian Nairn ==

Kristian was out at MCM Comic Con in the UK-- and god to meet up with none other than Dogpool!

Source: Kristian Nairn's Instagram

Kristian's also got a new event happening in Dundee, UK on November 29th! For more info, check out Progressia Events!

Source: Progressia Events

Annnnnd if that wasn't enough, Kristian's also going to be at Beastly Books in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 31 from 7pm -8 pm! To learn more, checkout Beastly Books!

Source: Kristian's Instagram

== Samba Schutte & Damien Gerard ==

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 released on the 25th-- and guess what? Both Samba, and Damien voice characters in the game! Yannick and Harry Stone!

Source: Samba Schutte's Instagram / Damien Gerard's Threads

Oh, and just by the way, Good Dead Entertainment has reported Advanced Chemistry has a 100 on the Popcorn Meter! Great job everyone! If you're still looking to help get Samba recognition, you can still do reviews on Amazon and other sites! For help on where, you can visit the repo for more info.

Source: GoodEntertainment Instagram

== Rory Kinnear ==

Our favorite Badminton Twins, Rory Kinnear..and well Rory Kinnear is going to be playing in the latest season of The Diplomat on Netflix! It premieres October 31st!

Source: Netflix Articles

== Other Fandom Petitions ==

Some other fans are hoping to get a full 6 episode series after the latest news about Good Omens only getting a 90 minute movie! They were so kind over the past year in sharing petitions for OFMD renewals, if you have a moment, and are willing, can you do a quick signature for them?

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Cast Cards =

More Cast Cards tonight from the ever-wonderful, sweetest person ever, @melvisik! First up is Rhett Giles! One of our Segment Producers! "Segment producers exist in television programs such as morning news shows. They produce the various “segments” in the show, such as a cooking, local news, or special weather report segment. They’re typically responsible for writing about stories assigned to them in. their production system from their Executive Producers, who get their stories from their news source like CNN." - The Film Fund

Next up is just a PLETHORA of awesome Stunt Performers! James Gerardi, Kieran Gallagher, Matthew Lorenceau, Raw Leiba, Tait Fletcher, and Steve Brown!

Source: @melvisik's Twitter

= A Muse of Fyre =

Another absolutely stunning muppet by our dear friend @amuseoffyre-- this time featuring Calico Jack! I am floored at how that mustache turned out!

Source: amuseoffyre's Instagram

== Love Notes ==

Hey lovelies <3 I hope your weekend ended up treating you well. Sending some mini-love notes your way tonight. Good luck on the week ahead!

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Source: NewHappyCo Instagram

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

No theme, just hair! Gifs courtesy of some of our Gif-Maker Extraordinaires, @fandomsmeantheworldtome and @fuckyeahworldoftaika <3

[sunmoon-starfactory]

Gone Fishin' 2.0

This set serves as both an streamlining update to the original files, as well as adds in being able to source items from the sea and to make productive farming situations as well.

Changes from Gone Fishin' 1.0

Optimization of textures: most made smaller, many items repositoried.

Food Points Amounts: All fish used to be worth the same amount of food points. Now they are varied depending upon fish size.

All items unlocked in the catalog for purchase if so desired.

Modern Rods included in separate folder - Shares GUIDs with simple rods; Choose One Type

Converter Crates/Fish Stand have been converted to decorative (requested per beta testers) as their functions have been combined to a new station, they share the same GUIDs as the original versions.

Filet knife has been eliminated from the set, as it's function has been put into the new station.

NEW: Cleaning & Packing station; allows packing of fish crates and butchering of fish.

NEW: Traps; Passive allocation of various fresh water or salt water creatures.

NEW: Tidepools: Quick forage spots for various ocean resources

NEW: Farming Tank: Make various fish, sea critters, and even seaweed renewable resources right at home. A glass recolor of BB Niches is included for making glass walled tanks.

Download - SFS

View Use/Instruction Manual

See below the cut for more detail.

This fishing set is intended to allow a sim to catch a variety of fish based on their body skill rather than their badge skill/season/bait type used. Of course all fishers have good days and bad days so they may also pull up some trash, seaweed or some treasure along with the intended catch.

Key Features:

Bait Sources - To fish, one needs bait. Fresh water fish use worms, and salt water creatures prefer small bait fish. These can also be used as Fish Food for farming. If a sim is super desperate, they are worth 1 food point if stocked to the fridge.

Fish Anywhere, Anytime Spots - Comes in fresh water and salt water variations. Works in all seasons, can be used by multiple sims at the same time. All fish are worth a variety of food points based on size and they can be added directly to the fridge or butchered.

