#car renting software

[bookingcar]

Chennai's Best Tourist Spots : An Overview of the City's Top Destinations

Discover Chennai's rich cultural legacy by visiting famous sites like the ancient Kapaleeshwarar Temple and Marina Beach, India's longest urban beach. Explore the city's historical history at Fort St. George or take in the scenery in Guindy National Park. Don't miss the lively T. Nagar retail district, the tranquil Theosophical Society, and San Thome Basilica. Chennai provides the ideal fusion of culture, history, and scenic beauty. Experience Chennai in a whole new way with the greatest car rental services!

Book Your Car Here :

[wilwheaton]

WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer. The engineers are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. None have responded to requests for comment from WIRED. Representatives from OPM, GSA, and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment.

The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk's Government Takeover

This is insane. These children can’t even rent a car.

Why aren’t Democrats at Defcon 1? Honestly. I don’t understand why this is happening and there isn’t a loud and forceful response from the opposition. Schumer is droning on about the price of tomatoes, while these unvetted kids are installing root kits, for fuck’s sake.

[vivekbsworld]

Streamlining Mobility: Top GPS Vehicle Tracking System Companies in the UAE

In the dynamic landscape of fleet management and logistics, GPS vehicle tracking systems have become indispensable tools for businesses in the UAE seeking to optimize their operations and enhance efficiency. These systems offer real-time visibility, route optimization, and enhanced security, empowering businesses to streamline their fleet management processes. In this blog, we’ll explore some of the top GPS vehicle tracking system companies in UAE, known for their reliability, innovation, and customer-centric solutions.

1. Trakker Middle East

Trakker Middle East is a leading provider of GPS vehicle tracking and fleet management solutions in the UAE. With a focus on innovation and customer satisfaction, Trakker offers a comprehensive suite of products and services tailored to meet the unique needs of businesses across various industries. Their state-of-the-art tracking devices and software platforms provide real-time location tracking, route optimization, and advanced analytics, enabling businesses to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance productivity.

2. Falcon Trackers

Falcon Trackers is a trusted name in the GPS vehicle tracking industry, offering cutting-edge solutions to businesses in the UAE and beyond. With a diverse portfolio of products and services, including GPS tracking devices, fleet management software, and mobile applications, Falcon Trackers caters to the needs of businesses of all sizes and industries. Their customizable solutions provide real-time tracking, remote monitoring, and comprehensive reporting, empowering businesses to optimize their fleet operations and achieve greater efficiency.

3. GPS Vehicle Tracking UAE

GPS Vehicle Tracking UAE is a leading provider of GPS tracking systems and solutions, serving businesses across the UAE with innovative and reliable tracking technology. Their range of products includes GPS tracking devices, fleet management software, and mobile applications, designed to meet the specific requirements of businesses in diverse sectors such as transportation, logistics, construction, and utilities. With features such as real-time tracking, geofencing, and driver behavior monitoring, GPS Vehicle Tracking UAE helps businesses enhance productivity, improve safety, and reduce operational costs.

4. SecureTech

SecureTech is a prominent player in the GPS vehicle tracking industry, offering comprehensive tracking and fleet management solutions to businesses in the UAE. With a focus on reliability, security, and customer service, SecureTech provides advanced tracking devices, software platforms, and support services to help businesses optimize their fleet operations and improve performance. Their customizable solutions cater to the unique needs of businesses across various sectors, offering features such as real-time tracking, route optimization, and vehicle maintenance scheduling.

5. iTrack Middle East

iTrack Middle East specializes in providing GPS vehicle tracking and fleet management solutions to businesses in the UAE and the wider Middle East region. With a commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction, iTrack offers a range of products and services designed to enhance efficiency, safety, and security in fleet operations. Their advanced tracking devices, intuitive software platforms, and dedicated support team enable businesses to monitor their vehicles in real-time, optimize routes, and improve overall fleet performance.

Conclusion

The UAE’s bustling economy and rapidly evolving business landscape demand innovative solutions for fleet management and logistics. GPS vehicle tracking system companies play a crucial role in meeting these demands by offering advanced tracking technology, comprehensive software platforms, and personalized support services. Whether it’s optimizing routes, improving safety, or reducing operational costs, businesses in the UAE can rely on these trusted providers to streamline their fleet operations and achieve greater efficiency and success.

[rentaaasoftware]

Introducing Rentaaa's Latest Innovation: WordPress Plugins for Seamless Rental Business

Are you seeking to reach new heights with your rental company? Do you prefer a user-friendly solution to manipulate your fleet and bookings immediately out of your WordPress website? Look no in addition to Rentaaa's latest offering – a WordPress plugin designed to streamline your rental business operations.

In today's fast-paced, high-tech world, comfort and performance are critical factors. As the owner of a rental company, you are aware of how critical it is to optimise your backend operations while giving your clients a flawless experience. With Rentaaa's WordPress plugins, you could obtain just that.

What is Rentaaa's WordPress Plugin?

Our WordPress plugins are custom-made products designed to satisfy the particular requirements of rental businesses. Using your WordPress dashboard, our plugins enable you to quickly manage bookings, availability, and fleet management for any type of rental vehicle, including cars, scooters, utes, and other vehicles.

Key Features and Benefits:

Centralized Management: Say goodbye to juggling multiple systems and platforms. With Rentaaa's WordPress plugin, you can manipulate your rental bookings and fleet without delay out of your WordPress website. Take advantage of having a single, integrated solution for all of your needs related to your rental business.

Seamless Integration: Our plugin seamlessly integrates with your present WordPress website, retaining your emblem identity and improving user experience. Whether you are a pro-WordPress user or new to the platform, our intuitive plugin makes fleet management a breeze.

Effortless Bookings: Enable your customers to make bookings at once through your WordPress website with ease. Our user-friendly interface guarantees a clean booking manner, enhancing purchaser pride and driving repeat commercial enterprise.

Real-Time Availability: Monitor the availability of your fleet in real time. With our plugin, you can maximise utilisation and minimise downtime by receiving real-time updates on vehicle availability.

Customizable Solutions: We recognize that every WordPress business is unique. Our WordPress plugins are therefore adaptable to meet your unique needs. Whenever you need assistance with more features or unique integrations, our team is available to help.

Get Started Today: Are you ready to move ahead with your rental website? You can maximise the possibilities of your rental fleet and give your clients a flawless experience with Rentaaa's WordPress plugin. Regardless of your company size—small startup or well-established—our plugins are made to grow with it. Get in touch with us right now to find out more about our WordPress plugins and how they can transform your rental company.

Visit our website to know more:

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A sexy, skinny defeat device for your HP ink cartridge

Animals keep evolving into crabs; it's a process called "carcinisation" and it's pretty weird. Crabs just turn out to be extremely evolutionarily fit for our current environment:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-animals-keep-evolving-into-crabs/

By the same token, all kinds of business keep evolving into something like a printer company. It turns out that in this enshittified, poorly regulated, rentier-friendly world, the parasitic, inkjet business model is extremely adaptive. Printerinisation is everywhere.

All that stuff you hate about your car? Trapping you into using their mechanics, spying on you, planned obsolescence? All lifted from the inkjet printer business model:

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

That GE fridge that won't make ice or dispense water unless you spend $50 for a proprietary charcoal filter instead of using a $10 generic? Pure printerism:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#filtergate

The software update to your Sonos speakers that makes them half as useful and takes away your right to play your stored music, forcing you to buy streaming music subscriptions? Straight out of the HP playbook:

https://www.wired.com/story/sonos-admits-its-recent-app-update-was-a-colossal-mistake/

But as printerinized as all these gadgets are, none can quite attain the level of high enshittification that the OG inkjet bastards attain on a daily basis. In the world championships of effortlessly authentic fuckery, no one can lay a glove on the sociopathic monsters of HP.

For example: when HP wanted to soften us all up for a new world of "subscription ink" (where you have to pre-pay every month for a certain number of pages' worth of printing, which your printer enforces by spying on you and ratting you out to HP over the internet), they offered a "lifetime subscription" plan. With this "lifetime" plan, you paid just once and your HP printer would print out 15 pages a month for so long as you owned your printer, with HP shipping you new ink every time you ran low.

