#creative commons zero

[daily-public-domain]

Day 427: Car tracks

link

–These images are part of the public domain, meaning you can do anything you want with them! (you could even sell them as a shirt, poster or whatever, no need to credit them!)–

[kommabortsig]

Myiozetetes_cayanensis.jpg

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

Getty 博物館以 CC0 釋出八萬八千件以上藝術圖 in Chinese(中文)

PS. 蓋帝圖像 Getty Images 無與倫比的免版稅圖像庫，尋找使客戶產生共鳴的完美照片檔、向量圖形或插圖。

在1995年由蓋蒂家族出身的馬克·蓋蒂與強納生·克萊因共同創立，總部位於���國西雅圖。此公司存有8千萬張圖像和插畫，還儲存有超過5萬小時的錄影。其業務主要針對三大市場——創意專業人士（廣告和平面設計）、媒體（紙質和網絡）和團體（內部設計、營銷和通信部門）。

主要子公司 PhotoDisc、Tony Stone、Hulton Getty、Jupiterimages。 華蓋創意（北京）圖像技術有限公司（Getty Images China）是視覺中國的全資子公司，是Getty Images的合資公司。

Getty Images在全世界擁有分發辦公室，並使用網際網路和CD-ROM作為分發的管道。Getty Images收購其他的老牌圖片公司和存檔時，將內容數位化，使其可通過網絡購買。Getty Images擁有一家很大的商業網站，使客戶可在上面搜索瀏覽圖片，購買使用權和下載圖片，價格根據目標圖片選擇的解析度和使用權不同。該公司也為團體客戶提供定製的圖片服務，同時亦為各中小型甚至大型企業提供照片靈感。

and

CC0 即是「Creative Commons Zero」創用CC授權，簡單而言是就是作品的創作者及持有人，都不會擁有作品的版權的所有權，作品成為公共使用領域的公有財產，意味任何人都可利用該作品於私人及商業用途，二次創作當然也不受限制。

公眾領域- CC Taiwan - CC 台灣社群

They’ve released not just digitized works of art, but also a great many art history texts and art books in general. Just this week, they announced an expansion of access to their digital archive, in that they’ve made nearly 88,000 images free to download on their Open Content database under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). That means “you can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.”

88,000 new free images just dropped, to use however you like.

[thebookewyrme]

Into the World of OER

Some notes from my first foray into OER as a professional specialist.

As part of my new job at FLVC, I’m diving into the world of OER (Open Educational Resources). I’ve had some training on things like Creative Commons licensing in school, and dealt with some OER resources for patrons, as well as working to publish my own research Open Access as much as possible. But I am getting much more granular into the issues and nuances of OER now during my training and as I…

[alicewav]

yay! 700 is a fun number so I wanted to do something special, thank you so so much, for this I’d like for all participants to take their own fun creative liberties! Zero rules so any kind of works involving courier do count or feel free to add your own ocs any narrative

Prizes

1st place full body work w color, with as many characters and details/background as you ask

2nd place full body work w color one character, with as details/background as you ask

3rd one common full body with color one character or two characters depending on complexity

Deadline is June 2nd

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Gandersauce

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for<p>placehold://://er </p> my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in AUSTIN on MONDAY (Mar 10). I'm also appearing at SXSW and at many events around town, for Creative Commons and Fediverse House. More tour dates here.

It's true that capitalists by and large hate capitalism – given their druthers, entrepreneurs would like to attain a perch from which they get to set prices and wages and need not fear competitors. A market where everything is up for grabs is great – if you're the one doing the grabbing. Less so if you're the one whose profits, customers and workers are being grabbed at.

But while all capitalists hate all capitalism, a specific subset of capitalists really, really hate a specific kind of capitalism. The capitalists who hate capitalism the most are Big Tech bosses, and the capitalism they hate the most is techno-capitalism. Specifically, the techno-capitalism of the first decade of this century – the move fast/break things capitalism, the beg forgiveness, not permission capitalism, the blitzscaling capitalism.

The capitalism tech bosses hate most of all is disruptive capitalism, where a single technological intervention, often made by low-resourced individuals or small groups, can upend whole industries. That kind of disruption is only fun when you're the disruptor, but it's no fun for the disruptees.

Jeff Bezos's founding mantra for Amazon was "your margin is my opportunity." This is a classic disruption story: I'm willing to take a smaller profit than the established players in the industry. My lower prices will let me poach their customers, so I grow quickly and find more opportunities to cut margins but make it up in volume. Bezos described this as a flywheel that would spin faster and faster, rolling up more and more industries. It worked!

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/10/at-amazon-the-flywheel-effect-drives-innovation/

The point of that flywheel wasn't the low prices, of course. Amazon is a paperclip-maximizing artificial intelligence, and the paperclip it wants to maximize is profits, and the path to maximum profits is to charge infinity dollars for things that cost you zero dollars. Infinite prices and nonexistent wages are Amazon's twin pole-stars. Amazon warehouse workers don't have to be injured at three times the industry average, but maiming workers is cheaper than keeping them in good health. Once Amazon vanquished its competitors and captured the majority of US consumers, it raised prices, and used its market dominance to force everyone else to raise their prices, too. Call it "bezosflation":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

We could disrupt Amazon in lots of ways. We could scrape all of Amazon's "ASIN" identifiers and make browser plugins that let local sellers advertise when they have stock of the things you're about to buy on Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/10/view-a-sku/

We could hack the apps that monitor Amazon drivers, from their maneuvers to their eyeballs, so drivers had more autonomy and their bosses couldn't punish them for prioritizing their health and economic wellbeing over Amazon's. An Amazon delivery app mod could even let drivers earn extra money by delivering for Amazon's rivals while they're on their routes:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

We could sell Amazon customers virtual PVRs that let them record and keep the shows they like, which would make it easier to quit Prime, and would kill Amazon's sleazy trick of making all the Christmas movies into extra-cost upsells from November to January:

https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D54P00007nmv9XSAQ/why-arent-all-the-christmas-movies-available-through-prime-its-a-pandemic-we-are-stuck-at-home-please-add-the-oldies-but-goodies-to-prime

