#hosted switch

[transboytism]

part 3 !!!

[sanji-outfit-polls]

Congratulations to the Chapter 851 Colour Spread for being Sanji's cuntiest outfit! 🎉🎉

It was a very close battle, but Chapter 851's boa/gloves/jewelry combo won the day and thus has earned the cunty crown! Congrats! 👏👏

Thank you to everyone who participated in this tournament! Whether you submitted an outfit, sent in propaganda, or simply voted in the polls, it all added to the fun! And on that note, I'm officially announcing that this was my final Sanji tournament! Don't worry though, the shenanigans will be continuing, as I have other plans for this blog that still involve Sanji outfits and voting in polls! More details on that will be coming in a later post, so stay tuned for that!

These tournaments have truly been a blast, and I'm so glad you all joined me for my silly little polls! Thank you for a great time!! ♡

[drews-board03]

Scrabble is dangerous

Monsters game night has so few rules, no holds barred and all that

Hyperlexic Kevin with Aaron who brings out random medical terms, eidetic memory Andrew pulling out the most random words from any time period piece he’s read, Nicky breaking language barriers and bringing out the slang then you have Neil. The normal one who doesn’t really get the point of the game or at least will pretend he doesn’t, except he’s evil for getting combo points

[aurosoulart]

honestly if I ever sell merch again I think I’m just gonna like…. do it local. not online.

you can still buy my INPRNT prints (pls buy my prints lol) but otherwise if you want physical variety goods you gotta download my hi-res files from my website and print em somewhere local yourself

[notbecauseofvictories]

I swear I tried so hard to listen to a standard, talking heads podcast while I was working on my latest project---but it is just not my medium. I can do fiction! If it's an audiobook with some production values? A play staged by my imagination? Great, amazing. I love a soundscape.

But anytime they venture even slightly from that, I want to murder them and their tinny laughter.

[yourlocalgreg]

Oh wow, swap au stuff on my main blog? Crazy….

[adhdandcomics]

do you even KNOW how hard it is to find cool wizards on google that aren’t ai these days. we are so fucked

[peach-pot]

HUGE day for nerds who spend too much time on YouTube

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Someday, we’ll all take comfort in the internet’s “dark corners”

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me on SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and beyond!

Platforms decay. Tech bosses, unconstrained by competition; regulation; ad blockers and other adversarial interoperability; and their own workers, will inevitably hollow out their platforms, using ultraflexible digital technology to siphon value away from end users and business customers, leaving behind the bare minimum of value to keep all those users locked in:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/#let-the-platforms-burn

Enshittification is the inevitable result of high switching costs. Tech bosses are keenly attuned to opportunities to lock in their customers and users, because the harder is to leave a platform, the worse the platform can treat you – the more value it can rob you of – without risking your departure.

But platform users are a heterogeneous, lumpy mass. Different groups of users have different switching costs. An adult Facebook user of long tenure has more reasons to stay than a younger user: they have more complex social lives, with nonoverlapping social circles from high school, college, various jobs, affinity groups, and family. They are more likely to have a chronic illness, or to be caring for someone with chronic illness, and to be a member of a social media support group they value highly. They are more likely to be connected to practical communities, like little league carpool rotas.

That's the terrible irony of platform decay: the more value you get from a platform, the more cost that platform can extract, a cost denominated in your wellbeing, enjoyment and dignity.

(At this point, someone will pipe up and say, "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." It's nonsense. Dignity, respect and fairness aren't frequent flier program perks that tech companies dribble out to their best customers. Companies will happily treat their paying customers as "products" if they think those customers can't avoid other forms of rent-extraction, such as "attention rents")

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

Now, consider the converse proposition: for younger users, platforms deliver less value. Younger users have less complex social lives on average relative to their parents and grandparents, which means that platforms have fewer ways to sink their hooks into those young users. Further: young users tend to want things that the platforms don't want them to have, right from the first day they sign up. In particular, young users often want to conduct their socializing out of eyesight and earshot of adults, especially parents, teachers, and other authority figures. This means that a typical younger user has both more reasons to leave a platform as well as fewer reasons to stay there.