Well, eventually, HP got bored of not making you pay rent on your own fucking printer, so they just turned that plan off. Yeah, it was a lifetime plan, but the "lifetime" in question was the lifetime of HP's patience for not fucking you over, and that patience has the longevity of a mayfly:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars

It would take many pages to list all of HP's sins here. This is a company that ships printers with half-full ink cartridges and charges more than the printer cost to buy a replacement set. The company that won't let you print a black-and-white page if you're out of yellow ink. The company that won't let you scan or send a fax if you're out of any of your ink.

They make you "recalibrate" your printer or "clean your heads" by forcing you to print sheets of ink-dense paper. They also refuse to let you use your ink cartridges after they "expire."

HP raised the price of ink to over $10,000 per gallon, then went to war against third-party ink cartridge makers, cartridge remanufacturers, and cartridge refillers. They added "security chips" to their cartridges whose job was to watch the ink levels in your cartridge and, when they dip below a certain level (long before the cartridge is actually empty), declare the cartridge to be dry and permanently out of use.

Even if you refill that cartridge, it will still declare itself to be empty to your printer, which will therefore refuse to print.

Third party ink companies have options here. One thing they could do is reverse-engineer the security chip, and make compatible ones that say, "Actually, I'm full." The problem with this is that laws like Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) potentially makes this into a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine, for a first offense.

DMCA 1201 bans bypassing "an effective means of access control" to a copyrighted work. So if HP writes a copyrighted "I'm empty" program for its security chip and then adds some kind of access restriction to prevent you from dumping and reverse-engineering that program, you can end up a felon, thanks to the DMCA.

Another countermove is to harvest security chips out of dead cartridges that have been sent overseas as e-waste (one consequence of HP's $10,000/gallon ink racket is that it generates mountains of immortal, toxic e-waste that mostly ends up poisoning poor countries in the global south). These can be integrated into new cartridges, or remanufactured ones.

In practice, ink companies do all of this and more, and total normie HP printer owners go to extremely improbable lengths to find third party ink cartridges and figure out how to use them. It turns out that even people who find technology tinkering intimidating or confusing or dull can be motivated to learn and practice a lot of esoteric tech stuff as an alternative to paying $10,000/gallon for colored water.

HP has lots of countermoves for this. One truly unhinged piece of fuckery is to ask Customs and Border Patrol to block third-party ink cartridges with genuine HP security chips that have been pried loose from e-waste shipments. HP claims that these are "counterfeits" (because they were removed and re-used without permission), even though they came out of real HP cartridges, and CBP takes them at their word, seizing shipments.

Even sleazier: HP pushes out fake security updates to its printers. You get a message telling you there's an urgent security update, you click OK, and your printer shows you a downloading/installing progress bar and reboots itself. As far as you can tell, nothing has changed. But these aren't "security" updates, they're updates that block third-party ink, and HP has designed them not to kick in for several months. That way, HP owners who get tricked into installing this downgrade don't raise hell online and warn everyone else until they've installed it too, and it's too late:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

This is the infectious pathogen business model: one reason covid spread so quickly was that people were infectious before they developed symptoms. That meant that the virus could spread before the spreader knew they had it. By adding a long fuse to its logic bomb, HP greatly increases the spread of its malware.

But life finds a way. $10,000/gallon ink is an irresistible target for tinkerers, security researchers and competitors. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but the true parent of jaw-dropping ingenuity is callous, sadistic greed. That's why America's army of prisoners are the source of so many of the most beautiful and exciting forms of innovation seen today:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/09/king-rat/#mother-of-invention

Despite harsh legal penalties and the vast resources of HP, third-party ink continues to thrive, and every time HP figures out how to block one technique, three even cooler ones pop up.

Last week, Jay Summet published a video tearing down a third-party ink cartridge compatible with an HP 61XL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ya184uaTE

The third-party cartridge has what appears to be a genuine HP security chip, but it is overlaid with a paper-thin, flexible, adhesive-backed circuit board that is skinny enough that the cartridge still fits in an HP printer.

This flexible circuit board has its own little microchip. Summet theorizes that it is designed to pass the "are you a real HP cartridge" challenge pass to the security chip, but to block the followup "are you empty or full?" message. When the printer issues that challenge, the "man in the middle" chip answers, "Oh, I'm definitely full."

In their writeup, Hackaday identifies the chip as "a single IC in a QFN package." This is just so clever and delightful:

https://hackaday.com/2024/09/28/man-in-the-middle-pcb-unlocks-hp-ink-cartridges/

Hackaday also notes that HP CEO Enrique J Lores recently threatened to brick any printer discovered to be using third-party ink:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-ceo-blocking-third-party-ink-from-printers-fights-viruses/

As William Gibson famously quipped, "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." As our enshittification-rich environment drives more and more companies to evolve into rent-seeking enterprises through printerinisation, HP offers us a glimpse of the horrors of the late enshittocene.

It's just as Orwell prophesied: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a HP installing malware on your printer to force you to spend $10,000/gallon on ink – forever."

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/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Image: Jay Summet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ya184uaTE

[schluttforschlatt]

This Kitty Off the Chain (NSFW)

I haven't written smut in YEARSSSSSS but i wanted to give u a lil treat <3 <3 <3

✴︎MINORS DO NOT INTERACT✴︎

wc: 3.5k

warnings: fem!reader, language, smut (obviously) -munch!schlatt, fingering, tiny bit of size k!nk

You thought about the price of the room the elevator ride up to it. Four thousand dollars. You made a mental list of things that would change your life for that price. Down payment on a car. Brand new PC tower and fixtures. Rent for the next three months. Hell, a trip to the doctors office for that back pain you’ve had for years. And yet, that was how much one singular night’s stay in this particular room cost. You watched as the elevator doors opened, and followed behind the two taller men you were with.

The younger of the two lead the way, explaining the amenities and trying to reason with the price. Trevor, the slightly older of the two, had a video camera at the ready and was nodding as the first man, Schlatt, stopped in front of the door to the room and swiped a card.

“You two are about to feel so fucking poor.” He joked, pushing the door open and inviting you and Trevor inside.

You weren't quite sure why Schlatt had invited you on this trip with him, but you prayed that by the time your visit was over, you’d have an answer.

For the past few months, the two of you had been growing closer as friends. It started with him asking for help editing clips from a trucking sim stream to create shorts. He wanted outside eyes to pick the best moments without the bias of what he considered funny, so you made the drive to his place and let him teach you the basics of his editing software. You’d bantered back and forth with each other while splicing scenes together to make clips. Schlatt had filmed a handful of video intros while you edited, and you couldn’t help but sneak glances at him anytime he turned his persona on. It’s kinda hot, you thought, watching a man who always spoke politely and softly to you one-on-one flip a switch and become a loud and boisterous asshole.

You would shiver anytime he stood behind you, hands on the back of the chair you were in as he checked to see your progress. You swore to yourself, vowing to push any feelings down and away, and not let them interfere with your growing friendship.

Enjoying the work you had done, Schlatt invited you back several more times to edit more shorts for his channels. You thoroughly liked spending time with him like this, parallel playing in comfortable silence. Occasionally, he would put his hands on your shoulders and squeeze as if giving a shoulder massage or gentle pat on the back, which was always unexpected but never not appreciated.

The editing and clipping lead to him asking you to help with filming, going over the basics of camera operation and teaching you how to get his good side. Filming lead to you helping him out with various projects, having gained enough trust from him to voice ideas and opinions that you thought would improve the project or make it flop. Often he would place a gentle hand on the small of your back while walking around a location with you, leaning down close to your face to better hear you. It would make your heart race anytime you felt his breath close to your cheek, and anytime a hand ghosted over your hip you thought you would explode.

Pretty soon after, you had become his shadow, following Schlatt everywhere he went, and with time, you noticed more confident and intentional touches from Schlatt. He’d wrap an arm around your shoulder while watching a movie on his couch or reach out to hold your hand while walking. Every touch felt electric, and every time you hung out you felt tension grow.

The moment that had changed everything for you was during a trip to the grocery store. Schlatt had asked you to accompany him and help pick out ingredients for meal prepping. You had taken a few nutrition and health classes and he thought you’d be able to help him put together healthy meals. You joked with him the ride there about his tendency to latch onto junk food, and decided to be a little bold and make a comment about semen.