Fish Traps - These are passive traps that run every 3 hours (tunable). They must be baited to function and sometimes come up with nothing.

Tidepools - A great place to forage for mollusks, shells, and other small sea critters and salt water foragables.

Farming Tank - Gather the needed materials and creatures to start farming them rather than relying on chance. Fish, mollusks, shrimp, and seaweed can all be grown. Rather than any particular type of fish, sims will received "Farmed Fish". A glass recolor of BB Niches is included for making glass walled tanks. A decorative protective net object can be called onto the Farm Tank.

Cleaning & Packing Station - This all in one station now takes the place of the previous converters and filet knife. All fish except Tuna and Swordfish can be packed into crates, as well as Lobsters, Crabs, and Fish Filets.

When a fish is butchered on this station, it produces Fish Filets that are worth 1 food point a piece. Sims receive as many that a fish raw stocked is worth, plus an additional filet. With certain traits, sims can gain more.

Displays - The Fish Crate Display and Fishing Rod are back, but have been repoed to the Cask Shelf now to save space.

Tools - The fishing rod tool allows for autonomous fishing while the new pole net is required for farming and other actions.

[andmaybegayer]

a sort of general thing spinning off "static site generators kind of suck" is issues about ease of use vs philosophy vs productivity.

How many programmers do you know who want to make a game but refuse to use Unity or Godot or even like, löve2d because it's Ideologically Impure to use an existing engine, so they have 50 git repos with seven features bolted on to an SDL2 demo and no meaningful game design.

Part of why I don't like Static Site Generators is that they add a lot of friction. I'm writing this on my phone while waiting for a kettle to boil at work, and this ease of use is a big part of why I blog on Tumblr multiple times a day but the old SSG that hosted my website got a post every couple years.

Increasingly I'm happier to take shortcuts and borrow from other people in order to get Things Out The Door. I don't have to design/pattern/program/calculate everything myself. I care much more about end products.

I still have some philosophies I guess. I won't use VMware even if that means fighting with otherwise worse VM solutions. There are still plenty of things I enjoy designing and fabricating myself rather than buying or copying. For some people building the game engine is the fun part! But it's worth asking yourself whether that's you, or the person you wish you were.

I like embroidering and backstitching by hand. This doesn't mean I can't use components from the esp-idf components library.

See Also: How To Make Good Small Games, Do It Scared, etc.

[mira--image]

ROTTMNT EPISODE ORDER

[Masterpost]

We fans know how hard it is not only to access the show's episodes, but to watch them in order as well. I created this list when I was rewatching the show and noticing all the inconsistencies in the timeline. I went off the production codes for the base order, then rearranged it based on what made sense to me. I organised the plot into more consistent arcs. So this isn't THE order, but it's the order I watch it in and enjoy. Hopefully it's a useful resource for some of you too!

Some spoilers below, because I left notes for myself to explain the order. (Dm me if you wanna know where I watch the show 🏴‍☠️)

SEASON 1 

The Mad Dogs team is formed, and decide to start going on missions to help the city.

Mutant mayhem. Turtles, April, Draxum, Hidden City, and weapons introduced.

Origami tsunami. Inspired, the team decides to go on a hero mission. Foot clan introduced. Raph makes a full mystic body, only briefly.

Newsworthy. The team continues to do missions of a much smaller scale. First mutant introduced. Raph can make a full magic arm.

The turtles explore ways to better their new hero team in between living their regular lives.

War and Pizza. Donnie tries to use his tech for good. Raph fails to activate his ninpo.

Donnie’s gifts. Donnie tries to use his tech for good again, and it works this time. Too bad the team doesn't like it. Meat sweats introduced.

Down with the sickness. Raph and Leo’s leadership skills are explored. 

Shell in a cell. PBJ duo and leader duo navigate their dynamics. Ghost bear introduced.

Repo mantis. With their friendship renewed, Donnie and Mikey hang out. Todd is introduced, the turtle tank base materials are acquired.

Hypno! Part Deux! While Mikey and Donnie are gone, Leo and Raph help April with a problem at school. April has no friends, her side plot of wanting to be normal is introduced.

Minotaur maze. Hueso and the mystic pizza restaurant are introduced. The team members practice controlling their mystic weapons.

The Fast and the Furriest. The turtle tank is completed, and stolen. They go back to the mystic pizza place to look for the culprit.

Mascot Melee. Raph explores the surface, and sees how more of the new mutants try to blend in.

