chimaerabutt

[chimaerabutt]

Hey, fellow fantasy nerds, I invite you to vibe along to this lesser known early 2000s fantasy banger 

[chimaerabutt]

>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

[chimaerabutt]

Books on Libby have started disappearing.

My friend pointed it out first, and then I started noticing too. Why would books that multiple libraries definitely, 100% had digital access to a couple of months/weeks/days ago disappear?

Amazon is getting exclusive rights to them.

Ebooks that the public library once had digital copies of are now only available through Amazon. Audible boasts on their covers about Audible-exclusive audiobooks that did not used to be Audible-exclusive. Entire series and collections are disappearing overnight.

Keep your eyes on the privatization of media and your libraries.

[chimaerabutt]

"the world isn't kind" ok??? Much more importantly are you?????

[chimaerabutt]

Well my loves, it appears as though the answer to "Can the Big Pattern Company (Simplicity/Burda/McCalls/ect.) survive the death of JoAnn?" has come.

The answer is no. No it cannot. It has been sold to a liquidator just like JoAnns was.

So if there is ANYTHING you want I suggest you get it now. simplicity.com is currently having a pattern sale and I snatched up some that might be useful for cosplay purposes.

I am very glad these last couple of years I have built up my collection.

[chimaerabutt]

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

[chimaerabutt]

i hate seeing people now making fun of those who care about privacy online. i've seen people saying things like "well they already have your data. what are companies going to do with it" and it's like, that's not the point. it's that companies /shouldn't/ be able to have my data and sell it. am i aware they probably already have my data? yes, absolutely. but i'm still going to try and keep them from monetizing it any further, why are we defending companies selling data they shouldn't have to begin with though?

[chimaerabutt]

We interrupt your regularly scheduled du Bois posting to implore you to contact your senators and tell them to vote no on the budget. Trans people including me will lose their healthcare if this bill passes the Senate.

This post will be reposted several times in the next few days. Please spread it, post to other platforms, etc.

[chimaerabutt]

My two yr old is looking through a book about prehistoric art and she saw a picture of those cave painting of hands and she held up her own and said "hand!" And I gotta be honest. That hit

[chimaerabutt]

Good addition to the list of words here

[chimaerabutt]

that medieval peasant you’re trying to kill with hyper-pop is gonna make you clean and butcher a chicken and you’re gonna throw up.

[chimaerabutt]

[chimaerabutt]

There's an evil twin to "has only ever played Dungeons & Dragons and thinks all tabletop RPGs are as complicated as Dungeons & Dragons" that lives somewhere in the vicinity of "went straight from Dungeons & Dragons to rules-light storygames and thinks Dungeons & Dragons represents the high end of tabletop RPG complexity". Like, buddy, you have no idea.

[chimaerabutt]

this pride month will be the tenth anniversary of same-sex marriage being legal in all 50 states ;-;

[chimaerabutt]

the people who go "we shouldn't be so open about nudity because it could trigger someone's dysphoria" are like two steps max removed from "fat people being fat in public could trigger someone with an ed". like peoples' bodies are not the problem here, trying to restrict someone else's body because of how you personally feel is indistinguishable from conservative praxis. i'm sorry if that sounds harsh but there is basically no interpretation of "we need to control the bodies of [demographic]" that does not fall down the slippery slope of fascism.

[chimaerabutt]

Every now and then something I did escapes my small tiny audience of mutuals and I have a brief moment of panic over how someone new is going to possibly misinterpret something I said to suit them.

I’m pleased to see the two posts currently doing that have stayed deep in anti-terf queer tumblr.