“I bet your cum tastes like battery acid,” your statement caught him and yourself off guard. He scoffed and glanced over at you, taking his right hand off the steering wheel. “You eat like shit, you need to eat some pineapple or something.” His hand came to rest on your left knee as you finished your sentence, electricity shooting through your body. He gave a devious smirk to you.

“Oh?” He says pulling into the parking lot. He removes his hand to put the car in park, but then places it back on your leg, this time on your thigh, inching closer to your core. “Well, I bet you taste pretty sweet.” Your eyes were wide as saucers as a blush washed over your face. You shifted your gaze to your hands placed in your lap. Schlatt lifted the hand resting on your thigh before bringing it back down with a soft slap. The sensation shocked you and made you jump, but at the same time turned you on just a tiiiiiiny bit.

“C’mon, I wanna get this over with as fast as possible.”

That was two weeks ago, and since then the teasing only grew more and more common.

You watched as Schlatt set his bags down by the hotel’s door, snapping back to reality.

As Schlatt turned various lights on you couldn’t help but stare at everything in awe. The entry area was huge, with a large table and chairs, and you were envious at how spacious it was. You ran a finger along the hardwood as you followed your friends further into the suite, eyes darting between the expensive looking art on the walls and the wall-mounted television displaying a slideshow of the hotel’s garden.

“Holy shit, look at this bed,” you heard Schlatt call out, turning your attention towards him. He sat down on the edge and bounced a few times, laughing. “Shits not even against the wall and barely squeaks.” He continues laughing as he stands up and beckons Trevor to follow him into the closet and bathroom behind the false wall.

You stayed behind, feet planted in the bedroom and mind racing with naughty thoughts.

“Maybe tonight’s the night.” You mumbled to yourself, shaking your head to rid of the impure images stirring up.

Your small group finished your self guided tour around the room, and Trevor and Schlatt began setting up to film. You separated yourself from the boys, deciding to settle down on one of the soft couches and give your legs a break.

You watched Trevor follow Schlatt around, zooming in on various features that only a rich asshole would think to have. Who the fuck needs a flashlight in a closet? Fucking yuppies.

The filming concluded with the boys clinking together cans of beer, showing off the view from the balcony. You had excused yourself to the hall to make a phone call, checking in with your best friend to let them know you safely made it to the hotel. You knocked on the door, hoping one of the boys would hear you, only to be surprised that Trevor had opened it, his bags in hand.

“Oh! Are you not staying with us? I thought Jay said the three of us would share the room.” You stared up at him with a quizzical look, confused about this deviation from the plan you were informed of. Trevor gave you a sheepish grin, motioning for you to enter the room.

“Nah, I’m staying down the street,” you switch spots with him, you now holding the door open for the man. “Try not to have too much fun. We’ve got an early day with the boys tomorrow.” Trevor winked at you before walking down the hall to the elevator. You let the door shut behind you as you made your way back over to the couch you previously occupied. Schlatt was now sitting there, one leg resting on the table in front of it, phone pulled close to his face as he typed away. You cleared your throat and plopped down next to him.

“Why’d Trevor leave?” You asked him, plopping yourself down next to the man. He looked up from his phone to smile at you, locking the device and setting it on the arm of the couch.

“Oh, he didn’t wanna share a room. Somethin’ ‘bout missin’ his girl, probably gonna jack off on FaceTime with ‘er.” You laughed, a little caught off guard by his response, but also a little distracted by the arm that had come up around your shoulders. The touch made you shiver.

“‘Ya wanna watch a movie or somethin’ doll?” Jay asks. You nod and he brings the remote up, scanning through the channels. The nickname caused the hairs on the back of your neck to stick up. Pet names had been new between you two, and every time he used one, you had to fight the urge to climb onto his lap and shove your tongue down his throat. You crossed one leg over the other and squeezed them tight together, an attempt at self control.

He settles on some shitty 90’s action flick that doesn’t hold your attention. Maybe this was intentional, you thought, pressing yourself closer into his side. You don’t notice the way his breath hitches in his throat at your movement, but you do notice when the arm around your shoulders slinks down, hand now gently resting at your hip. You try to focus on the film playing out, but the tension between you and the man next to you is much more distracting.

About ten minutes in, you feel Schlatt shift. You subtly try to glance over at him, only to be distracted by the growing problem in his lap that he is trying to cover with a pillow. You pretend to not notice what he’s attempting to fix and instead bring a hand up to place on a chest, only to have the large hand on your hip squeeze gently.

“Oh.” Schlatt whispered, and you could feel his heart rate pick up pace under your palm. You swallowed a growing lump in your throat and said a silent prayer before speaking up yourself.

“Is this okay?” You whisper back at him, too nervous to bring your eyes up to his. You feel him nod, his eyes not leaving the television screen, and melt a little more into his side. Your mind was racing, trying to think of something sly to say when he cleared his throat.

“Um… can we… uuhhh…” you look up at him and notice how red his cheeks and ears had gotten, not helping your own growing desire to see this man flustered and falling apart. You took a deep breath and put on a brave face.

“Can we what, Jay?” You ask, hand boldly coming up to rest on his cheek, pulling his attention to you instead of the screen. His eyes flicked from your eyes to lips, then back to your eyes. Okay, maybe we are getting somewhere.

“Would it be weird if we, uhh….” He trailed off, bringing his left hand to rub at the back of his neck. “Cuddled? I guess?” His voice was quiet, almost mouse like. You couldn’t help but giggle at him, motioning for him to move.

“I’d be more that fine with that, Jay.” Your words came out more seductive that you had intended, but as he readjusted himself and the pillow slipped off his lap, you couldn’t help but notice the way his… not-so-little friend twitched.

Once he was settled, you clambered back over to him, tucking yourself into his side. His arm came to rest around you once more, hand placed halfway between your hip and ass.

The two of you returned your eyes back to the television, but it was clear that neither were paying attention to whatever the hell this film was.

About twenty minutes after switching positions, you noticed Schlatt’s hand slowly pushing the hem of your shirt up, fingers ghosting over the skin of your stomach. You squeezed your legs together tightly, crossing your ankles, and couldn’t help but let out a gasp as one of his digits traced over a particular sensitive patch of skin. Your heart began pounding inside your chest, and you started thinking of ways to excuse yourself to go take care of your now soaked panties. You felt Schlatt’s hand rub back over your hip and squeeze, only adding to your problem.

C’mon, you’re a big girl. You can only do this two ways, you thought. Obviously there’s some sort of attraction here if he’s trying to hide his boner and you’re wetter than the fucking sea. Either get up and take a cold shower, possibly making things awkward between you guys, or man the fuck up and make a move, which could also possibly make things awkward between you. You understood that the logical side of you would probably be the better bet and make this less awkward that it needed to be, but the horny side was shouting over the logical, winning this yelling match. It’s been months since anyone’s touched you, and you’ve always wondered what he was like in bed anyways. Grow a pair and make the fucking move. You swallowed hard, kicking your plan into action.

“Schlatt,” your voice wavered nervously.

“Yeah?” His sounded much the same. Now or never.

“Can I…” you trailed off, finding the strength to speak your peace. You sat up, brushing a few strands of hair out of your face, turning to make eye contact with him. This is it, bitch. “Can I… can I try something?” You notice the way his pupils widen and Adam’s apple bob at your words, waiting for a response. He nods, eyes not leaving yours.

Letting your body take control, you swing a leg over his hips, straddling the man before leaning down to whisper in his ear.

“You can stop me at any point,” you flick your tongue over his earlobe, eliciting a small moan from the man, only fueling you. “I won’t be offended.” You feel two large hands latch onto your hips as you begin to place wet kisses down his neck, facial hair tickling your nose. You work your way across his neck, left to right, letting your hands wander under his tee-shirt, slowly pushing the fabric up towards his shoulders. You feel one of his hands leave your hip, and you pull his shirt up a bit as if asking him to take it off. He removes the other hand and obliges, returning them back to your body. You push back a bit to drink this new view in, taking a finger to trace over the patches of hair covering his chest before latching your lips to his collarbone. You continue to work your lips and tongue across his body, only stopping when you feel a hand shake through your hair, tugging it into a makeshift ponytail. You stop, eyes shooting up to his.