Rival audiobook stores could sell jailbreaking kits for Audible subscribers who want to move over to a competing audiobook platform, stripping Amazon's DRM off all their purchases and converting the files to play on a non-Amazon app:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

Jeff Bezos's margin could be someone else's opportunity…in theory. But Amazon has cloaked itself – and its apps and offerings – in "digital rights management" wrappers, which cannot be removed or tampered with under pain of huge fines and imprisonment:

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

Amazon loves to disrupt, talking a big game about "free markets and personal liberties" – but let someone attempt to do unto Amazon as Amazon did unto its forebears, and the company will go running to Big Government for a legal bailout, asking the state to enforce its business model:

https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-bezos-opinion-trump-market-liberty-97a7d8113d670ec6e643525fdf9f06de

You'll find this cowardice up and down the tech stack, wherever you look. Apple launched the App Store and the iTunes Store with all kinds of rhetoric about how markets – paying for things, rather than getting them free through ads – would correct the "market distortions." Markets, we were told, would produce superior allocations, thanks to price and demand signals being conveyed through the exchange of money for goods and services.

But Apple will not allow itself to be exposed to market forces. They won't even let independent repair shops compete with their centrally planned, monopoly service programs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

Much less allow competitors to create rival app stores that compete for users and apps:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

They won't even refurbishers re-sell parts from phones and laptops that are beyond repair:

https://www.shacknews.com/article/108049/apple-repair-critic-louis-rossmann-takes-on-us-customs-counterfeit-battery-seizure

And they take the position that if you do manage to acquire a donor part from a dead phone or laptop, that it is a felony – under the same DRM laws that keep Amazon's racket intact – to install them in a busted device:

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

"Rip, mix, burn" is great when it's Apple doing the ripping, mixing and burning, but let anyone attempt to return the favor and the company turns crybaby, whining to Customs and Border Patrol and fed cops to protect itself from being done unto as it did.

Should we blame the paperclip-maximizing Slow AI corporations for attempting to escape disruptive capitalism's chaotic vortex? I don't think it matters: I don't deplore this whiny cowardice because it's hypocritical. I hate it because it's a ripoff that screws workers, customers and the environment.

But there is someone I do blame: the governments that pass the IP laws that allow Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other tech giants shut down anyone who wants to disrupt them. Those governments are supposed to work for us, and yet they passed laws – like Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – that felonize reverse-engineering, modding and tinkering. These laws create an enshittogenic environment, which produces enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

Bad enough that the US passed these laws and exposed Americans to the predatory conduct of tech enshittifiers. But then the US Trade Representative went slithering all over the world, insisting that every country the US trades with pass their own versions of the laws, turning their citizens into an all-you-can-steal buffet for US tech gougers:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/31/hall-of-famer/#necensuraninadados

This system of global "felony contempt of business-model" statutes came into being because any country that wanted to export to the USA without facing tariffs had to pass a law banning reverse-engineering of tech products in order to get a deal. That's why farmers all over the world can't fix their tractors without paying John Deere hundreds of dollars for each repair the farmer makes to their own tractor:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

But with Trump imposing tariffs on US trading partners, there is now zero reason to keep those laws on the books around the world, and every reason to get rid of them. Every country could have the kind of disruptors who start a business with just a little capital, aimed directly at the highest margins of these stupidly profitable, S&P500-leading US tech giants, treating those margins as opportunities. They could jailbreak HP printers so they take any ink-cartridge; jailbreak iPhones so they can run any app store; jailbreak tractors so farmers can fix them without paying rent to Deere; jailbreak every make and model of every car so that any mechanic can diagnose and fix it, with compatible parts from any manufacturer. These aren't just nice things to do for the people in your country's borders: they are businesses, massive investment opportunities. The first country that perfects the universal car diagnosing tool will sell one to every mechanic in the world – along with subscriptions that keep up with new cars and new manufacturer software updates. That country could have the relationship to car repairs that Finland had to mobile phones for a decade, when Nokia disrupted the markets of every landline carrier in the world:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/03/friedmanite/#oil-crisis-two-point-oh

The US companies that could be disrupted thanks to the Trump tariffs are directly implicated in the rise of Trumpism. Take Tesla: the company's insane valuation is a bet by the markets that Tesla will be able to charge monthly fees for subscription features and one-off fees for software upgrades, which will be wiped out when your car changes hands, triggering a fresh set of payments from the next owner.

That business model is entirely dependent on making it a crime to reverse-engineer and mod a Tesla. A move-fast-and-break-things disruptor who offered mechanics a tool that let them charge $50 (or €50!) to unlock every Tesla feature, forever, could treat Musk's margins as their opportunity – and what an opportunity it would be!

That's how you hurt Musk – not by being performatively aghast at his Nazi salutes. You kick that guy right in the dongle:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/26/ursula-franklin/#franklinite

The act of unilaterally intervening in a market, product or sector – that is, "moving fast and breaking things" – is not intrinsically amoral. There's plenty of stuff out there that needs breaking. The problem isn't disruption, per se. Don't weep for the collapse of long-distance telephone calls! The problem comes when the disruptor can declare an end to history, declare themselves to be eternal kings, and block anyone from disrupting them.

If Uber had been able to nuke the entire taxi medallion system – which was dominated by speculators who charged outrageous rents to drivers – and then been smashed by driver co-ops who modded gig-work apps to keep the fares for themselves, that would have been amazing:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/21/contra-nihilismum/#the-street-finds-its-own-use-for-things

The problem isn't disruption itself, but rather, the establishment of undisruptable, legally protected monopolies whose crybaby billionaire CEOs never have to face the same treatment they meted out to the incumbents who were on the scene when they were starting out.

We need some disruption! Their margins are your opportunity. It's high time we started moving fast and breaking US Big Tech!

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/2025/03/08/turnabout/#is-fair-play

[thenationofzaun]

Arcane Season 2: Episode 7 rant

"Arcane Season 2 may have been rushed but episode 7 was the best of the series!" "Arcane 2x7 was so beautiful and the closest to Season 1's vibes!" "Episode 7 was the only good part of Season 2!"