Younger people have an additional reason to bail on platforms early and often: if your online and offline social circles strongly overlap – if you see the same people at school as you do in your feed, it's much easier to reassemble your (smaller, less complex) social circle on a new platform.

And so: on average, young people like platforms less, hate them more, and have both less to lose and more to gain by leaving one platform for another. Sure, some young people are also burning with youth's neophilia. But even without that neophilia, young people are among the first to go when tech bosses start to ratchet up the enshittification.

Beyond young people, there are others who tend to jump ship early, like sex-workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/21/early-adopters/#sex-tech

Sex-workers' technology changes are only incidentally the result of some novelty-seeking impulse. The real reason to change platforms if you're a sex-worker is that the platforms are either absolutely hostile to sex-workers, or profoundly indifferent to the suffering their policy changes rain down upon them.

The same is broadly true of other disfavored groups, including those with out-of-mainstream political ideologies. Some of these groups hold progressive views, others are out-and-out Nazis, but all of them chafe at the platforms' policies at the best of times, and are far more ready to jump ship when the platforms tighten the noose on all their users.

This is where "dark corners" come in. The worst people on the internet have relocated to its so-called dark corners – privately hosted servers, groupchats, message-boards, etc. Some of these are notorious: Kiwi Farms, 4chan, 8kun, sprawling Telegram groupchats. Others only breach when they are implicated in waves of unthinkably cruel and grotesque crimes:

https://www.wired.com/story/764-com-child-predator-network/

The answer to crimes committed in the internet's dark corners is the same as for crimes committed anywhere: catch the criminals, prosecute the crimes. But a distressing number of well-meaning people observe the nexus between dark corners and the crimes that fester there, and conclude that the problem is with the dark corners, themselves.

These people observe that social media platforms like Facebook, and intermediaries like Cloudflare, DNS providers, and domain registrars constitute a "nexus of control" – chokepoints that trap the online lives of billions of people – and conclude that these gigantic corporations can and should be made "responsible" for their users:

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

From there, it's a short leap to conclude that anyone who isn't in a position to be controlled by these too big to jail, too big to fail, relentlessly enshittifying corporations must be pushed into their demesne.

This is a deal with the devil. In the name of preventing small groups of terrible people from gathering in private, beyond the control of the world's insufferable and cruel tech barons, we risk dooming everyone else to being permanently within those unworthy billionaires' thumbs.

This is why people like Mark Zuckerberg are so eager to see an increase in "intermediary liability" rules like Section 230. Zuckerberg's greatest fear isn't having to spend more on moderators or algorithms that suppress controversial subjects:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/instagram-users-outraged-by-app-limiting-political-content-ahead-of-elections/

The thing he fears the most is losing control over his users. That's why he bought Instagram: to recapture the young users who were fleeing his mismanaged, enshittified platform in droves:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

A legal mandate for Zuckerberg to police his users is a legal requirement that he surveil and control those users. It's fundamentally incompatible with the new drive in competition circles to force Zuckerberg and his fellow tech barons to offer gateways that make it easier to escape their grasp, by allowing users to depart Facebook and continue to socialize with the users who stay behind:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

Remember: the more locked-in a platform user is, the harder that platform will squeeze that user, safe in the knowledge that the cost of leaving is higher than the cost of staying and tolerating the platform's abuse.

This is the problem with "feudal security" – the warlord who lures you into his castle fortress with the promise of protection from external threats is, in reality, operating a prison where no one can protect you from him:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#manorialism

Rather than fighting to abolish dark corners because only the worst people on the internet use them today, we should be normalizing dark corners, making it easier for every kind of user to find a cozy nook that is shaded from the baleful glare of Zuck and his fellow, eminently guillotineable tech warlords:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/15/normalize-dark-corners/

Enshittification is relentless. The collapse of the restraints that penalized tech companies who abused their users – competition, regulation, interoperability and their own workers' consciences – has inculcated every tech boss with an incurable enshittification imperative.