“Sweetheart,” his voice is raspy, almost lost. For a moment you’re worried you’ve crossed a line. “This isn’t very fair t’me. Wanna change that?” He tugs up the hem of your shirt as if asking for permission, only for you to whip it over your head before he can do it himself. Before the shirt hits the floor, his hands are grabbing at your chest and you have to thank yourself for not wearing a bra today. He pulls you forward, latching his own lips to your neck now, kissing and licking his way to your nipples while pushing your breasts together. You can’t help but moan as he sucks on the tissue, hands exploring your tits. He pulls his mouth off with a “pop”.

“You have no fuckin’ idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this,” He lets go of your chest, hands snaking down to your thighs. He hoists you up off of his lap briefly before standing himself, now carrying you further into the room. “You’re like a fucking succubus, y’know?” With a few strides, he’s throwing you down onto the bed before reaching down to unzip his shorts. As soon as he undoes the button, you reach out to stop him.

“Wait- can I do that?” Before he can respond, you’re sliding off the bed and sinking down to your knees, hands grabbing at the skin above his knees. You lean forward, eyes locking directly with his, and take the zipper between your teeth, tugging the metal down. His eyes roll back and he moans, as a hand once again grabs ahold of your hair, tugging it back.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re gonna be the death of me.” He mutters, stepping out of the shorts and letting them drop to the floor after pulling your hair, guiding you away to let the garment fall. Before he could get another word in, your hands latch onto the elastic of his boxers as you lick your lips. He tugs on your hair again, pulling you back.

“If I remember correctly, you said my cum probably tastes like battery acid, and yet here you are, desperately begging for my dick,” he sounds smug and has a smirk painting his lips, which is doing nothing but turning you on even more. He pulls you up, still by the hair, before letting go of it and shoving you down on the bed by your shoulders. “I don’t think that’s very fair that you get to make fun of me then try and make me cum, princess. I’ve been starving all day, let me have dessert first, yeah?”

He has one hand fondling your breasts as the other tugs down your leggings, the cold air of the room sending a tingle to your core via the soaked lace thong now exposed to him. He tosses the article of clothing behind him and crouches down to kneel between your legs, whistling at the view.

“Did you wear these for me?” He talks down to you while slipping a finger under the waistband, snapping the elastic against your skin before leaning down to press a kiss to your hip. You whine and buck your hips up, anything to feel some sort of relief. Schlatt chuckles at you, and it sounds pitiful.

“Please, Jay, please.” You whine again, writhing.

“Please, what, doll?” He teases, hot breath hovering by your belly button.

“Please just tou-“ you cut yourself off with a moan, feeling the man in front of you lick a stripe up your slit, facial hair tickling your thighs. Your hands latch onto the thick strands of his hair, pulling him back down to your pussy. You feel him move the thin lace with his teeth before his tongue makes direct contact with your clit. He hums into you, dragging his tongue through your folds before pursing his lips around your clit once again.

You can’t help it when your legs wrap around his head, and from the groans coming from the larger man, he didn’t mind one bit. He brought arm up to hold you down, resting it across your lower stomach, while snaking his other hand between your legs, teasing at your labia before slipping inside you.

“Fuck,” you moaned, throwing your head back. Never in a million years did you think this would become a reality. You had always assumed Schlatt would rather be on the receiving end of head, but here in this moment, you wanted to thank any past lovers of his for teaching him how to use his mouth for something other than snarky comments. “Jay, I- I’m-“ you moaned again, eyes shutting tightly as his fingers curled up inside you just so. You've only just started, but with the stress from the past week of travel, you were coming undone in record time.

“Jus’ fuckin’ cum, needa fuckin’ taste you,” he barked out, barely lifting himself off of you to speak. Between the pressure on your stomach, his long fingers reaching spots you’ve never been able to, along with his tongue and lips on your clit, you couldn’t hold on much longer. You felt a familiar pressure building inside of you, causing you to cry out louder than before.

“I’m gonna- I’m go-,” you felt his tongue pick up speed in tandem with his fingers and you let go, shaking as the most intense orgasm you’ve had in a long while rocked your world. You were crying out, tears spilling from your eyes as he continued his magic, working you through the height of it all. You felt him withdraw his fingers and take a deep breath once your own had steadied out, and you were fearful to make eye contact with him. You settled for staring at his soaked shoulder, following it as he stood up and hovered over you.

“I’m so sorry, Jay I should’ve said something bef-“ you were cut off by his lips crashing into yours, the taste and slick of your arousal very present on his lips and mustache. He pulled back and rested his forehead against yours, and you couldn’t help but finally make eye contact with him. His eyes were half lidded and looked awestruck.

“I coulda’ been makin’ ya’ squirt like that for months? Fuck, I’ve been missing out.” He leaned back in to kiss you again, bringing a sticky hand up to your cheek. You pulled back to take a deep breath before sliding your hand down his chest again and clearing your throat.

“So, um… you want me to give you a blowjob now or…?” You trailed off and Schlatt scoffed, moving your hand to the front of his boxers where a cold wet spot had formed.

“I’m not opposed, but you’re gonna have t’ give me like twenty minutes,” you looked up at him confused before he continued with a sheepish grin. “I came in my boxers the second you started tuggin’ on my hair.”

alright chat, how we feeling about this one??? feedback is always appreciated :))))))

[galaxygolfergirl]

Watcher's Expenses

I didn't major in accounting: I took three classes and it grinded my brain to a fine powder. However, after graduating with a business admin degree, being a former eager fan of their videos, and from a cursory glance over their socials, there's a lot to consider in their spending behavior that really could start racking up costs. Some of these things we've already noticed, but there are other things I'd like to highlight, and I'll try to break it down into the different categories of accounting expenses (if I get something wrong, let me know. I was more concentrated in marketing 🤷‍♀️). I'm not going to hypothesize numbers either, as that would take out more time than I'm willing to afford-- you can assume how much everything costs. Anyways, here's my attempt at being a layman forensic accountant:

Note: All of this is assuming they're operating above board and not engaging in any illegal practices such as money laundering, tax evasion, not paying rent, etc.

Operating Expenses

Payroll: 25+ staff salaries and insurance

Overhead Expenses

CEO/founder salaries

Office space leasing or rent (In L.A, one of the most expensive cities in the US)

Utilities (water, electricity, heating, sanitation, etc.)

Insurance

Advertising Costs

Telephone & Internet service

Cloud Storage or mainframe

Office equipment (furniture, computers, printers, etc.)

Office supplies (paper, pens, printer ink, etc.)

Marketing costs (Social media marketing on Instagram, Youtube, SEO for search engines, Twitter, etc. Designing merchandise and posters, art, etc. )

Human Resources (not sure how equipped they are)

Accounting fees

Property taxes

Legal fees

Licensing fees

Website maintenance (For Watchertv.com, Watcherstuff.com, & Watcherentertainment.com)

Expenses regarding merchandising (whoever they contract or outsource for that)

Inventory costs

Potentially maintenance of company vehicles

Subsequent gas mileage for road trips

Depreciation (pertains to tangible assets like buildings and equipment)

Amortization (intangible assets such as patents and trademarks)

Overhead Travel and Entertainment Costs (I think one of the biggest culprits, evident in their videos and posts)

The travel expenses (flights, train trips, rental cars, etc. For main team and scouts)

Hotel expenses for 7-8 people at least, or potentially more

Breakfasts, lunches and dinners with the crew (whether that's fully on their dime or not, I don't know; Ryan stated they like to cover that for the most part)

Recreational activities (vacation destinations, amusement parks, sporting activities etc.)

The location fees

Extraneous Overhead costs (not sure exactly where these fall under, but another culprit, evident in videos and posts)

Paying for guest appearances

Expensive filming & recording equipment (Cameras, sound equipment, editing software subscriptions, etc.)

The overelaborate sets for Ghost files, Mystery Files, Puppet History, Podcasts etc. (Set dressing: Vintage memorabilia, antiquated tech, vintage furniture, props, etc.)

Kitchen & Cooking supplies/equipment

Office food supply; expensive food and drink purchases for videos

Novelty items or miscellaneous purchases (ex. Ghost hunting equipment, outfits, toys, etc.)