The gumbus. Baxter Stockboy is introduced.

Bug Busters. The team begrudgingly tries to deal with the oozesquitos themselves. Big Mama is introduced, Baron Draxum lore, Leo’s strategy explored. Raph’s and Leo's mystics improve.

The longest fight. The team is even more reluctant now to sacrifice their time for missions. It seems their game of playing hero is growing stale, but trouble keeps coming their way. Armor plot introduced.

Al be back. Satisfied that they seemingly stopped the foot clan, the team carries on with their lives. Stockboy returns. Alberto is taken care of. Splinter is shown to be musically inclined.

Mrs. Cuddles. The brothers hang out. Mrs. Cuddles only shows up here.

Nothing but truffle. Mikey is shown spending more time with the new mutants, but needs a little character development. Todd and Meat sweats return.

Stuck on you. Raph tries to get the Mad Dogs to go on missions again and improve their teamwork. The shell hogs are introduced. The armor plot is furthered.

Pizza pit. The brothers try to get pizza. Bug buster suits and shell hogs are used again.

The purple jacket. Donatello sneaks into April's high school. The purple dragons are introduced.

Smart lair. After meeting the purple dragons, Donnie has a renewed interest in his tech. Donnie tries to use his tech for good. Shelldon is introduced.

Mind meld. Donnie tries to lead a mission with his brothers and shelldon, and it doesn't go well. Donnie tries to ‘fix’ his brothers again using tech. The purple dragons are mentioned.

Hot soup: the game. Mikey goes on the team's first solo mission. Donnie puts more faith in his brothers. The foot recruit is introduced.

The Evil League of Mutants. The team goes on a mission again to stop crab men at the greenhouse, and it doesn't go well. They ask Splinter to train them again, but splinter doesn't think they need formal training. Splinter teaches them to be more creative and improve without weapons. They get targeted by Baron Draxum. Baron Draxum backstory.

Bullhop. After seeing how many enemies they have, the team decide to fix at least one mistake and make a friend. Bullhop is introduced. The team carefully plans a mission together, but it doesn't go according to plan. Big Mama's web plot hits a dead end.

Turtle-dega Nights: The Ballad of Rat Man. Splinter backstory mentioned. Big mama mentions how they stole her webs in bullhop. Warren doesn't wear the gauntlet all the time. Splinter vows to be a more attentive father.

Late fee. Splinter keeps his promise and offers hugs in exchange for his sons to run an errand. Ghost bear returns. Leo's portals improve.

The world becomes more dangerous, and Splinter begins formally training his sons.

Shadow of evil. Splinter pays more attention to April, and discovers a strange symbol on her shirt. Splinter's identity revealed and armor plots furthered. Splinter has to step up to meet his destiny, and promises to train his sons.

The ancient art of ninja hide and seek. Splinter makes good on his promise to train them. He trains them to improve without relying on weapons again. Lou jitsu and big mama lore.

The purple game. The mad dogs go to a sci-fi convention, except Donnie, who gets addicted to a game. The purple dragons are involved.

Jupiter Jim ahoy! Day two of the sci-fi convention. Splinter talks about being Lou jitsu. Jupiter Jim introduced.

The mutant menace. Baxter Stockboy causes mutant panic. The team needs to lay low for a while. Leo's portals grow in size and maximum distance, but struggle with going to the right location.

Warren and hypno sitting in a tree. The armor plot is furthered.

Portal jacked! Leo's portals send his brothers to the wrong location without him. The Hidden City is explored, Leo’s portals improve. Captain piel is introduced, Hueso and Leo grow closer.

Mystic library. The team finds another mystic location. Mystic library introduced, Raph’s mystics improve.

Operation normal. Sunita is introduced, April's friendship plot and armor plot are furthered, Leo’s portals improve.

How to make enemies and bend people to your will. Draxum and armor plot furthered. Draxum becomes leader of the foot clan. Foot recruit returns.

Man vs sewer. The team take a break from Splinter's training. Raph gets lost in the sewers. Leo’s leadership improves, as his brothers don't take the situation seriously.

Sparring partner. Raph finds training a bit too easy, and rescues a paper ninja. With more free time and less of a power dynamic since Draxum became leader, foot recruit and foot lieutenant grow closer.

You got served. Huseo gets Leo and Mikey to be waiters for one night.

Snow day. Leo is using portals reliably. Ghost bear mutates.

One man’s junk. Donnie and Mikey go on their own mission to collect mystic metal, but aren't trusted in their decisions. Leo’s portals improve. Repo mantis’ cat introduced.