Anyway, Episode 7 was terrible and here's why:

- Multiverses are a sign of creative bankruptcy. Leave shit like that for fanfiction. Or at the very least, non-canon supplementary material. Highjacking an entire episode of the FINAL act for an AU "what if?" in an already rushed and overstuffed season was an idiotic choice. They essentially left only 2 episodes for Act 3 to resolve a multitude of different plotlines, character arcs, and relationships. All for "alternate timeline" drivel that caters to the lowest common denominator.

- The Piltover/Zaun conflict resolution shown in this episode is incredibly insulting. The way a show writer explains it (1:49:00), Vi's death and martyrdom makes people from both cities reevaluate their lives and come together to build a better future. This is implied by Marcus's devastated face when he finds Powder crying over Vi's dead body. This tragedy apparently made Piltover see the error of their ways and decide to turn over a new leaf. In this timeline, Silco also found the apology letter Vander wrote him and forgave Vander. Let's break down why this is insulting. The very first scene of the series shows enforcers brutally killing Zaunites on the bridge without any remorse, and in front of their children. When the kids blow up Jayce's lab, the enforcers chase them down and attempt to arrest them, despite them being kids. Later, Marcus and his enforcers ruthlessly abuse and threaten Zaunites while looking for the children, whom he refers to as "four sump rats". Piltover's Council have no problem with this, as every single one of them bar Heimerdinger urges the enforcers to "turn the Undercity upside down". Marcus later throws Vi into a horrible dark shithole of a prison where she is tortured for years while he lives a cushy life as Sheriff in Piltover. Yeah. So the idea that the death of one "sump rat" would make this 200-year old corrupt, classist, authoritarian and evil government who, up till now, have never given a single fuck about the children of Zaun, turn a new leaf is laughable. Remember when Aang suggested showing Firelord Ozai baby photos to make him good again and everyone rightfully laughed at him? How is a show for 7 year olds more mature than this so-called adult show? This isn't even touching how offensive it is that the lesbian kid's death makes the world a paradise. It was not intentionally homophobic as this plotline was the lesbian writer, Amanda Overton's idea (she said so in the video I linked). But lesbian writer or not, intentional or not, this shit is so sloppy and insulting. Embarrassing that she didn't realize how this would come across in the show.

- People like this episode for Ekko/Jinx shipping fanservice, but their relationship isn't even explored in the main story. This girl Ekko is making out with isn't Jinx. She has been stripped of everything unique about Jinx that actually make her who she is. This is Powder, who's somehow perfectly sane and normal, who has fuckall to do with the Jinx we actually know. Ekko's relationship with our Jinx has zero organic or believable development. He never reacts to her becoming a symbol for Zaun. He never reacts to his Firelight lieutenant's change of heart towards Jinx. He and all the Firelights just suddenly have no problem teaming up with Jinx despite her spending years murdering them and their friends. Jinx never even spared a single thought for Ekko throughout the entire show. She blows him up in 1x07, then never mentions nor thinks about him again until 2x09. If she thinks he's dead, she sure shows zero guilt about it. She doesn't seem to give a fuck about that boy lol. The writers did not have the talent to explore the complexities of this relationship within the main universe, so they crafted a convenient alternate universe where nothing went wrong and absolutely nothing too dark or complicated stands in the way of an Ekko/Jinx romance. Because who needs writing that actually grapples with the complexity of a broken friendship and two people who have hurt each other irreparably, when you can just make them kiss in an uncomplicated, unchallenging, unserious lighthearted AU? This is supposed to be the tragic romance everyone's raving about? "Ekko/Jinx would work so well if Jinx wasn't Jinx and was a completely different character😍" Lol.

- "Didn't he try to kill you?!" Who are you talking to Ekko? If you are talking to Silco, then this is a massive plot hole. Ekko shouldn't know that Vander tried to kill Silco. According to Season 1, that shit took place in the far past and Vander never told anyone about it, owing to the fact that the kids had no idea who Silco was. Season 2 retcons that and says that Vander tried to kill Silco after the bridge incident and the kids all knew Silco, which is a blatant plot hole that contradicts Season 1. If Ekko's talking to Vander and Silco just assumed he was talking to him, that makes a bit more sense. But it doesn't explain why none of the characters question why this kid who's known them for years is asking bizarre offensive questions that he should already know the answers to. Instead of "the greatest thing we can do in life is find the power to forgive" corny ass bullshit line, Silco should have said "Excuse me? We've been together for years and you've never had an issue before. Why bring up such a thing now? Is there something wrong, Ekko?" Same goes for Powder forgiving Ekko so quick after the horribly offensive shit he said to her for no reason, that he didn't give any explanation for ("Vi's dead? Was it you??!!!").

- Powder being revealed to still have the Hex crystals at the end of the episode. Let me get this straight: Powder accidentally drops a Hex crystal that explodes the building. This gets Vi killed. Enforcers arrive at the scene and find all the kids. Presumably, they know that the kids were there robbing the place. They never search the kids and confiscate the other crystals from Powder? What do they even think caused the explosion? Do they never investigate? Why are the remnants of the exploded crystal STILL embedded into the wall for Ekko to find? If the enforcers found it, they would surely have removed it right? You mean to tell me they either knowingly left that extremely dangerous shit there, or they never even found them in the first place? 100/10 logic.