Efforts to make the platforms safer for their users can only take us so far. Fundamentally, these vast, centralized systems that vest authority with flawed and mediocre and frail human dictators (who fancy themselves noble, brilliant and infallible) will never be safe for human habitation. Rather than focusing on improving the platforms, we should be evacuating them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/09/let-the-platforms-burn/

Online communities that control their own moderation policies won't always get it right. But there is a whole host of difficult moderation calls that can never be adequately handled by outsiders overseeing vast, sprawling platforms. Distinguishing friendly banter from harassment requires the context that only an insider can hope to possess.

We all deserve dark corners where we stand a chance of finding well-managed communities that can deliver the value that keeps us stuck to our decaying giant platforms. Eventually, the enshittification will chase every user off these platforms – not just kids or sex-workers or political radicals. When that happens, it sure would be nice if everyone could set up in a dark corner of their own.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

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/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/#let-the-platforms-burn

[lotus-pear]

BOY WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT NEW CHAPTER........

[harlequinoccult]

Is anyone left handed? Ambidextrous?

i swear to god ive answered this before. but apparently not.

RIGHT: Elysium, Sweetheart

LEFT: Dahlia, Host

AMBIDEXTROUS: Overdose, Cold

[davepaste]

can you believe Oracle hands out these compute instances for free with 4 cores and 24gb of ram

The next logical step I think is to mount my Google drive with rsync and abuse that storage space to get around my 200gb Oracle storage limit

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (15-21 Jun 2025)

ngl lads (gn) i wish packing a flat you've lived in for 27 years was this easy. i am going thru it. 😤

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

😊 🎧The Beast of Littleton Woods (Lady Hardcastle Mysteries #12) (T.E. Kinsey, author; Elizabeth Knowelden, narrator) - more low-key adventures with Emily & Florence - the cozy mystery comfort read I really fucking needed this week

😊 War & Peace and the Redemption of Bucky Barnes (ThePirateStorm) - 51K, stucky modern no-powers AU - bucky's a writer, steve's a single dad with a teenage daughter, they have a meet ugly that quickly turns around - enjoyable read, I was quite chuffed I correctly identified the IRL book series that Bucky's is based on

😊 🎧Murder at the English Manor (A Miss Underhay Mystery #20) (Helena Dixon, author; Karen Cass, narrator) - Kitty & Matt get roped in to investigating the disappearance (murder) of a maid from a local estate (whose folks are trying to facilitate a 'Dollar Duchess' marriage and would prefer no unpleasantness)

😊 Fall Into You (Dylan Morrison) - very enjoyable contemp queer romance with a really great meet-ugly, explored a lot about how messy and contradictory and complex people are and also about how fucked up family dynamics are. -

💖💖 +39K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

Favorite Things (ann_anotherthing) - Stranger Things: Steddie, 17K - more adventures of middle-aged men 😂🥰 I just fucking love this universe/these versions of them (most of it a reread due to a new chapter being added)

Fates (E_Greer) - Justified: Boyd/Raylan, 22K - a wibbly wobbly timey wimey trip - AN starts "buckle in we’re doing six alternate universes" with a super cool guide on how to read each section (I am making it sound way more complicated than it is! Also it's just a banger fic, so enjoyable. I love these two)

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

WIRED | Tech Support - Film Historian Answers Old Hollywood Questions

Murderbot - s1, e6-7

Game Changer - s7, e6

Parlor Room - s1, e5

Um, Actually - s10, e11

D20: Neverafter - "The Trials of Baba Yaga" (s16, e18)

D20: Adventuring Party - "It Happened" (s11, e18)

D20: Neverafter - "The Ending Of All Things (Part 1)" (s16, e19)

D20: Adventuring Party - "The Orange Fairy in the Top Hat" (s11, e19)

D20: Neverafter - "The Ending Of All Things (Part 2)" (s16, e20)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Three Cheers for Jesse Harron" (s11, e20)

D20: Cloudward, Ho! - "The Path Out of Gath" (s26, e2)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Meaty, Meaty Combat " (s21, e2)

D20: Cloudward, Ho! - "Secrets at the South Pole Station" (s26, e3)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Wonder Awaits" (s21, e3)

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Materialists

Short Wave - Why Weed's Signature Scent Has Changed Over Time

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Dylan’s Mailbag: Trips We’d Never Go On, the First Places in the Atlas, and Worst Bathroom Experiences