Cloak and swagger. Splinter tries to train the boys in the woods, but get stuck indoors. Sunita and April hang out. Shelldon is like Donnie’s son.

Todd Scouts. The mad dogs aren't taking training seriously. Splinter and the boys actually go to the woods this time. Donnie uses sign language, Todd reveals his mystic power.

Insane in the mama train. The boys choose to give themselves entirely to training. The armor plot is almost finished.

End game. The boys decide that being themselves is more effective than not (which was splinter's original conclusion before he was pressured by the ancestors). Continuation of insane in mama train. Shredder introduced.

SEASON 2

Many unhappy returns. Continuation of end game. Lou jitsu backstory. Leo’s strategy improves, but he fails to communicate and coordinate with his team. Mikey’s powers improve. Raph’s powers improve (both in size and his first raph clone limb).

Goyles, Goyles, Goyles. Turtle mutation flashback.

After facing such a foe, the appeal of being a hero team fades a bit. Only Raph seems to be interested in continuing training and missions.

Flushed, but never forgotten. Mikey is playing the hot soup game. Buddy the paper ninja is there. Splinter says ‘you only learn lessons the hard way’, which I interpret to reference the harsh lesson from Todd scouts. 

Lair games. Leo’s strategy improves. Leo gets on Donnie's bad side.

The hidden city job. Leo tries to get back on Donnie's good side. Leo goes to the Hidden City with Huseo. The shadow fiend is mentioned, the upcoming battle nexus mentioned.

Repairin’ the baron. Baron Draxum becomes an ally, and gets a job.

Pizza puffs. Raph is the last one still taking heroing seriously. The first villain is kidnapped.

Sidekick ahoy! Jupiter Jim returns. Raph is the only one acting rationally at first, then he too gives in.

Air turtle. Leo becomes a basketball mascot. Leo is still not a good communicator and fixes the problem himself.

Breaking purple. Shelldon is 13. Donnie tries to 'fix' Shelldon through discipline (he learned his lesson from Mind Meld and smart lair not to mess with his mind), but learns his own lesson not to forcefully change others once again, this time for real. The purple dragons are back.

Always be brownies. Foot recruit tries another way to gain power. Splinter bonds with her and April. More kidnapping.

Mystery meat. Draxum likes his job. He grows closer to the turtles.

Raph’s ride along. The team goes to the Hidden City for a holiday.

Donnie vs witch town. Donnie reveals that he wishes he had mystic powers. He learns that tech and mystics can work together.

Hidden city’s most wanted. Baron Draxum and Splinter grow closer.

Bad hair day. Leo has a spa day.

Fists of furry. April becomes a more integrated part of the family, and practises ninjutsu.

The clothes don’t make the turtle. Movie makeover montage! More kidnapping.

The Mad Dogs are forced into fighting once more.

Battle nexus New York. Kidnapper and shadow fiend revealed.

Finale part 1 & 2.  Splinter’s memories are explored. Shredder returns. Karai is introduced, and lost. The lair is destroyed.

Finale part 3. April is accepted as a Hamato. The Mad Dogs unlock their ninpo.

Finale part 4. The final fight against the shredder. Cassandra Jones switches sides. Leo is made the leader, but he hasn't yet learned to be a good communicator and not do everything himself. How will he lead the team after seeing how dangerous this life can be? Does he double down like Raph would, or pull back and encourage fewer, safer missions without giving a reason?

[superconductivebean]

#1606: Fig's Death Theory, Everyone

I have chosen angst and violence tonight.

Eleazar dies not so much from a physical injury but from inhaling the junk from the repo after it has been dismantled, and veined the entire area with what we know is called 'pain'. Then, Eleazar subsequently suffers a heart arrest (supposedly).

The junk is not really 'pain'. It is not Ancient Magic either; everyone is able to see them. Pieces of souls, these are. Memories. Something that stings you in the very heart when a thought of something happy, painful, awful, horrifying, or aggravating crosses your memory in that very specific way that makes your mind screech I MISS YOU / I HATE YOU / I AM MISERABLE / I MISS MY LIFE / I WISH TO HAVE DIED.

It's melancholy—or the bittersweet longing for something ethereal of depression. A dream, maybe, or a wish for something that cuts that pain—that sting—that scald away.

As all scalds, it can sit deep. Rather, this repo junk are the condensed spirits of Depression, or the amplifier of rage and violence in us—the Desperation.

Someone like Ranrok or Isidora, idealists to the brim deep within themselves, are also *violent* and stubborn. They are most prone to fall in the state of rabid desperation. They are pained by not seeing a better world; they want to bring it closer, in a way they imagined it.