Non-Operating Expenses

These are those expenses that cannot be linked back to operating revenue. One of the most common examples of non-operating expenses is interest expense. This is because while interest is the cost of borrowing money from a creditor or a bank, they are not generating any operating income. This makes interest payments a part of non-operating expenses.

Financial Expenses

Potential loan payments, borrowing from creditors or lenders, bank loans, etc.

Variable Expenses

Hiring a large amount of freelancers, overtime expenditure, commissions, etc.

PR consultations (Not sure if they had this before the scandal)

Extraordinary Expenses

Expenses incurred outside your company’s regular business activities and during a large one-time event or transactions. For example, selling land, disposal of a significant asset, laying off of your employees, unexpected machine repairing or replacement, etc.

Accrued Expenses

When your business has incurred an expense but not yet paid for it.

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

(If there's anything else I'm missing, please feel free to add or correct things)

To a novice or a young entrepreneur, this can be very intimidating if you don't have the education or the support to manage it properly. I know it intimidates the hell out of me and I'm still having to fill in the gaps (again, if I've mislabeled or gotten anything wrong here, please let me know). For the artistic or creative entrepreneur, it can be even harder to reconcile the extent of your creative passions with your ability to operate and scale your business at a sustainable rate. That can lead to irresponsible, selfish, and impulsive decisions that could irreparably harm your brand, which is a whole other beast of its own.

My guess at this point is that their overhead and operation expenses are woefully mismanaged; they've made way too many extraneous purchases, and that they had too much confidence in their audience of formerly 2.93 million to make up for the expenses they failed to cover.

It almost seems as if their internal logic was, "If we make more money, we can keep living the expensive lifestyle that we want and make whatever we want without anyone telling us we can't, and we want to do it NOW, sooner rather than later because we don't want wait and compromise our vision." But as you can see, the reality of fulfilling those ambitions is already compromised by the responsibility of running a business.

And I wrote this in another post here, but I'll state it again: Running a business means you need to be educated on how a business can successfully and efficiently operate. Accounting, marketing, social media marketing, public relations, production, etc; these resources and internet of things is available and at your disposal. If they had invested more time in educating themselves on those aspects and not made this decision based on artistic passion (and/or greed), they would have not gotten the response they got.

Being a graphic designer, I know the creative/passionate side of things but I also got a degree/got educated in business because I wanted to understand how to start a company and run it successfully. If they’re having trouble handling the responsibility of doing that, managing production costs, managing overhead expenses, and especially with compensating their 25+ employees, then they should hire professionals that are sympathetic to their creative interests, but have the education and experience to reign in bad decisions like these.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TedTalk. What a shitshow this has been.

[totheseok]

uh oh?

synopsis: what happens when the daughter of the CEO of a major film company and the son of the president of a successful food company move in next door?

episode 2: cats holding banners

last episode ▪︎ next episode

word count: 924

(italic writing is yn's thoughts)

Taboba had been y/n's absolute favourite boba shop in Seoul, she first discovered it while she was studying abroad. Upon returning home she found out there was ONE outlet in Seoul, which was conveniently just a 10 minute drive from her parents house. But, they were closing down and she was moving to a different part of Seoul, half an hour away from the shop.

Growing up as the daughter of a big-shot movie producer, she was privileged enough to live in one of the expensive neighbourhoods of Seoul, in a big house over-looking the Han river. And though it was true that she was to eventually take over the company her parents wanted her to pave her own way and make her own name in the industry. Granted her heritage would certainly give her a boost in popularity.

She decided one of the first steps to make her own way would be to move into her own space and live by herself. So with the help of friends and family she chose a penthouse apartment for herself in Gangam and bought it (cus wth is rent when ur rich). But thats all irrelevant right now because she's not moving there for another week. Right now what's important is that she just parked her car outside the new boba shop that opened near her new apartment.

Bobobble.

It's a cute name even she cant deny that. She hopes with every atom of her body that the boba is good too. It was also owned by SeoulFoods, a company that sponsored most of SilverWoods' shows and movies, and also catered for their events.

The issue isn't bad boba, the issue is being as good as or topping taboba boba.

Stepping inside, the cafe looked like any other, it was simple, with mood lighting, wooden floors and comfy looking leather seats. But there was one recurring theme. Cats. It wasn't a cat cafe, yet, cute pictures of cats doing stupid things were hung up on the walls, the bookshelf was shaped like a cat, the little plant pots on the table were cats that looked like they had leaves growing out of their heads. Overall, a-lot of cats.

Y/N made her way to the counter and luckily didn't have to wait too long considering it was 11 AM and everyone was either at work or at school, no long lines. She greeted the barista and placed her order, payed for her drink and then chose a table by the window. Good for working and people watching.

Y/n's first mistake today was forgetting her laptop charger at home, but she was already on the highway when she realised and couldn't turn back even if she wanted. Now the question was if her laptop was already charged or if she would open it and it would die in the middle of her editing a scene.

79%. Not bad, good enough to edit at least one scene. She started opening the softwares she needed to work and got started.

Soon enough her drink arrived, paired with a slice of cheesecake. Wait... Cheesecake? YN hadn't ordered any. Her original plan had been to have her drink and order a sandwich if she got hungry a while into working.

Maybe I should ask the server. Luckily for her he was walking by after serving another order.

"Um, excuse me?" She called out.

"Yes, ma'am"

"Uh, I only ordered a drink, i was served cheesecake as well are you sure it isn't someone else's?"

"Ah, yes, it's on the house, our manager said there's a newcomer gift for today, and since it's your first time visiting Bobobble, you qualify for it!"

"Ohh, I see, well um thank you so much!"

"No, problem ma'am, enjoy your meal!"

Newcomer gifts huh? Lets hope this boba is also good because so far I'm liking this place.

YN reached for her cup of bubble tea and immediately noticed logo. A cat holding a banner that said bobobble. Omg cute pls be good i want to come back here.

Bringing the straw to her lips, she took and sip and...

"Holy shit" She whispered to herself.

Looks like bobobble just gained a new and very loyal customer.

In the break room, a barista sat with their phone in front of them, voice recording app open.

"Dear diary, today the owners son Taesan came to overlook the store. He's a chill guy around my age but he's generally pretty quiet. Anyways, around 11 AM a girl walked in with her laptop bag and stuff, she ordered her drink and sat down then started working on whatever it was that she was working on, she was pretty nice but thats not the point

"the issue here is that when i was going to serve her drink, Taesan told me to take some cheesecake for her and tell her it was on the house as a welcome gift for her first time here. I didnt know we were doing one of those so it was news to me but i didn't question it.

"HOWEVER, later another girl came in and i had never seen her before so as i was taking a slice of free cheesecake out for her Taesan stopped me and said he changed his mind? so no more free cheesecake for new people? idk man. my guess is that he thought the other girl was cute. ig we'll just have to wait and see, anyways my break is ending so ill finish this at night when im home"

a/n: pls tell me yall got the chenle reference w the "whats rent when ur rich"

and special thank you to @taesancore for reading it for me before i posted to help me figure stuff out.

taglist (open): @seungzzzz @thvvcut @ywnzn @livelaughlovetaesan @lovelyannoyingcher @blurryriki @xyxlyn @lovandr @lcvehee @sobun1est @roxasrana @loyalsunwoo @luv-y0urself @rosesfortaro @nujeskz @ryunjin0 @milkmilkmalk

bold couldn't be tagged 😔

[octuscle]

I need to take a work trip to Germany, Leipzig to be precise. Should be a nice change from my NYC life.

I guess, your suitcase won't make it to Frankfurt... Then I guess I have to organize a replacement. Damn Airlines!

The only thing I can offer you so spontaneously is an old army backpack from GDR stocks, covered with graffiti tags, stickers and patches. Pretty heavy... And maybe not necessarily suitable for your classic suit… So, take your rucksckand head to the airport train station. Your train to Leipzig will depart in 20 minutes.

Shit, Frankfurt airport is bigger then expected. When you arrive, you thaught, that you missed your train. But luckily, the train is delayed by 15 minutes. Enough time, to relaxe. And for a smoke. You search the side pockets of the backpack. No cigarettes. But tobacco, cigarette paper. And weed. Shit, that could have ended badly at customs...