- Powder being a perfectly healthy and sane girl despite growing up in Zaun, witnessing the death of her parents, and inadvertently causing the death of her beloved sister (remember, it was Powder who accidentally dropped the crystal which then exploded). This is a Powder who was already very insecure, already being belittled by Mylo, and already desperately attached to her sister. Powder who was already having hallucinations on the bridge as a toddler, and then in episode 3 when she's left alone in the Last Drop, before accidentally killing Mylo and Claggor. You're telling me this Powder accidentally kills HER SISTER VI, and she grows up fine with no guilt? Her guilt over killing Mylo and Claggor was crippling. You could argue that Mylo learned the error of his ways and comforted Powder, no one disparagingly called her a "jinx" ever again, and everyone raised her with love. Except...... Silco did all of those things in Season 1, and she still struggled with guilt and psychosis. Damn, I guess it really was The Big Bad Man at the root of all her mental health problems. Fuck complex gray writing I guess. Season 1 shows us that she already had hallucinations as a small child and in episode 3 before the deaths of Mylo and Claggor. But here in this AU she has none? I guess there really were anti-psychotic drugs and therapy in Piltover all along, which they generously shared with the sump rat who exploded a building instead of throwing her in jail like their pre-character assassination Season 1 selves would have done. And Vander, Silco, Mylo, and Claggor all somehow gained amazing skills at raising a traumatized mentally ill child riddled with guilt from accidentally killing her sister, and their combined efforts with the help of Piltovian Mental Health Awareness campaigns cured all of Powder's mental problems. Hurrah.

- Heimerdinger's pointless death that nobody ever mentions or cares about ever again. Jayce and Viktor never find out about it. He was their mentor for years. The character assassination of Heimerdinger in general was insane. In Season 1, he was staunchly against the Hexcore and wanted to destroy it, citing the devastating Rune Wars that he is a traumatized survivor of. Just seeing the Hexcore was enough to give him flashbacks. He pointed out the danger of the Hextech gemstone. He was booted off the Council by Jayce, which was a huge dramatic betrayal, and prompted him to travel to the Undercity and face the product of his failings as a ruler. And in Season 2? He never reacts to the Council's death who were bombed WITH THE HEXTECH GEMSTONE. Three of his colleagues fucking died and he's cracking shitty jokes. (Who even found it funny when Heimerdinger snuck into the lab then kept dropping shit and saying "ball sockets!" Who is this humour for? Three year olds?) He doesn't have any opinions on Jayce using the Hexcore, the thing he was so terrified of, to save Viktor's life. His reaction to Viktor now being fused with the Hexcore is non-existent. He and Jayce never discuss the betrayal nor the Council nor the current political situation between Piltover and Zaun. Viktor ascends to godhood and looks very reminiscent of the destructive mages in Heimer's flashbacks, but Heimer never reacts to this either. What a fucking waste. His death in episode 7 was contrived and meaningless.

- Mage Viktor letting Jayce suffer and go insane for weeks surviving off scraps, then walk for miles and climb up to the top of the Hexgate on a broken leg, all to meet Mage Viktor anyway. Why didn't this mf just immediately reveal himself to Jayce, tell him everything, help him up to the top of the Hexgate and show him all the petrified bodies, and give him the Mercury Hammer? He needed Jayce to do all that shit by himself because? I swear Mage Viktor's convoluted time-travelling plan makes less sense the more you think about it.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

„But what if a kid identifies as a cat?“, used as an argument against trans rights, feels like the type of argument you’re not really supposed to think about - because if you do, it falls apart really quickly. 

I think it’s supposed to evoke some horrible mental image of doctors operating on a toddler to turn them into a kitten or kids using the litterbox and eating cat food or something. In some sort of „If we allow a child to choose their own pronouns and name and put on clothes they’re happy in, we will also have to allow that“ way. 

But what exactly are we talking about here? A kid playing pretend that they are a cat? In that case, that’s just ridiculous. There’s zero comparability between that and being transgender. Kids pretending to be cats (or pirates or vampires or horses or trees or horse-trees who are also pirate-vampires.. young kids come up with wonderfully creative in-game universes!) are just tiny humans playing games. That is an important part of childhood that helps them develop valuable skills like empathy, creativity and problem-solving, and doctors are aware of this. They’re not suddenly going to prescribe kitty hormones to kids for going through a very very common developmental phase. 

Plus, I don’t think kids really routinely ask for that either. I’m sure there are individual anecdotes of kids actually trying out the litterbox while playing cats (even if it’s just to provoke a reaction from adults, which is also a normal way kids learn and explore) - but kids who play pretend that they are a cat do not persistently identify as a cat. They do not have an enduring inner feeling that they genuinely are a cat or should be a cat. They do not want to persistently be treated as a cat. As soon as the game is over, they’ll step out of character. That’s more comparable to putting on Halloween costumes than to being trans. 

So, are we talking about kids who genuinely and persistently have the inner feeling of being a cat? Well, in that case.. doctors also wouldn’t operate on the kid. Maybe we could help the kid feel more comfortable by letting them choose a name that feels more cat-appropriate or in other ways changing how we talk about them. We could help the kid find safe ways to express what they feel. But that would be all. There is no approved surgery for that. That just isn’t a thing right now. 

And if it ever becomes a thing, well, I’d guess that’d only be the case if a lot of scientists and doctors agreed that there is 1. ample demand for such a surgery and 2. a greatly improved quality of life for the patients undergoing the surgery and 3. a way to perform such a surgery where the benefits outweigh the risks, and if all that is given, I’d be all in favor of it. It’d be weird to be against a potentially lifesaving treatment, just because it’s for something you may not fully understand. 

But that’s hypothetical, of course. Using a made-up surgery to somehow argue against trans rights is just plain silly. So now we are left with… what exactly? The mental image of a kid realizing something about themselves that we may not relate to? The mental image of a kid asking us to respect the way they feel, even if it may be a rare experience? 

I don’t think that’s such a horrible image at all. Certainly not one to be so scared of that we should punish trans kids for it. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[lenore-d0ve]

How I would have fixed Bianca Di Angelo's Character

First of all Bianca is a character who has very little actual personality or backstory, I'm afraid ultimately she is just another age old case of a woman being killed in order to further a man's story.

So to fix her(and give her an actual character) I would do the below:

1.Make her older!

• I would make her 14, a few months older than Percy(specifically born on June 9th 1932, idk why but I feel like it fits her) seeing as Bianca being 12 logically makes zero sense in the context of her story. Making her older would in turn make her choice to join the hunters, make Artemis's decision to let her become a hunter and zoë's decision to let her join the quest all less stupid. Her being older would also make her the second choice for the prophecy, above Percy. It also just fits with what little character she has to be older.