They got lost in how best to achieve it, if they even thought of any plans whatsoever past a certain point. Ranrok's Loyalists, some of whom used to be peaceful protesters and activists, had fallen for that feeling as well (Belgruff the Bludgeoner, to name an one).

That was their demise, ultimately.

Someone like Eleazar—a kind and a simple man, honourable, nor prone to get what he needs by force or deception, well, except just a little but he fails a it—would succumb to grieving upon taking in some of that junk.

Throughout the game, rarely a scene passes where he is *not* mentioning Miriam or *not* being fascinated by her findings and research or, evidently, being very much in love with her; he keeps a tiny letter near his bed, written in her hand, where she wrote that he was right about the bowtruckles and that she owed him 3 knuts. He remembers. He loves. He does not let go.

He would've been overwhelmed—on top of suffering from an injury.

Perhaps, he could've got by just fine. He is a strong man. He had never betrayed his composure, and when it did happen, we see it only briefly and in passing, fleeting even. But at the last moments of his life, he was also extremely proud of MC.

He saw his young charge of just four fucking months* defeating an unfathomable creature of unknown powers and abilities. They were at their prime, they have also shown that to the entire staff body minus few people; they are everything Miriam could've wanted to see, plus the fight with Ranrok.

It would've *hurt* because it's how the Depression-Desperation just might manifest. I am going to give an insight into this, it might feel like TMI, but Depression is my brand so please bear, hee hee.

Sometimes, it's the feeling of being left behind and needing to keep up—without dissection, it translates to spurs of envy. What you really feel is, you aren't as productive and/or as amazing in raw quality, which are just… skills. It shouldn't eat you up like this. You can and will learn, and you will develop your own techniques.

The feeling of happiness for yourself or someone else, but it burns you away because just *feeling* feelings is unbearable, like washing a fresh cut in a lukewarm water or breathing on a burn. It's just… too much sensitivity.

The feeling of trying to comprehend the *comprehensible* but the sheer scale of it frights and induces a weird sting of panic that you will not ever understand what you have just seen, let alone repeat. If you have ever learnt a difficult skill or another language, you know how it feels sometimes.

Eleazar, overwhelmed with grief for Miriam, but also brimmed with pride for MC, dies from his heart stopping, unable to process such complex and intense feelings. Maybe, he was just too old for this. Or maybe, the injury wore him down just enough for the third thing to play its part—the stress. Anyway. He had too much. And yet. On the deathfloor, he does not just remember Miriam.

He acknowledges MC as a friend, of him and Miriam, who would've absolutely *loved* them to be around and not just *liked*. Well. I lied. His heart was able to process—but not keep up with it.

Thank you for staying by my brief violent moment of indescribable sadness. I ascend, okbye.

*the game starts on sept 1ts, 1890. the fourth trial and the final repository quests happen shortly after christmas, so it must be january, 1891, perhaps, even early january, still during the christmas break. i typically place the repo quest on jan, 4th, 1891.

tags @espressoristretto-patronum @endeavour12345 @girl-named-matty @thriftstorebabayaga @the-magiarcheologist lets commiserate

[your-unfriendlyghost]

How I draw: Use of references

Second response to a few art questions from @johnny-and-clyde let’s gooo!

I love references! Like most artists I did have that phase where I thought I was better than everyone because I didn’t use ‘em, but lemme tell ya- starting to use references took my art from this

(Art from 2021-2022) To some better lookin stuff, and eventually to the stuff y’all know me for now lol!

Nowadays I do use references for almost every drawing, but the amount that I reference them varies Occasionally it’s pretty direct, like my drawing of Curly Shepard, in which I HEAVILY referenced a photo of myself for the pose and fit:

(I don’t dress like this on a daily basis the pic was taken at a Twilight-themed school dance ok) (I’m not cool enough to wear that many necklaces w/o a good reason 😔)

In drawings where I directly reference photos that don’t belong to me, I put the reference in the post under the drawing, so folks know I didn’t plan the concepts/compositions on my own. But usually I don’t directly reference things…

Usually I use a bunch of different references for a bunch of different things. This is for two purposes:

1- Making sure everything stays vaguely anatomically decent, that the fabric folds in the right places, that the perspective works, that the lighting looks good, etc…especially in tricker/unusual poses. Um I’m also pretty sure that I might have some form of aphantasia, or at least a really weak “mind’s eye”, which is probably why I struggle with composition/planning in art and why I do so much better with references

Like here, when I used this pic of Emilio Estevez’s character in Repo Man to make sure I was getting Mark Jennings’s face shape right- just glanced at it off to the side and (more or less) drew what I saw

Or here, in this pic of Steve Randle- I didn’t know how to even start to draw the angle I needed, so I took a pic of myself and used that

2- Capturing the likeness of a person. For most new characters I draw, I take a bunch of screenshots and roughly redraw them and occasionally trace them to build muscle memory, all while taking little notes about unique features they have. Then, once I have a feel for them, and enough odd-looking line drawings to look like a crazy stalker, I’m ready to start actually drawing post-able art yk?