Ahh, smoking this feels great. I really needed to decompress a bit after this whole travel shitshow. Don't take offense, but a middelaged man in a conservative suit and a classic haircut smoking weed with an army backpack on the platform of the airport station looks a bit special... You have to admit that, too, when you see your reflection in the window panes of the high-speed train rushing in.

No one had told you that you had better have made a seat reservation. The train is packed. Getting a seat is out of the question. With a little luck, you will still get a seat in the dining car. You order a beer (what else in Germany) and check the contents of your backpack. On top of it lies a hat. It looks funny, you put it on. Otherwise, the backpack is not necessarily neatly packed. Everything is stuffed in more like this. There's a MacBook... You open it. And of course you know the password. Feels perfectly normal to open it. As normal as your pierced earlobes feel.

It is a low-coding platform open to any Big Data AI application. You scroll through the application. Sure, the prototype of an app for digitizing queues in doctors' offices. You open the library of useer stories and start developing the app further. A few hours ago, you had no idea about software development.

It's 9:00 p.m. when you look out the window. Gotha train station. Wherever that may be. You are looking at your reflection. Let's see what the others think of the fact that you have let the beard grow out...

The train is half empty by now. You have not even noticed how it has emptied. It's still a good hour to Leipzig. You close the computer. That's it for today. You order another beer and the vegan curry. Actually, you're also in desperate need of a joint. But of course you can't smoke anywhere on this train.

But you take tobacco, weed, cigarette paper and your cigarette case, which you inherited from your grandfather. And while you're waiting for the food, you roll a few joints on reserve. It will be after 11:00 p.m. by the time you arrive at your shared apartment. But you assume that you will sit together until 01:00 or 02:00. Your roommates are all rather night owls....

You don't notice that you're wearing high-laced DocMarten's boots instead of welted penny loafers as you step off the train. You also don't notice that your hair has grown considerably longer and falls tousled under your hat into your forehead... You pause for a moment as you see the tattoos on the back of your hand as you light up a joint to tide you over until the bus leaves. And after asking the bus driver for a ticket to Connewitz, you wonder if you actually just spoke German with quite an American accent.

The elevator in your house is of course defective again. Old building from 1873, last renovated in 1980 or so. That was long before the fall of the Wall in the GDR. But the rent is cheap. And the atmosphere is energetic and creative. When you met Kevin, Lukas and Emma at university five years ago, you were immediately on the same wavelength. Even though you didn't speak a word of German back then. You would never have thought that a semester as an exchange student would turn into a lasting collaboration. The fact that you found an apartment together where you could work on your startup at the same time was a real stroke of luck.

Upstairs in the apartment, Kevin already opens the door for you. As if he had been waiting for you.

„Sieht heute gut aus”, you say with your strange American accent.

Kevin hugs you and answers „Dude, it's good to have you back! We have missed you! Tell me, do you have new tattoos? Looks hot! And did you bring weed from Amsterdam? Our dealer is on vacation... Shitty situation!“

“Of course, i’d never leave you without”, I say, opening up the cigarette case and offering you one of the hand-rolled contents.

Kevin grins. „What do you say we smoke the first one not at the kitchen table but on your bed? I missed you, stud!“

“I’m so tired after this trip, so the bed sounds just right.”

There is nothing left of your suit right now. Yes, you are still from NYC. But you weren't a lawyer then. You studied computer science. And that was a long time ago. Now you are a Leipziger by heart

You both lie on the bed. You take a deep drag. And blow the smoke into Kevin’s mouth with a deep French kiss. The bulge in your skinny jeans looks painful. “Oh man, Kevin, I need some relief!” you growl.

It doesn't take long and we both have the tank tops off. You discover Kevins new nipple piercings. And can't stop playing with them. And Kevins bulge starts to hurt too.

“Man, let me provide some relief”, he says. And open your jeans. Your boner jumps out of your boxers like a jack-in-the-box.

Those new piercings… You just can’t help yourself… You’ve gotta feel them in my mouth! “Are they sensitive? Does it still hurt?” Kevin starts breathing more heavily. “What are you waiting for you prude Yank! They've been waiting for you for two weeks now!” You take a deep drag and blow the smoke over Kevins chest, which you caress with your tongue. Kevin moans “Fuck! You're doing so well! Sure it hurts. It's supposed to. You make me so fucking horny with your tongue! I love your tunnels on the earlobes!. I can not stop playing with them with my tongue.”

Dude, your dick is producing precum like a broken faucet. Kevin starts to massage it into your dick! You take one last drag from the joint, push the butt into the ashtray and blow the smoke over Kevins boner.

While Kevin rubs your hard dick, You begin licking his uncut cock. Damn man, these uncut European cocks will never not surprise you! Oh man, you love how it feels on your tongue.

Kevin doesn't stop breathing heavily, but still has to grin. “Fuck, admit it, you certainly didn't just talk about user interfaces with Milan and Sem in Amsterdam. You did practice your tongue game. Fuck, you know how to bring someone to ecstasy with the tip of your tongue!”

Oh man, Kevins precum just takes so good. You can’t get enough of it. Kevin reads your thoughts. “I want to lick your precum too. Let's make a 69! I need to suck your powerful circumcised cock.”

Yes, please!, you think in ecstasy. You just love how his balls feel in my mouth. And Kevin has fun to. You must have been sweating like a dog on the trip. Your balls are salty, your cock is deliciously cheesy. “Fuck, I can not tell you how I missed you.” Kevin moans.

He always feels so good, just keep going please, you think. His cock is so hard. His precum is spectacular. It’s like you’re in sync — in and out, in and out, in and out. “Fuck, your balls are so huge”, Kevin grunts. “I didn't jerk off all the time you ve been away. My balls are bursting”.

You both are perfectly synchron. Like one organism. “Please cum at the exact moment that I also cum. I want to make this old house shake.”, you think.You can’t wait to make you explode. Kevins moans “I can't take it much longer. Fuck, you are a master with your tongue. Fuck... Oh yeah... Yes! Fuuuuuuuck!”

Oh god! That was heavy. You both really try. But that was too much. Boy, what a load you both shot! Kevins cum is so thick! So potent! You ’ve got my whole mouth full, not able to swallow everything at once. You both exchange a deep French kiss. The cum runs from the corners of your mouths down our cheeks and necks. Kevin licks the cum traces from your skin. And you his. One last kiss, you pull up our pants again. And go to the kitchen with a joint. Lukas and Emma grin. The whole house could listen to you having sex.

“Incredible, as always, Kevin” You tell him, as you pass him the joint. And as if nothing had happened, you ask Emma if she has any new user stories for your app.

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-fi prompt from @thisarenotarealblog:

There's a street near me that has eight car dealerships all on the same lot- i counted. it mystifies me that even one gets enough sales to keep going- but 8?? is there something you can tell me that demystifies this aspect of capitalism for me?

I had a few theories going in, but had to do some research. Here is my primary hypothesis, and then I'll run through what they mean and whether research agrees with me:

Sales make up only part of a dealership's income, so whether or not the dealership sells much is secondary to other factors.

Dealerships are put near each other for similar reasons to grouping clothing stores in a mall or restaurants on a single street.

Zoning laws impact where a car dealership can exist.

Let's start with how revenue works for a car dealership, as you mentioned 'that even one gets enough sales to keep going' is confusing. For this, I'm going to be using the Sharpsheets finance example, this NYU spreadsheet, and this Motor1 article.

This example notes that the profit margin (i.e. the percentage of revenue that comes out after paying all salaries, rent, supply, etc) for a car dealership is comparatively low, which is confirmed by the NYC sheet. The gross profit margin (that is to say, profits on the car sale before salaries, rent, taxes) is under 15% in both sources, which is significantly lower than, say, the 50% or so that one sees in apparel or cable tv.

Cars are expensive to purchase, and can't be sold for much more than you did purchase them. However, a low gross profit margin on an item that costs tens of thousands of dollars is still a hefty chunk of cash. 15% gross profit of a $20,000 car is still $3,000 profit. On top of that, the dealership will charge fees, sell warranties, and offer upgrades. They may also have paid deals to advertise or push certain brands of tire, maintenance fluids, and of course, banks that offer auto loans. So if a dealership sells one car a day, well, that's still several thousand dollars coming in, which is enough to pay the salaries of most of the employees. According to the Motor1 article, "the average gross profit per new vehicle sits at $6,244" in early 2022.

