tech-romancy

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tumblr just deleted a huge swathe of palestinians who were on here trying to fundraise. if you've been helping any of these fundraisers please take this time to 1) check in with palestinians you're in contact with 2) help them submit support requests if needed 3) keep these campaigns circulating while the beneficiaries are being silenced. these campaigns are life or death, this isn't just social networking. do not let these fundraisers languish.

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Reblog to make it die faster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

>Lemmings problem now solved.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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isn't this the plot of kingdom hearts?

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this is who youre asking to work 40hrs per week btw

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> The college I attended was small and very LGBT friendly. One day someone came to visit and used the word “gay” as a pejorative, as was common in the early 2000s. A current student looked at the visitor and flatly said, “we don’t do that here.” The guest started getting defensive and explaining that they weren’t homophobic and didn’t mean anything by it. The student replied, “I’m sure that’s true, but all you need to know is we don’t do that here.” The interaction ended at that point, and everyone moved on to different topics. “We don’t do that here” was a polite but firm way to educate the newcomer about our culture. […]

> It turns out talking about diversity, inclusion, and even just basic civil behavior can be controversial in technical spaces. I don’t think it should be, but I don’t get to make the rules. When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated.

> This is when I pull out “we don’t do that here.” It is a conversation ender. If you are the newcomer and someone who has been around a long time says “we don’t do that here”, it is hard to argue. This sentence doesn’t push my morality on anyone. If they want to do whatever it is elsewhere, I’m not telling them not to. I’m just cluing them into the local culture and values. If I deliver this sentence well it carries no more emotional weight than saying, “in Japan, people drive on the left.” “We don’t do that here” should be a statement of fact and nothing more. It clearly and concisely sets a boundary, and also makes it easy to disengage with any possible rebuttals.

> Me: “You are standing in that person’s personal space. We don’t do that here.” > Them: “But I was trying to be nice.” > Me: “Awesome, but we don’t stand so close to people here.”

> Them: Tells an off-color joke. > Me: “We don’t do that here.” > Them: “But I was trying to be funny.” > Me (shrugging): “That isn’t relevant. We don’t do that here.”

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Ending the stigma of drug use will save lives.

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Because I needed the reminder and maybe you do too: the best way to deal with political frustration is to do something.

A real and immediate impact you can have that will directly help a Palestinian is to buy an eSIM and send it to gazaesims@gmail.com. This allows Gazans to access mobile data so they can get news out and keep in touch with their friends and family.

If you have never done this before, here is a step by step guide, complete with discount codes. It is slightly technical but still fairly easy (imo, ymmv). If you can't/don't want to buy one directly, you can donate to Crips for eSIMs and they will buy one on your behalf.

You don't have to top up the eSIMs when they get low/run out, but I find it comforting to do so. It means somebody is still alive, and that you've made a hellish experience a tiny bit less terrible.

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My top three rules for world building:

How are these bitches eating?

How do these bitches stay warm at night?

Who is paying for all of this bullshit?

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i love it when my dash lines up like this [alt: Image includes two tumblr posts. One post includes a list of hashtags:

hp lovecraft thought penguins were grotesque and horrifying he was not a difficult man to frighten. Second tumblr post is from amtrak-official, and it's an image of a peguin stamp]

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I need people to understand that sometimes autism is just this

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remember when u were like 11 and the only thing u wanted was a lava lamp

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look at this incredibly haunting coyote from Ohio I saw on inaturalist

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Really says something about the dire state of offerings for men interested in sewing their own clothes that even searching things like “interesting men’s clothing patterns” brings up articles with links to four or five whole websites that primarily offer admittedly nice but practically identical patterns for making button-ups and work pants and maybe a varsity/bomber jacket if you’re lucky.

(Branching out into historical costuming for everyday wear is like your one shot at variation, and even then, the ratio of men’s to women’s patterns on every website is frustrating to say the least.)

Patternmakers as a trans man I am begging you. Give me a little more to work with here.

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Dealing With Executive Dysfunction - A Masterpost

The “getting it done in an unconventional way” method.

The “it’s not cheating to do it the easy way” method.

The “fuck what you’re supposed to do” method.

The “get stuff done while you wait” method.

The “you don’t have to do everything at once” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be permanent to be helpful” method.

The “break the task into smaller steps” method.

The “treat yourself like a pet” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be all or nothing” method.

The “put on a persona” method.

The “act like you’re filming a tutorial” method.

The “you don’t have to do it perfectly” method.

The “wait for a trigger” method.

The “do it for your future self” method.

The “might as well” method.

The “when self discipline doesn’t cut it” method.

The “taking care of yourself to take care of your pet” method.

The “make it easy” method.

The “junebugging” method.

The “just show up” method.

The “accept when you need help” method.

The “make it into a game” method.

The “everything worth doing is worth doing poorly” method.

The “trick yourself” method.

The “break it into even smaller steps” method.

The “let go of should” method.

The “your body is an animal you have to take care of” method.

The “fork theory” method.

The “effectivity over aesthetics” method.

[tech-romancy]

So, a comparatively high amount of states are voting on the fate of ranked choice voting this year. Missouri is voting on whether or not to kill it, Alaska is voting on whether or not to keep it, and most importantly, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho are voting on whether or not to adopt ranked choice voting, with maybe Colorado to follow.

And if you live in these states, even if you don't want to vote at the top of the ticket, I urge you to get out there and vote in favor of ranked choice voting on all of them.

Like, the two-party monopoly is a big part of the reason why politics in this country is so shit, and a big part of that is our "first past the post" system making it basically mathematically impossible for candidates outside of them to win anything beyond a local or state level.

So, if you want to try and break the cycle of voting for the lesser evil, of bipartisan cruelty towards the Global South and the country's own citizens alike, we need to change this and we need to vote on it where we can.