Here’s an example from 2023 where I studied Nancy Wheeler. Final product ain’t fantastic, but this was two-school-years ago so it’s basically ancient in my book lol

I do still use refs often in the finals, but less directly and with less adherence

But I will say, for rougher/cartoonier drawings I don’t use as many refs. Like, I didn’t use references for these (although I did pose in the mirror to get the arm right in the self-portrait lol) :

Lastly, I also find it’s nice to have a mirror/window nearby to look at my own anatomy and reference that, although that’s mainly just useful for characters who look semi-like me/have similar builds to me lol. Like I can reference myself for drawing Steve Randle or Johnny Cade (at least his face lol), but not so much for drawing like…Dally or Evie or Marcia. Still, it’s useful, especially when I can’t find a specific reference I want, yk?

Anyhow, those are the main ways I utilize references in art! Hope some of this was helpful :))

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cleantech has an enshittification problem

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

EVs won't save the planet. Ultimately, the material bill for billions of individual vehicles and the unavoidable geometry of more cars-more traffic-more roads-greater distances-more cars dictate that the future of our cities and planet requires public transit – lots of it.

But no matter how much public transit we install, there's always going to be some personal vehicles on the road, and not just bikes, ebikes and scooters. Between deliveries, accessibility, and stubbornly low-density regions, there's going to be a lot of cars, vans and trucks on the road for the foreseeable future, and these should be electric.

Beyond that irreducible minimum of personal vehicles, there's the fact that individuals can't install their own public transit system; in places that lack the political will or means to create working transit, EVs are a way for people to significantly reduce their personal emissions.

In policy circles, EV adoption is treated as a logistical and financial issue, so governments have focused on making EVs affordable and increasing the density of charging stations. As an EV owner, I can affirm that affordability and logistics were important concerns when we were shopping for a car.

But there's a third EV problem that is almost entirely off policy radar: enshittification.

An EV is a rolling computer in a fancy case with a squishy person inside of it. While this can sound scary, there are lots of cool implications for this. For example, your EV could download your local power company's tariff schedule and preferentially charge itself when the rates are lowest; they could also coordinate with the utility to reduce charging when loads are peaking. You can start them with your phone. Your repair technician can run extensive remote diagnostics on them and help you solve many problems from the road. New features can be delivered over the air.

That's just for starters, but there's so much more in the future. After all, the signal virtue of a digital computer is its flexibility. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing complete, universal, Von Neumann machine, which can run every valid program. If a feature is computationally tractable – from automated parallel parking to advanced collision prevention – it can run on a car.

The problem is that this digital flexibility presents a moral hazard to EV manufacturers. EVs are designed to make any kind of unauthorized, owner-selected modification into an IP rights violation ("IP" in this case is "any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers or competitors"):

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

EVs are also designed so that the manufacturer can unilaterally exert control over them or alter their operation. EVs – even more than conventional vehicles – are designed to be remotely killswitched in order to help manufacturers and dealers pressure people into paying their car notes on time:

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

Manufacturers can reach into your car and change how much of your battery you can access:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

They can lock your car and have it send its location to a repo man, then greet him by blinking its lights, honking its horn, and pulling out of its parking space:

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

And of course, they can detect when you've asked independent mechanic to service your car and then punish you by degrading its functionality:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2024/06/26/two-of-eight-claims-in-tesla-anti-trust-lawsuit-will-move-forward/

This is "twiddling" – unilaterally and irreversibly altering the functionality of a product or service, secure in the knowledge that IP law will prevent anyone from twiddling back by restoring the gadget to a preferred configuration:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

The thing is, for an EV, twiddling is the best case scenario. As bad as it is for the company that made your EV to change how it works whenever they feel like picking your pocket, that's infinitely preferable to the manufacturer going bankrupt and bricking your car.