There is also a much less volatile, if also much smaller, source of revenue in attaching a repairs and checkup service to a dealership. If the location offers repairs (either under warranty or at a 'discounted' rate compared to a local, non-dealership mechanic), state inspections, and software updates, that's a recurring source of revenue from customers that aren't interested in purchasing a car more than once a decade.

This also all varies based on whether it's a brand location, used vs new, luxury vs standards, and so on.

I was mistaken as to how large a part of the revenue is the repairs and services section, but the income for a single dealership, on average, does work out math-wise. Hypothesis disproven, but we've learned something, and confirmed that income across the field does seem to be holding steady.

I'm going to handle the zoning and consolidation together, since they overlap:

Consolidation is a pretty easy one: this is a tactic called clustering. The expectation is that if you're going to, say, a Honda dealership to look at a midsize sedan, and there's a Nissan right next door, and a Ford across the street, and a Honda right around the corner, you might as well hit up the others to see if they have better deals. This tactic works for some businesses but not others. In the case of auto dealerships, the marketing advantage of clustering mixes with the restrictions of zoning laws.

Zoning laws vary by state, county, and township. Auto dealerships can generally only be opened on commercially zoned property.

I am going to use an area I have been to as an example/case study.

This pdf is a set of zoning regulations for Suffolk County, New York, published 2018, reviewing land use in the county during 2016. I'm going to paste in the map of the Town of Huntington, page 62, a region I worked in sporadically a few years ago, and know mostly for its mall and cutesy town center.

Those red sections are Commercially Zoned areas, and they largely follow some large stroads, most notably Jericho Turnpike (the horizontal line halfway down) and Walt Whitman Road (the vertical line on the left). The bulge where they intersect is Walt Whitman Mall, and the big red chunk in the bottom left is... mostly parking. That central strip, Jericho Turnpike, and its intersection with Walt Whitman... looks like this:

All those red spots are auto dealerships, one after another.

So zoning laws indicate that a dealership (and many other types of commercial properties) can only exist in that little red strip on the land use map, and dealerships take up a lot of space. Not only do they need places to put all of the cars they are selling, but they also need places to park all their customers and employees.

This is where we get into the issue of parking minimums. There is a recent video from Climate Town, with a guest spot by NotJustBikes. If you want to know more about this aspect of zoning law, I'd recommend watching this video and the one linked in the description.

Suffolk county does not have parking minimums. Those are decided on a town or village level. In this case, this means we are looking at the code set for the town of Huntington. (I was originally looking on the county level, and then cut the knot by just asking my real estate agent mom if she knew where I could find minimum parking regulations. She said to look up e360 by town, and lo and behold! There they are.)

(There is also this arcgis map, which shows that they are all within the C6 subset of commercial districting, the General Business District.)

Furniture or appliance store, machinery or new auto sales - 1 per 500 square feet of gross floor area

Used auto sales, boat sales, commercial nurseries selling at retail - 5 spaces for each use (to be specifically designated for customer parking) - Plus 1 for each 5,000 square feet of lot area

This is a bit odd, at first glance, as the requirements are actually much lower than that of other businesses, like drive-in restaurants (1 per 35 sqft) or department stores (1 per 200 sqft). I could not find confirmation on whether the 'gross floor area' of the dealership included only indoor spaces or also the parking lot space allotted to the objects for sale, but I think we can assume that any parking spaces used by merchandise do not qualify as part of the minimum. Some dealerships can have up to 20,000 gross sqft, so those would require 40 parking spaces reserved solely for customers and employees. Smaller dealerships would naturally need less. One dealership in this area is currently offering 65 cars of varying makes and models; some may be held inside the building, but most will be on the lot, and the number may go higher in other seasons. If we assume they need 30 parking spaces for customers and employees, and can have up to 70 cars in the lot itself, they are likely to have 100 parking spaces total.

That's a lot of parking.

Other businesses that require that kind of parking requirement are generally seeing much higher visitation. Consider this wider section of the map:

The other buildings with comparative parking are a grocery store (Lidl) and a post office (can get some pretty high visitation in the holiday season, but also just at random).

Compare them, then, to the "old town" section of the same town.

There are a handful of public parking areas nearby (lined in blue), whereas the bulk of the businesses are put together along this set of streets. While there is a lot of foot traffic and vehicle passage, which is appealing for almost any business, opening a car dealership in this area would require not only buying a building, but also the buildings surrounding it. You would need to bulldoze them for the necessary parking, which would be prohibitively expensive due to the cost of local real estate... and would probably get shot down in the application process by city planners and town councils and so on. Much easier to just buy land over in the strip where everyone's got giant parking lots and you can just add a few extra cramped lanes for the merchandise.

Car dealerships also tend to be very brightly lit, which hits a lot of NIMBY sore spots. It's much easier to go to sleep if you aren't right next to a glaring floodlight at a car dealership, so it's best if we just shove them all away from expensive residential, which means towards the loud stroads, which means... all along these two major roads/highways.

And if they're all limited to a narrow type of zoning already, they might as well take advantage of cluster marketing and just all set up shop near each other in hopes of stealing one of the other's customers.

As consumers, it's also better for us, because if we want to try out a few different cars from a few different brands, it's pretty easy to just go one building down to try out the Hyundai and see if it's better than a Chevy in the same price group.

(Prompt me on ko-fi!)

[the-most-humble-blog]

🛑 Subscription Fatigue: You Don’t Own Sh-t Anymore

The Great Ownership Heist—And You Paid for It

Once upon a time, when you bought something, it was yours. Forever. No extra fees. No fine print. Just a simple transaction: money exchanged for permanent ownership.

Now? Welcome to Subscription Hell—where you don’t own sh-t anymore, but you sure as hell keep paying for it.

In the last 15 years, corporations have collectively f-cked us over by shifting from selling products to selling access. The goal? Make sure you never actually own anything again.

And somehow, we just let it happen.

📉 The Subscription Takeover: How You Got Trapped

Remember when you bought CDs and they were yours forever? When you bought a game and played it whenever you wanted, without an online connection or a monthly charge? When software didn’t demand a recurring payment just so you could type a damn document?

Those days are dead.

Instead of a one-time purchase, everything is now a rental. ✅ Music? Spotify. Apple Music. Tidal. ✅ Movies? Netflix. Disney+. HBO Max. (Oh wait—it’s just “Max” now because marketing execs are idiots.) ✅ Video Games? Xbox Game Pass. PlayStation Plus. Nintendo Switch Online. ✅ Software? Adobe Creative Cloud. Microsoft 365. Even f-cking calculator apps now have subscriptions.

Everything is locked behind a paywall. And the best part? You never actually own any of it.

💸 You Will Own Nothing—And Pay Monthly for It

We used to buy things. Now we “subscribe.” And this shift wasn’t an accident. It was a slow, calculated effort to make you permanently dependent on corporations.

Think about it:

A one-time purchase = company makes money once.

A subscription model = company makes money forever.

It’s not just greed—it’s financial entrapment.

📌 Want to listen to your favorite music? Too bad—Spotify just removed your favorite album. Pay up or be at the mercy of whatever they decide to keep. 📌 Want to keep using Photoshop? Adobe wants $20 a month for eternity. Cancel? Poof—no access. 📌 Bought a car? Congratulations! Your heated seats now require a f-cking subscription.

Wait. Cars?! Yes.

🚗 BMW’s $18-a-Month Heated Seat Scam: The Final Boss of Greed

If you want a perfect example of how far this bullsh-t has gone, look no further than BMW.

BMW now charges a subscription for heated seats in some of their cars. Yes, you read that right.

The seats are already installed. The heating element is physically there in the car you bought. But unless you pay BMW $18 a month, they won’t let you use it.

Let that sink in.

You own the car. You own the seats. But the company still controls what you can access.

It’s like buying a house and being told you have to pay a subscription to use your own kitchen.

This is the future.

🎮 Gaming: Where You Pay to Rent the Past

Gaming used to be simple. You bought a game. You played it. It was yours. Now? Everything is a f-cking subscription.