2. ACTUALLY GIVE HER A PERSONALITY!!!

• Something that has always deeply annoyed me is that she has no personality! We're clearly meant to be devastated by her death but we know so little about her that her death doesn't really invoke any emotion. When we look at the Greek big 3 kids personality's in all honesty she and Percy have a lot more in common than Percy and Thalia or Bianca and Nico, so l'd hone in on that, id point out their similarities(though I wouldn't make her basically female Percy, there's already enough of that in this fandom), make her happy, make her gloomy, make her apathetic, just make her something!

3. Expand more on her powers and what they would have been had she not died.

• I wouldn't make her show off too much as to not give away the surprise of her and Nicos father but l'd definitely give her something. I saw once in a fanfic that her powers were to control the rivers of the underworld and do things like turn any water into a river of the underworld and I quite liked it and thought it was creative.

4. Don't make Bianca's entire character revolve around Nico!

• Bianca's character completely and utterly revolves around Nico, it's always 'oh Nico this' and 'Nico that' like please shut up!

Why is Bianca 'mothering' Nico at all??? For the first 9/13 years of their life's they lived with their mother and all the other parts were in the casino; where they had their every need taken care of, and their school; where Bianca and Nico probably weren’t even around one another very often!; they both also mainly grew up in fascist Italy(an extremely misogynistic place & time mind you) so even with that(Especially with that) it makes no sense why Bianca would be ‘mothering’ Nico(honestly nico would most likely been raised and expected to protect and take care of her!)

—

This is less of a fix and more of a silly headcanon but I’d have her steal 6 friendship bracelets from the gift shop whilst at the National Air and Space Museum. One for Percy, one for Thalia, one for Zoë, one for Grover, one for Nico and one for herself(she got one for Nico because even whilst caught up in becoming a hunter she had noticed that Nico was sad, most likely from feeling left out, so she got him a bracelet so when she came home she could give it to him and he wouldn’t feel so left out anymore). When she dies she takes her and Nicos bracelets with her. They never find either bracelets. Percy, Thalia and Grover have never taken the bracelets off.

—

Anyways if you have any other suggestions or thoughts please let me know!

(This has been sitting in my drafts for a WHILE now😭)

(Also sorry if this is hard to read!!!)

[neobastard]

ableism is shockingly common in the neopets community, especially with the release of today's chapter. it was bad enough that certain groups reacted negatively to the library faerie being a wheelchair user despite us previously never seeing the lower half of her body. but now that tavi's been revealed to have lost her leg up to the joint in a climbing accident i've seen some really nasty comments regarding it.

someone saying they "take issue with too much of our real world bleeding into our make-believe one" especially is so incredibly callous. are disabled people suddenly excluded from escapism in fantasy because this person can't stand to be taken out of their fantasy where everyone is like them?

and trying to smokescreen blatant ableism with "well i'm just worried about the creator of the design! they probably weren't asked about these changes and i'd be pretty upset if someone changed my character to be a cripple- i mean disabled!" is honestly even more pathetic. even if TNT did create new disabled characters instead of being creative with minor characters that had zero plot relevance (or even art of their lower half in the case of the library faerie), they probably wouldn't be well received by these people either. insert obligatory "you just changed/made this character to check a representation box" comment that would happen whether it was an existing character or a brand new one.

i'm honestly disgusted with this kind of response, especially given how well baelia and ozzy's mental disabilities/disorders were received. baelia was already a metaphor for a lot of things, one of which being chronic illness and disability given her inability to fly or use magic. so why is the reintroduction of two (2) physically disabled characters who had no relevance before this plot such a grievance to people?

[daily-public-domain]

Day 426: Daphia pulex

link

–These images are part of the public domain, meaning you can do anything you want with them! (you could even sell them as a shirt, poster or whatever, no need to credit them!)–

[arminthada]

About TOSAA (Thai On-Screen Actor Association)

On February 24, Thai media reports that actors and actresses in Thailand has established TOSAA - Thai On-Screen Actor Association with the purpose and announced the first/current board of members.

Nat Kitcharit - President Works: Fast and Feel Love, 4 Kings, 4 Kings II, In Youth We Trust, Delete, I Told Sunset About You...

Nonkul Chanon Santinatornkul - 1st Vice President Works: Bad Genius, I Feel You Linger In The Air, 46 Days, The Revenge, 23:23, Operation Undead, Wannabe, Remember, Project S: Shoot! I Love You...

Ud Awat Ratanapintha - 2nd Vice President / International Coordination Division Works: Doi Boy, Operation Undead, Haunted Universities 3, Doctor Climax, Project S: SPIKE, Hormones The Series...

Aelm Bhumibhat Thavornsiri - Secretary Works: Spare Me Your Mercy, In Youth We Trust, Tomorrow and I, The Broken Us, Mom's Recipe, Nakorn-Sawan, The Up Rank, Khun Phan 3, Girl From Nowhere 2...

Ek Thaneth Warakulnukro - Advisor Works: Thai Cave Rescue, Hurts Like Hell, In Family We Trust, Tee Shot: Ariya Jutanugarn, Bad Genius, One For The Road...

Sine Inthira Jaroenpura - Spokesperson / PR Division Works: By the Time It Gets Dark, Nang Nak, 4 Kings II, Taklee Genesis, The Unborn, The House, Absolute Zero...

Oh Anuchit Sapanpong - Spokesperson / PR Division Works: Malila: The Farewell Flowers, The Overture, Kahon Maha Ratuek (Inspector Vedas), Thicha...

Donut Manatsanun Panlertwongskul - International Coordination / Special Actitivities Division Works: Thai Cave Rescue, The Edge of Daybreak, Rivalry...

Meng Chaiwat Chartsuriyakiat - Special activities Division Works: In Youth We Trust, Khun Phan 3... Meng is the drummer for Thai rock band Desktop Error.

Jaii Itkron Pungkiatrussamee - Director Works: In Youth We Trust, 4 Kings, 4 Kings II, The Cliche, The Stone... Jaii is the lead vocalist and guitarist of the Thai modern folk rock band TaitosmitH.