That's what just happened to owners of Fisker EVs, cars that cost $40-70k. Cars are long-term purchases. An EV should last 12-20 years, or even longer if you pay to swap the battery pack. Fisker was founded in 2016 and shipped its first Ocean SUV in 2023. The company is now bankrupt:

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker called its vehicles "software-based cars" and they weren't kidding. Without continuous software updates and server access, those Fisker Ocean SUVs are turning into bricks. What's more, the company designed the car from the ground up to make any kind of independent service and support into a felony, by wrapping the whole thing in overlapping layers of IP. That means that no one can step in with a module that jailbreaks the Fisker and drops in an alternative firmware that will keep the fleet rolling.

This is the third EV risk – not just finance, not just charger infrastructure, but the possibility that any whizzy, cool new EV company will go bust and brick your $70k cleantech investment, irreversibly transforming your car into 5,500 lb worth of e-waste.

This confers a huge advantage onto the big automakers like VW, Kia, Ford, etc. Tesla gets a pass, too, because it achieved critical mass before people started to wise up to the risk of twiddling and bricking. If you're making a serious investment in a product you expect to use for 20 years, are you really gonna buy it from a two-year old startup with six months' capital in the bank?

The incumbency advantage here means that the big automakers won't have any reason to sink a lot of money into R&D, because they won't have to worry about hungry startups with cool new ideas eating their lunches. They can maintain the cozy cartel that has seen cars stagnate for decades, with the majority of "innovation" taking the form of shitty, extractive and ill-starred ideas like touchscreen controls and an accelerator pedal that you have to rent by the month:

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

Put that way, it's clear that this isn't an EV problem, it's a cleantech problem. Cleantech has all the problems of EVs: it requires a large capital expenditure, it will be "smart," and it is expected to last for decades. That's rooftop solar, heat-pumps, smart thermostat sensor arrays, and home storage batteries.

And just as with EVs, policymakers have focused on infrastructure and affordability without paying any attention to the enshittification risks. Your rooftop solar will likely be controlled via a Solaredge box – a terrible technology that stops working if it can't reach the internet for a protracted period (that's right, your home solar stops working if the grid fails!).

I found this out the hard way during the covid lockdowns, when Solaredge terminated its 3G cellular contract and notified me that I would have to replace the modem in my system or it would stop working. This was at the height of the supply-chain crisis and there was a long waiting list for any replacement modems, with wifi cards (that used your home internet rather than a cellular connection) completely sold out for most of a year.

There are good reasons to connect rooftop solar arrays to the internet – it's not just so that Solaredge can enshittify my service. Solar arrays that coordinate with the grid can make it much easier and safer to manage a grid that was designed for centralized power production and is being retrofitted for distributed generation, one roof at a time.

But when the imperatives of extraction and efficiency go to war, extraction always wins. After all, the Solaredge system is already in place and solar installers are largely ignorant of, and indifferent to, the reasons that a homeowner might want to directly control and monitor their system via local controls that don't roundtrip through the cloud.

Somewhere in the hindbrain of any prospective solar purchaser is the experience with bricked and enshittified "smart" gadgets, and the knowledge that anything they buy from a cool startup with lots of great ideas for improving production, monitoring, and/or costs poses the risk of having your 20 year investment bricked after just a few years – and, thanks to the extractive imperative, no one will be able to step in and restore your ex-solar array to good working order.

I make the majority of my living from books, which means that my pay is very "lumpy" – I get large sums when I publish a book and very little in between. For many years, I've used these payments to make big purchases, rather than financing them over long periods where I can't predict my income. We've used my book payments to put in solar, then an induction stove, then a battery. We used one to buy out the lease on our EV. And just a month ago, we used the money from my upcoming Enshittification book to put in a heat pump (with enough left over to pay for a pair of long-overdue cataract surgeries, scheduled for the fall).

When we started shopping for heat pumps, it was clear that this was a very exciting sector. First of all, heat pumps are kind of magic, so efficient and effective it's almost surreal. But beyond the basic tech – which has been around since the late 1940s – there is a vast ferment of cool digital features coming from exciting and innovative startups.

By nature, I'm the kid of person who likes these digital features. I started out as a computer programmer, and while I haven't written production code since the previous millennium, I've been in and around the tech industry for my whole adult life. But when it came time to buy a heat-pump – an investment that I expected to last for 20 years or more – there was no way I was going to buy one of these cool new digitally enhanced pumps, no matter how much the reviewers loved them. Sure, they'd work well, but it's precisely because I'm so knowledgeable about high tech that I could see that they would fail very, very badly.

