I can't explain how much I love baguette child. I would protect them with my life.

If a worker who isn't the owner says ANYTHING similar to "I'm not really supposed to do this but-" and then does something that helps you, under no circumstances inform the business, including through reviews. You tell them that the worker was polite, professional, the very model of customer service and why you like to go there. You do not breathe a word of the rulebreaking.

Employee-customer solidarity

Even if they don't- Your review can be the thing that wrecks someone up accidentally;

"Janie was so helpful when I wanted to buy a new washing machine on Friday, she stayed with me for half an hour and wasn't pushy at all, we had a good laugh about our cats' silly antics and she got Adam and Suzy to carry it to the car for me- 10/10 excellent service, I'd come back any day!"

-But Management has a policy that workers should spend no more than 10 focused minutes on any customer at a time, and that they should always try to upsell the insurance and the higher price model, so Janie was breaking policy.

-And they aren't supposed to have their phones on the sales floor, so now Janie is going to be quizzed on whether she was showing photos of her cat to a customer.

-Adam is a warehouse worker and shouldn't have been in the front-of-house at all, Suzy is a porter, and store policy is both to use a trolley to move heavy items, and that only the porters should do it, so now Janie is in trouble for pulling Adam off-task, Adam is in trouble for walking through the shop floor, and Suzy is in trouble for poor handling procedure. Maybe the store even has a paid delivery service that Janie was supposed to upsell as soon as you said "I can't put this in my car without help", so this was all against policy.

Your review should always be as bland as possible, "10/10, five star service, will shop here again, thank you to Janie at the Town Street branch" You NEVER know what was technically a rule-break, capitalism is not your friend, the review process is part of the panopticon.

FIVE STARS, TEN OUT OF TEN, VERY GOOD, NOTHING MORE.

I got a laptop with Windows 11 for an IT course so I can get certified, and doing the first time device set-up for it made me want to commit unspeakable violence

Windows 11 should not exist, no one should use it for any reason, it puts ads in the file explorer and has made it so file searches are also web searches and this cannot be turned off except through registry editing. Whoever is responsible for those decisions should be killed, full stop.

Switch to linux, it's free and it's good.

u r absolutely right I have SO many complaints about Windows omg.

For anyone who'd like to follow along, I'm gonna share how to get around those things with group policies bc they're more user friendly and descriptive than registry editor imo :3 I'll also show how to get around needing a Microsoft account to get setup.

For the Device Setup

"OOBE" stands for Out Of Box Experience which is what that setup workflow is. But it also happens to be a folder with a little program in it that'll let you skip connecting to the internet; this makes it so you don't have to sign up with a Microsoft account and can just use a normal local one instead. And it already comes preinstalled! Here's how you get to it:

Now when you're brought back to the setup workflow, the page where you connect to the internet will have a new button on it that lets you say you don't have internet. Clicking that and proceeding through the rest of the setup lets you get around the Microsoft account thing.

Group Policies

You don't have to know much about them, these are just a bunch of specific settings for what your computer can or can't do that lets you decide how it works in different ways.

I'm gonna show you how to turn off the recommendations and internet stuff basically. For now bring up search and type gpedit, pick this

It'll open up to Local Group Policy Editor and we can get started :3c

Start Recommendations

In the side menu, go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar. Click on Settings to sort them with all the "Turn off" ones bumped to the top.

Here's what you should set:

Windows Spotlight

Back in the side menu, go down to Windows Components > Cloud Content

Cortana

In the side menu, this one's back at the top under Computer Configuration. You're gonna want to go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search

News and Interests

In the side menu go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > News and interests.

Microsoft Account Login Nudges

When you don't use a Microsoft account they'll nudge you repeatedly to sign in so you can "get the most out of your experience" *gag*. The group policy for turning that off has a note that suggests it might not work with Windows 11 though (implicitly), so you can close the group policy editor window now and for this last one let's just open up the regular settings.

Go to System > Notifications > Additional settings, then uncheck all the boxes. And there ya go! (✿◠‿◠)ﾉ u are done.

Group policies are kind of a rabbit hole so while there is a lot more you could change or read into, for your own sanity's sake I would advise against it and say call it a day lol

This is all extremely good information, thank you very much for the addition!

I endorse this as an IT technician. I do this to every new Win11 device I set up.

As a bonus, run Chris Titus Tech's debloat tool on it.

It allows you to add tools, remove/disable shitty parts of windows, and easily change some settings. My default is running the preset for a desktop/laptop and applying security update settings, but there are so many options to customize. I used it on my personal laptop.

"Use Linux instead" is never actionable advice for most people so thank you for this

official fish post

A reminder that there's a small petition you can sign to try to convince Google's CEO and Google Cloud's CEO to end Project Nimbus. They're getting rather close to their signature goal too! Please take the time to throw your name on the list if you can.

microscopic

Bothering the beast

they are swimming around ur blog

THOUGHT GAINED: INFERNAL ENGINES

PROBLEM

The world is ending. You know it, your neighbor knows it, the dealer knows it, the jailer knows it, the king and all his men know it. All one has to do is look around to see it— the future is curdling into something pale and incorporeal. The infernal machine that is this stupid world is going to blow, sooner rather than later. So what are you doing? Why are you still here? Why is anyone still here?

SOLUTION

You are doing the only thing worth doing. You are living. *Why,* you ask? Try and remember now. Remember your mother’s hand on your shoulder. Remember the taste of a fresh catch. Remember the times when you were kind to the dogs in the valley and they did not bare their teeth. Remember the weight of a child on your shoulders. Remember the stars throwing their light against the wall of sodium and smog. Remember singing until your throat was raw. Remember crying just as loudly and publicly, and the gentleness with which someone opened your curled fist and pressed a handkerchief into your palm. Crying, laughing, running, eating, screaming, haunting, loving, fighting, fighting, fighting. The fight fuels you, and you fuel the fight. You run yourself ragged just for a chance to keep running. You never stop. You cannot stop. The world depends on it. *You* are the infernal engine. You are the world. And, simply put: you want to live.

Heartbreaking: This person is making great points but they're being a huge fucking asshole about it so you can't reblog any of it

Heartbreaking: This person is making great points but they're saying you're a bad person if you don't reblog so you can't reblog any of it

herbert "sal" furr, a prime gag creator for donald dock's gag shop. notorious for creating his own specialized gags meant to be more powerful, that only end up more dangerous, usually for the user trying them. new ref after a few years!

current obsession is this dude on tiktok who works at a pizza shop and films all his videos as if they were david lynch outtakes