🎮 Xbox Game Pass – Pay monthly or lose access. 🎮 PlayStation Plus – Rent your library or watch it vanish. 🎮 Nintendo Switch Online – Oh, you thought you could play old NES games? Pay up.

And it gets worse.

Now, developers release unfinished games and patch them later. Want a full experience? Buy the DLC. Oh, you wanted to actually own the game? Too bad, it’s “live service” now.

In 2004, you could walk into a store and buy Halo 2, a complete game, for $50. In 2024, you spend $70 on a game that isn’t even finished and still get hit with battle passes, microtransactions, and pay-to-win mechanics.

And yet—we just accept it.

📚 Digital Books: You Don’t Even Own the Words Anymore

🚨 Amazon can delete books from your Kindle remotely. This isn’t a conspiracy—it already happened.

In 2009, Amazon literally deleted George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from people’s Kindles without warning. The irony? A dystopian book about government control vanished from devices overnight.

If you “buy” a Kindle book, you’re not actually buying it. You’re purchasing a license to read it.

This means:

If Amazon wants to remove it, they can.

If your account is banned, you lose everything.

If they change the Terms of Service, tough luck.

You don’t own sh-t. You’re just renting access to words on a screen.

💀 Welcome to the Paywall Apocalypse

Subscription fatigue isn’t just annoying. It’s economic warfare.

Everything is now a pay-per-month nightmare, and the endgame is control.

🔴 Digital art? Subscriptions. 🔴 Smart homes? Subscriptions. 🔴 Car features? Subscriptions. 🔴 F-cking TOOTHBRUSHES?! Yes, there’s now a subscription service for toothbrush heads.

The goal is simple: Make sure you never fully own anything again.

🛠️ Can We Fight Back?

Honestly? It’s hard. These companies engineered dependence so well that it’s nearly impossible to escape. But here’s what you can do:

✅ BUY physical media. DVDs, CDs, game cartridges—real sh-t that can’t be deleted remotely. ✅ AVOID auto-renewing subscriptions. Make them work for your money. ✅ Look for one-time purchase alternatives. Stop paying Adobe $600 a year for Photoshop when one-time payment alternatives exist. ✅ Support anti-DRM (Digital Rights Management) products. If a company lets you actually own what you buy, reward them.

We probably can’t stop the subscription model entirely, but we can slow it down by refusing to throw money at companies who abuse it.

🚨 FINAL THOUGHT: THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO OWN ANYTHING—BECAUSE OWNERSHIP IS POWER

Owning something means independence. Owning something means they can’t take it away. Owning something means freedom.

That’s why corporations are systematically stripping away ownership in favor of perpetual payments. They don’t want you to have assets—they want you to have bills.

Welcome to the new world order: 💰 Own nothing. Pay forever.

And the worst part?

We let them do it.

💀 REBLOG if you’re tired of paying for sh-t you should already own. 💬 COMMENT the worst subscription scam you’ve seen. 🥩 LIKE if you miss the days of actually owning things. 🚀 FOLLOW for more savage takes, economic red pills, and the dark truth about the world.

[rentaaasoftware]

Rentaaa is a cloud-based, smart rental management software that provides a cost-effective solution for your rental management & maintenance. We believe in creating cutting-edge solutions that can eliminate the need for vehicle management operations. Contact us at 1300 811 511 and increase your rental business and improve efficiency. Visit our website to know more: https://rentaaa.com/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

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

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

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

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

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

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

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

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

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/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[izzi8bit]

You’ve been doing sprites for a while now. What catalyzed your desire to make a game with that talent?

This is gonna be a doozy. Things are pretty bad on my side of things. I lost my job a year ago and haven't found stable work since. I've got some freelance here and there but I'm more or less living off my savings which are about to run out. I'm applying to places outside of my career but I'm a 34-year-old trans woman with exclusively animation freelance and some teaching experience, which means nothing in sales, fast food, or custom service. I lost my car because my partner parked it in a tow-a-way zone and since I work from home doing freelance I didn't notice til I went to go somewhere and the towing fee had built up beyond the worth of the car. So I'm inexperienced and don't have a car, which basically makes me unemployable. I've done some freelance animation work for some Youtubers but that's only netting me $800 every other month. I did get a "job" at an educational gaming company, but the promised hourly rate wasn't real and they were paying us in stocks of the company. I wasted an embarrassing amount of time on that. Did some pre-vis work for a friend but they still haven't paid me and no longer responding to my messages. I'm pretty depressed. I'm still applying to places left and right but I needed something to do with my time. My partner seeing me in pain sat me down and talked to me about having some kind of project. "Work on that comic idea, learn a new program you wanted to, make that game you always wanted to make, take a class" She knows I'm capable of a lot, even though at this point of time... I've lost myself in all the loss.

So I chose to work on the clown game. I had some assets I made a while ago, updated them, and started learning Unity, got frustrated and a friend suggested Godot. And things clicked. I've got something to live for again. I'm still under financial stress, but at least I'm making something. A friend suggested a Kickstarter, but I can't imagine people would want to give a first-time game dev money to make ANOTHER platformer. So it's mostly just a learning experience. I'm learning a new software, I'm learning a new language (GDscript), and who knows maybe I'll make enough of a game that I can release it and make a little something. Honestly, I just want to get to the point where I have enough content to make a demo for people to play. I've got 2 levels done! And it's only been a month since I started learning. And it's pretty polished for what it is! Long story short, my partner pushed me to learn something new and I'm having a blast making a game. Outside of the stresses and fear, it's the happiest I've been in ages. I love doing it. I just wish I could pay rent.

[thosearentcrimes]

I feel like FOSS should probably split definitively into separate "we would like to make usable free software to empower users to get the most out of their computers and to undercut rent-seeking software companies" and "computer touchers only, normies fuck off" factions, would probably resolve a substantial amount of confusion!

Like, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the latter point of view! It's not like anyone expects guys who work on classic cars or constantly have three motorcycles taken apart in their shed and zero operational ones to do free maintenance for them. Well, ok, maybe their friends and family might, I've never owned a car so I'm not really familiar, but at the very least they shouldn't. Even for ostensibly utilitarian tools, there are hobbyists or specialists whose interests and preoccupations are drastically different from those of general users, and they will develop communities and jargon and so on, and they will feel alienated from (and perhaps even hostile to) the general public, even see themselves as naturally superior because of their deeper understanding of the tool. That's normal and there's basically nothing wrong with it. Power tool guys are like this too I gather.

But it's inconvenient for this conception of the computer, as a niche hobby or skill with its own insular community, to coexist with the concept of FOSS. I'm not a computer toucher myself (though I have them among my friends and family) but I really appreciate that there is this huge community which does insane amounts of work and coordination and it all allows me to use a computer without having to worry about being trapped in Microsoft or Apple or Google's walled gardens, that maintains a lot of software that is competitive with (and sometimes superior to) paid alternatives, and that pays attention to accessibility so that I have this ability without having to learn to be a sysadmin (and in fact with less effort and specialized knowledge than making Windows usable would take, though I do also have the aforementioned computer touchers who I can ask for help in a pinch). It is an immense boon to my life and I think it would be one to a lot of people currently stuck using proprietary software and hating every minute of it. If that's someone reading, then trust me, it's not that tricky, for the most part it just works and it's really user friendly these days.

The problem is that when both of these groups can be identified as "FOSS" and run in the same circles and have the same culture to the point of being indistinguishable (and in some cases, the same person but on a good/bad day), the former group are inundated with normies and the latter group are starved of new users, on account of how the aforementioned normies take one look at FOSS, see someone who seems personally aggrieved that they have dared to use a computer, and retreat to the walled garden.

Also if installing that program really had been just a matter of running three console commands in sequence it would have been easy to make an "executable" shell script, right, but it's not that simple is it. There's actually a lot of complexities involved (python environment) that make it impossible to reliably just run three commands in sequence and get it working, aren't there. Complexities that might frustrate someone used to simple executables, perhaps. The developer is not obligated to do the impossible and manage builds for every environment for a random side project they're sharing out of good will, and the user shouldn't be a pissy bitch about the way things are without having any idea of why they are that way, obviously. Ideally people would be taught what computer is and how to use it.

[hobartsaglet]

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