Linn Mashannoad Suvanamas - Director / Treasurer Works: Queendom, Voice In The Rain, Investigation of Love, Sampat Ruttikan, Lhong Fai, Mr. Hurt...

Best Nathasit Kotimanuswanich - Director Works: My Sassy Girl, Friend Zone, Friend Zone 2, Dark App, Sleepless Society: Insomnia, Fleet Of Time, Ghost Is All Around, Alone In Outing...

Mook Minrayaporn Somnongkham - Registrar Mook is an event planner and organiser at Bhorncheewaa Entertainment.

Although the official board has only been announced very recently, the association released its first statement on the objectives of the establishment of TOSAA in March 2024. Essentially, the main purpose is to gather Thai actors in any mediums such as feature films, documentaries, dramas or series with a common goal of creating professional standards for actors, facilitate an environment for exchange and development and be one of the driving forces that pushes Thai industry to the global standard.

Throughout the year of 2024, TOSAA hosted their series Monologue talks and roundtables between actors, similar to the format of Variety's Actors on Actors and The Hollywood Reporter's Roundtable.

1. Aelm Bhumibhat Thavornsiri and Pat Chayanit (EP 1 & EP 2)

2. Sine Inthira and Namfon Kullanat (EP 3 & EP 4)

3. Noi Pru, Jaii TaitosmitH, Nat Kitcharit (EP 5 & EP 6)

4. Monologue Roundtable with Aelm Bhumibhat, Anne Thongprasom, Oh Anuchit, Fresh Arisara, Nat Sakdatorn, Aom Phiyada (EP 1 & EP 2)

5. Monologue Roundtable with Nat Kitcharit, Gap Thanavate, Mote Pramote, Top Todsapol, Meng Chaiwat (EP 3 & EP 4)

Nat and Nonkul are actually members of Film Subcommittee for Thailand Creative Culture Agency which is an agency established by Thailand's National Soft Power Strategy Committee. (Bonus fun fact: Actor Tong Thanayut Thakoonauttaya, more known to QL fans for his roles in Kinnporsche, Man Suang, Tharntype... is actually a member of the Series Subcommittee of THACCA)

Here's an excerpt from a Deadline article detailing some of THACCA's plans.

Inspired by organizations such as Korea’s KOCCA, Taiwan’s TAICCA and France’s CNC, THACCA is described as an organization that “oversees strategic collaboration between the government and private sectors to create income and opportunities for the Thai people through soft power by using its cultural industries as a powerful tool.” It also oversees Thai creative industries including music, publishing, sports, games, design, fashion and food.  While total budget was not mentioned, THACCA is spending spending some $6.7M on Thai films, series, docs and animation in 2024-2025, investing in around 30-40 projects, and also plans to launch a new international film festival and T-Expo showcase for Thai content. A further $5.25M is being spent on reskilling the workforce. Longer term, there are plans to launch a Thailand Film Council, invest more in local productions and international co-productions, as well as promote Thai content overseas. Thailand’s government is also planning to establish Media Business Economic Zones, with Pattaya mentioned as a location, and expand cinema circuits in rural areas. 

So at the same time that THACCA was being worked on for its pilot programmes in 2024, Nat and Nonkul were already gathering their actors friends to come together and plan the establishment of TOSAA (Thai On-Screen Actors Association).

I did wonder if this association would be similar to the American Screen Actors Guild. And I found in this article with Meng Chaiwat Chartsuriyakiat that the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike for fair wages was indeed one of the reasons that sparked the actors to come together to push for on-screen standards for Thai media.

pinging friends @flowerbeasblog @virtualtadpole @mukaikun @thomaskong @chayatorns @kittychicha who may be interested in general thai media landscape news.

[homebrew-a-la-traumaverse]

Subclasseptember Day 30

Let's say you could make a wish to change one thing about Dungeons and Dragons.

Not the culture surrounding it, not the business practices of the company that owns it, not the various tweets that have become immortalized over the years. The game itself. The rules and mechanics that define the game you're playing.

For myself, a few years ago, it would have been that there was no way to really unify the things I wanted out of a character. You can cast a spell, or you can hit the enemy with a sword; those are two separate actions, Smites and Scagtrips notwithstanding.

If you're a Paladin, you can choose to smite your enemies, or you can choose to heal your friends. Your support abilities and your martial abilities are contained away in neat little boxes that never mix.

What if you supported your allies in the process of attacking?

Well. You might get something a lot like the Magical Girl.

(featuring: Like 10 more pages of material that didn't fit here, 4 subclasses, a level of customization similar to the Warlock, and ethically-sourced Creative Commons art with absolutely zero AI input.)

Link below in the reblogs.

[warriorcatsofficialfacts]

hi. okay. okay. shut up about the animation for a second i know you're all excited shhhhhh i don't care. i don't care

vicky says here. that the alibaba movie. had a script. presumably a Full script.

so yknow how fnaf was like. the development hell movie ever. like it was announced in 2015 (that's nine full years ago) but only came out last year. like. i was nine when it was announced and when it actually came out i was a legal adult.

yeah so. at one point. several years ago. there was a full entire script written for the fnaf movie. and the creative team said. no. no we're going to leave. we will make a whole different movie with a whole new script. goodbye

and so the good people at warner bros. said. fuck you we wrote a whole script we're getting a goddamn movie out of it.

and they sure fucking did

the banana splits movie is a parody of an old children's tv show made directly using the abandoned early script of the fnaf movie. and like. you can tell. if anyone was a fnaf fan back in 2015 (like me) you'll know that it was a common headcanon that foxy was actually just trying to help the player. this headcanon is directly in this script. they were going to make good guy foxy canon in the original script for the fnaf movie but that's beyond the point

vicky explicitly says. there was a full script

and from what i've been told while the warrior cats movie was primarily working with the chinese studio alibaba pictures there was apparently some involvement. with Warner Brothers. the distributors of the banana splits film

so what i'm saying. is that there is a non zero chance. that some time in the near future. a low budget fantasy movie about animals with a plot very similar to warrior cats will be released where all the names and shit have been changed but you can still Clearly Tell that this was The Warrior Cats Movie.

we may get a warrior cats banana splits movie. and i want that to happen so bad

[bogleech]

For me the most disappointing thing about Palworld is the designs being so boring and bland that you'll never have cause to review them. We deserve better from a creature collecting game, especially one making this much money!