You may think EVs are bullshit, and they are – though there will always be room for some personal vehicles, and it's better for people in transit deserts to drive EVs than gas-guzzlers. You may think rooftop solar is a dead-end and be all-in on utility scale solar (I think we need both, especially given the grid-disrupting extreme climate events on our horizon). But there's still a wide range of cleantech – induction tops, heat pumps, smart thermostats – that are capital intensive, have a long duty cycle, and have good reasons to be digitized and networked.

Take home storage batteries: your utility can push its rate card to your battery every time they change their prices, and your battery can use that information to decide when to let your house tap into the grid, and when to switch over to powering your home with the solar you've stored up during the day. This is a very old and proven pattern in tech: the old Fidonet BBS network used a version of this, with each BBS timing its calls to other nodes to coincide with the cheapest long-distance rates, so that messages for distant systems could be passed on:

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

Cleantech is a very dynamic sector, even if its triumphs are largely unheralded. There's a quiet revolution underway in generation, storage and transmission of renewable power, and a complimentary revolution in power-consumption in vehicles and homes:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/12/s-curve/#anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-eventually-stops

But cleantech is too important to leave to the incumbents, who are addicted to enshittification and planned obsolescence. These giant, financialized firms lack the discipline and culture to make products that have the features – and cost savings – to make them appealing to the very wide range of buyers who must transition as soon as possible, for the sake of the very planet.

It's not enough for our policymakers to focus on financing and infrastructure barriers to cleantech adoption. We also need a policy-level response to enshittification.

Ideally, every cleantech device would be designed so that it was impossible to enshittify – which would also make it impossible to brick:

Based on free software (best), or with source code escrowed with a trustee who must release the code if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

All patents in a royalty-free patent-pool (best); or in a trust that will release them into a royalty-free pool if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

No parts-pairing or other DRM permitted (best); or with parts-pairing utilities available to all parties on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best);

All diagnostic and error codes in the public domain, with all codes in the clear within the device (best); or with decoding utilities available on demand to all comers on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best).

There's an obvious business objection to this: it will reduce investment in innovative cleantech because investors will perceive these restrictions as limits on the expected profits of their portfolio companies. It's true: these measures are designed to prevent rent-extraction and other enshittificatory practices by cleantech companies, and to the extent that investors are counting on enshittification rents, this might prevent them from investing.

But that has to be balanced against the way that a general prohibition on enshittificatory practices will inspire consumer confidence in innovative and novel cleantech products, because buyers will know that their investments will be protected over the whole expected lifespan of the product, even if the startup goes bust (nearly every startup goes bust). These measures mean that a company with a cool product will have a much larger customer-base to sell to. Those additional sales more than offset the loss of expected revenue from cheating and screwing your customers by twiddling them to death.

There's also an obvious legal objection to this: creating these policies will require a huge amount of action from Congress and the executive branch, a whole whack of new rules and laws to make them happen, and each will attract court-challenges.

That's also true, though it shouldn't stop us from trying to get legal reforms. As a matter of public policy, it's terrible and fucked up that companies can enshittify the things we buy and leave us with no remedy.

However, we don't have to wait for legal reform to make this work. We can take a shortcut with procurement – the things governments buy with public money. The feds, the states and localities buy a lot of cleantech: for public facilities, for public housing, for public use. Prudent public policy dictates that governments should refuse to buy any tech unless it is designed to be enshittification-resistant.

This is an old and honorable tradition in policymaking. Lincoln insisted that the rifles he bought for the Union Army come with interoperable tooling and ammo, for obvious reasons. No one wants to be the Commander in Chief who shows up on the battlefield and says, "Sorry, boys, war's postponed, our sole supplier decided to stop making ammunition."

By creating a market for enshittification-proof cleantech, governments can ensure that the public always has the option of buying an EV that can't be bricked even if the maker goes bust, a heat-pump whose digital features can be replaced or maintained by a third party of your choosing, a solar controller that coordinates with the grid in ways that serve their owners – not the manufacturers' shareholders.

We're going to have to change a lot to survive the coming years. Sure, there's a lot of scary ways that things can go wrong, but there's plenty about our world that should change, and plenty of ways those changes could be for the better. It's not enough for policymakers to focus on ensuring that we can afford to buy whatever badly thought-through, extractive tech the biggest companies want to foist on us – we also need a focus on making cleantech fit for purpose, truly smart, reliable and resilient.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

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/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

Image: 臺灣古寫真上色 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raid_on_Kagi_City_1945.jpg

Grendelkhan (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ground_mounted_solar_panels.gk.jpg

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