Short History Of… - The Spanish Flu

Welcome to Night Vale - Deeper Than Purpose, Older Than Thought

No One Saw It Coming - Where freestyle swimming really comes from

The Sam Sanders Show - Can Faith and Queerness Coexist? (ft. Jeff Hiller)

Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Life of Chuck

Code Switch - The administration's fight against antisemitism is dividing Jews

⭐ Vibe Check - Everything Comes Back to Love featuring Danez Smith

Switched on Pop - "Manchild" and other songs about male incompetence

Decoder Ring - The Boston Cinematic Universe

Decoder Ring - Decoder Ring Plus | The Boston Accent Is Wicked Complicated

Wild Card - Kyle MacLachlan daydreams about the future

⭐ Song Exploder - Key Change: Shirley Manson on Siouxsie and the Banshees

Shedunnit - Book Club Fact File: Lady Molly of Scotland Yard by Baroness Orczy

99% Invisible - The Red, the Black, and the Green

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Watch This: Pee-Wee As Himself

Short Wave - Why Emotions Run High For Sports Fans

⭐ Endless Thread - Pics or this episode didn't happen

Pop Culture Happy Hour - 28 Years Later And What's Making Us Happy

Short Wave - What Makes South Korea's 'Super Divers' Special?

It's Been a Minute - Welcome to midlife, Millennials. Are you in crisis?

The Sporkful - The Hidden History of Regional Burgers (Reheat)

Sherlock Holmes Short Stories - The Adventure of the Second Stain

Ologies - Aquaculture Ecology (SUSTAINABLE OCEAN FOODS) with Ben Halpern

Handsome - Pretty Little Episode #44

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - AO Mailbag: Is It Normal to Share a Checked Bag With Your Boyfriend?

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

my 'Liked Music' playlist

[syshostcultureis]

non switching host vulture is AHHHHH I GOTTA DO EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE INCLUDING RELAYING THEIR THOUGHTS. and i do it still because i love them a lot :)

.

[thebananwithaplan]

🎙️ "....Why are we here."

"Reconnaissance and rewards. More importantly, the rewards." At least it's what he says. "The more of us participating in this, the bigger our chances of winning something get."

👤 You can't help but wonder if it really was a good idea for Banana to bring you over. You're thankful for being able to see beyond the usual R/blox perimeters, but....

🎙️ "N-no, yeah, I agree. I think the one that's usually in the costume should've gone instead of me-"

"I'm not bringing the human college student to participate in this type of competition." No matter how much she wanted to be in-character and prove to even match his moveset, he still didn't want to risk anything happening to her and the suit. (Plus, those mascot costumes are hard to produce, should anything happen to it...)

🎙️ "....Are we even sure that she actually goes to college-"

"The point is, three heads is better than one, and you two are the only ones that I can ask for this task." Also the most durable, in terms of dealing with shenanigans going on. "Look, at the very least you don't have to participate in every single one of them if ya can't, but that one shouldn't be too hard for any of us.

Vertical jumping? To a group of double-jumping toons and R/bloxian? How hard would that be?

👤 ...Okay. That's probably much higher than you expected you could ever pull off.

"...Tsk." It's definitely pretty high, but there's already been one other competitor that's done better.

🎙️ "Well, I'm definitely not beating that. How about I can just home and pretend that I wasn't even here?"

"You sure? I heard the main prize is pretty good..."

"...Is that a spider on your foot?"

...Heck, that might do it.

Looking down at the 'spider', DB leaned down and picked it up with his glove. At a closer inspection...

"...Oh wait, it was just some loose string from his shoe. Whoops."

👤 ......Oh. Well. You didn't know that Announcer could jump that high, either-

[thespacecolonyarksystem]

「︎ ↯︎ Now Speaking: 🌀 ↝︎ ! 」︎

How do I get rid of the fear of letting others co-front or completely front without me ?

I’m worried that somebody’ll do something that’ll get EVERYBODY in trouble, and then I’ll have to deal with it because I’m the host and I deal with everything 💔

I feel like I’ve put myself in a bad situation by being in front so much and gatekeeping others from doing anything, intentionally or otherwise