Yeah here's the most opinion I can possibly muster on any of them:

DUMUD: it's a big fat shark-like mudskipper and that's a good concept, it just doesn't really have the charm of any Pokemon it shares anything in common with.

WUMPO: resembles the fur-wearing "werewolf" pokemon that got cut from the first or second generation, crossed with Tangrowth. One of the more okay designs because those are two good pokemon.

SIBELYX: this is supposed to be their Gardevoir I guess and I think it's an owl? Or is it a moth? Well it ends up one of the slightly cooler looking ones a little less obviously derivative of specific pokemon. Maybe they were also going for a Dimitrescue knockoff with the hat

CAWGNITO: an alright one because plague doctors just generally look cool. However the simple formula of plague doctor + actual bird would have been far too obvious and underwhelming as a Pokemon. There's no novelty or twist to this.

HANGYU: this is the one that's a ghostly noose canonically used to execute people. It's a funny little send-up of the darker pokemon pokedex entries, though the design is uninspired compared to object-based creatures in Pokemon, Digimon or any other monster franchise I can think of.

LOVANDER: this is one that fucks people, and they possibly borrowed the topography of Salazzle's official model. I want to think they did intend it to be freaky and unwholesome looking with the rubbery goblin hands, but I suspect they intended something actually sexy by furry monsterfucker standards and just weren't good at it. Yes I know that likely does not stop people from being into it anyway.

TEAFANT: I was going to say this is the only pal that looks better than its closest equivalent Pokemon, because they would be Cufant, and I gave Cufant a pretty negative review back in the day.

......But actually, now I kind of like Cufant. A lot, come to think of it! Teafant is cute and competent in the most paint-by-numbers possible way. It's what almost anyone would draw in ten seconds if asked to make a cute marketable teacup elephant pokemon. Cufant is an awkward, messy design but it is comparatively cute in a goofy, dorky way that's rare among the Pals, and more importantly, it is unique. I don't think they used AI to generate any Palworld models (the tech isn't there yet) but I can see why people assume they used AI just to get the initial ideas, because it's very easy to find people who have more a more creative eye for character design. I'd say even if not ESPECIALLY people with zero experience in art would have made the Pals look more interesting.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Two weak spots in Big Tech economics

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in AUSTIN on Mar 10. I'm also appearing at SXSW and at many events around town, for Creative Commons, Fediverse House, and EFF-Austin. More tour dates here.

Big Tech's astonishing scale is matched only by its farcical valuations – price-to-earnings ratios that consistently dwarf the capitalization of traditional hard-goods businesses. For example, Amazon's profit-to-earnings ratio is 37.65; Target's is only 13.34. That means that investors value every dollar Amazon brings in at three times the value they place on a dollar spent at Target.

The fact that Big Tech stocks trade at such a premium isn't merely of interest to tech investors, or even to the personal wealth managers who handle the assets of tech executives whose personal portfolios are full of their employers' stock options.

The high valuations of tech stocks don't just reflect an advantage over bricks and mortar firms – they are the advantage. If you're Target and you're hoping to hire someone who's just interviewed at Amazon, you have to beat Amazon's total compensation offer. But when Amazon makes that offer, they can pay some – maybe even most – of the offer in stock, rather than in cash.

This is a huge advantage! After all, to get dollars, both Amazon and Target have to convince you to spend money in their stores (or, in Amazon's case, with its cloud, or as a Prime sub, etc etc). Both Amazon and Target get their dollars from entities outside of the firm's four walls, and the dollars only come in when they convince someone else to do business with them.

But stock comes from inside the firm. Amazon makes new Amazon shares by typing zeroes into a spreadsheet. They don't have to convince you to buy anything in order to issue that new stock. That is their call, and their call alone.

Amazon can buy lots of things with stock – not just the labor of in-demand technical workers who command six-figure salaries. They can even buy whole companies using stock. So if Amazon and Target are bidding against one another for an anticompetitive acquisition of a key supplier or competitor, Amazon can beat Target's bid without having to spend the dollars its shareholders would like them to divert to dividends, stock buybacks, etc.

In other words, a company with a fantastic profit/earning ratio has its own money-printer that produces currency that can be used to buy labor and even acquire companies.

But why do investors value tech stocks so highly? In part, it's just circular reasoning: a company with a high stock price can beat its competitors because it has a high stock price, so I should buy its stock, which will drive up its stock price even further.

But there's more to this than self-fulfilling prophecy. The high price of tech stocks reflects the market's belief that these companies will continue to grow. If you think a company will be ten times bigger in two years, and it's only priced at three times as much as mature rivals that have stopped growing altogether, then that 300% stock premium is a bargain, because the company will have 1,000% growth in just a couple years. Tech companies have proven themselves, time and again, to be capable of posting incredible growth – think of how quickly Google went from a niche competitor to established search engines to the dominant player, with a 90% market share.

That kind of growth is enough to make anyone giddy, but it eventually runs up against the law of large numbers: doubling a small number is easy, doubling a large number is much, much harder. A search engine that's used by 90% of the world can't double its users – there just aren't enough people to sign up. They'd need to breed several billion new humans, raise them to maturity, and then convince them to be Google users.

And here's the thing: the flipside of the huge profits that can be reaped by investors who buy stocks at a premium in anticipation of growth is the certainty that you will be wiped out if you're still holding the stock when the growth halts. When Amazon stops growing, its PE ratio should fall to something like Target's, which means that its stock should decline by two thirds on that day.

Which is why Big Tech investors tend to be twitchy, hair-trigger types, easily stampeded into mass selloffs. That's what happened in 2022, when Facebook admitted to investors that it had grown more slowly than it had projected, and investors staged the largest stock selloff in history (to that point – hi, Nvidia!), wiping a quarter-trillion dollars off Meta's valuation in a day:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/02/03/stocks-plunge-after-facebooks-massive-sell-off-nasdaq-falls-37/

As Stein's Law has it: "anything that can't go on forever eventually stops." Growth stocks have to stop growing, eventually, and when they do, you'd better beat everyone else to the fire exit, or you're going to get crushed in the stampede.

Which is why tech companies are so obsessed with both actual growth, and stories about growth. Facebook spent tens of billions on bribes to telcos around the world, demanding that they charge extra to access non-Facebook websites and apps, in a bid to sign up "the next billion users":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/countries-zero-rating-have-more-expensive-wireless-broadband-countries-without-it

That wasn't just about some ideological commitment to growth – it was about the real, material advantages that a growing company has, namely, that it can substitute the stock it creates for free by typing zeroes into a spreadsheet for money that it can only get by convincing you to give your money to it.

"Facebook Zero" (as this bribery program was called) was about actual growth: finding people who weren't Facebook users and turning them into Facebook users, preferably forever (thanks to Facebook's suite of lock-in tactics that make it a digital roach motel that users check into but don't check out of):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

But plenty of the things that Big Tech gets up to are about the narrative of growth. That's why Big Tech has pumped every tech bubble of this stupid decade: metaverse, cryptocurrency, AI. These technologies have each been at the forefront of Big Tech marketing and investor communications, but not solely because they represented a market opportunity. Rather, they represented a more-or-less plausible explanation for how these companies that were on the wrong side of the law of large numbers could continue to double in size, without breeding billions of new customers to sign up for their services.

The tell – as always – comes in the way that these companies refute their critics. When critics point out that Facebook spent $1.2 billion on a metaverse product that only has 32 users:

https://futurism.com/the-byte/metaverse-decentraland-report-active-users

Or that practically no one buys anything with cryptocurrency:

https://www.mollywhite.net/annotations/latecomers-guide-to-crypto/

Not even when the government gives them free crypto and passes a law forcing merchants to accept crypto:

https://bitcoinblog.de/2024/09/02/weak-bitcoin-adoption-in-el-salvador-disappoints-the-president/

Or that hardly anyone uses AI, and what uses it does have are often low-value:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/oai-business/

The "narrative entrepreneurs" behind the claims of infinite growth from these technologies all have the same response: "That's what they said about the web, and yet it grew really fast! People who lacked the vision to understand the web's potential missed out. Buy [crypto|metaverse|AI] or have fun being poor!"

It's true – there were a lot of people who were blithely dismissive of the web, and they were wrong. But the fact that the web's skeptics were wrong doesn't mean that skepticism itself is foolish. People were also skeptical of Qibi, Beanie Babies, and the Segway – all of which were predicted to continue to increase in value forever and become permanently installed as significant facts in the economy. The fact that lots of people think something is stupid is not a reliable indicator that it is actually great.

So it's not just that capitalism adopts "the ideology of a tumor" in insisting that infinite growth is possible. The value in corporate claims to eternal growth is not aesthetic, it is material. If the market believes a company will grow, then that company gets to print its own money, which lets it outcompete mature rivals, which lets it grow some more.

But! When the company runs out of growth potential, the process runs in reverse. Not only do executives – whose portfolios are stuffed full of their own company's shares – stand to lose most of their net worth overnight, but once a company's stock starts to decline, it can expect to see an exodus of the key personnel who are compensated in now-worthless stock. That means that once a company hits a bad bump in the road that sets it off course, it needs to worry about losing all the skilled employees who can get it back on the road.

So growth is important, not for its own sake, but for how it affects the cost basis of companies, and thus determines their competitive outlook. But not all growth is created equal.

Remember when Facebook pissed away billions in a bid to capture "the next billion users"? Those users – people from poor countries in the global south – were not as valuable to Facebook as its US customers. The news that sparked a $250 billion, one-day selloff of Facebook shares wasn't merely about anemic growth – it was specifically about anemic growth in the USA.

American customers are worth more than other users to Big Tech – that's true even of users from other populous countries, and of users from other wealthy countries. Norway is rich as hell, but each Norwegian Facebook user is worth pennies on the kroner compared to American users. And there are brazilians of people in South America, but they're worth even less per capita than Norwegians are. Even the whole EU, with its 500m+ relatively wealthy consumers, is only worth a fraction of the US market.

Why is the American market so prized by Big Tech? Because it the only country in the world at the center of a Venn diagram with three overlapping circles. America is the only country in the world that is:

a) populous;

b) wealthy; and

c) totally lacking in legal privacy protections.

The US Congress last updated American consumer privacy law in 1988, when the Video Privacy Protection Act was passed to protect Americans from the high-tech threat of…video store clerks leaking your rental history to the newspapers. Despite the bewildering, obvious, serious privacy risks that have emerged since Die Hard was in theaters, Congress has done nothing to extend Americans' consumer privacy rights.

There are other rich countries where privacy law sucks, but they are small countries with few people. There are extremely populous poor countries with shitty privacy laws, but they're poor. Tech has to steal the private data of dozens of those people to make as much money as they can get from selling the data of just one American. And there are other rich, populous countries – like Germany, say – but those countries actually defend the privacy of the people who live there, and so the revenue tech gets from each of those users is even lower than the RPU for the undefended poor people of the global south.

America is exceptional in that it represents the one place where there are lots of wealthy people who are totally defenseless. We're an all-you-can-eat buffet for the privacy-annihilating voyeurs of Silicon Valley.

These are the two dirty secrets of Big Tech's economics. These companies are reliant on the fragile narrative of infinite growth, and that narrative isn't merely about global growth, but it is particularly and especially about growth in the USA.

Tech's power comes from an implausible story of discovering an endless stream of Americans to sign up and screw over. That story is extremely load-bearing – so much so that by the instant at which the first crack appears, collapse is only moments away. And boy, are there cracks:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/power-cut/

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/2025/03/06/privacy-last/#exceptionally-american

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

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