our top scientists are hard at work finding new forms of t4t nasty style fucking

our bottom scientists are. hm. well. theyre contributing too 👍

Oh dear

heads up to americans: the federal government is suspending the free covid test program on Friday, March 8th, so if you haven’t already gotten two orders of 4 at-home tests, now’s the time to do it

Suicide Squad 2

So I want to say something here that's worth mentioning:

The internet as we know it today is completely un-navigatable without an adblocker of some form. It's likewise completely unsafe. While an adblocker won't prevent user-end actions that lead to viral compromise, the situation is so fucking dire that even the fucking feds recommend you use an adblocker.

I was/still am an IT professional for longer than some of you reading this have been alive. Putting an Adblocker on a clients computer, regardless of if it's consumer grade or corporate, is the first thing I do. Most ad blockers allow you to white list websites in order to avoid having to deal with shit like what Youtube is doing.

Youtube is preying upon consumer ignorance of white listing in an effort to generate revenue via Youtube Premium. It's fucking dumb as hell, and it's going to directly lead to another wave of compromised systems across the board.

Do not be misinformed. Ad blockers absolutely are a necessary part of the modern internet usage. Please read the wiki on your adblocker of choice (I recommend Ublock Origin) and read up on whitelisting. Don't fall for this fucking scam Youtube is pulling, and most certainly don't stop using your Ad Blocker.

I actually don't think that Premium is the goal here—I think the goal is to get as much user data as possible regardless of whether or not they're paying customers. I have a very good reason for believing this.

See, I have Premium, and I have for like four years. I am exactly what you would assume they want all users of the platform to be. I pay monthly for access to a handful of features that I find useful, and they don't serve me ads at all.

I still make sure to block all tracking cookies whenever possible, because I'm not using the Internet strictly for YouTube, and I'm not in the business of allowing myself to be tracked all across the web when I can avoid it.

A couple weeks ago, YouTube stopped working for me entirely. After having it running in the background more or less all day while I was drawing, it suddenly stopped loading anything but the skeleton.css stylesheet, which looks like this:

Nothing here is clickable, it's literally just a bunch of static graphical elements. I couldn't access my account, settings, anything. I was completely locked out of the service.

I did some digging, and found out that this is one of the things that happens when the anti-adblock protocol catches up to uBlock Origin and shuts down people who refuse to remove that protection. But...I have Premium. The platform doesn't serve me ads at all. There is absolutely no reason for them to block my access to the platform.

Still, I tried turning uBlock Origin off, and it didn't change anything. Weird.

Eventually I got ahold of someone in tech support, and I was told to do the following:

I was told that unless I completed both of these steps—and these were the first troubleshooting steps offered to me, as a note—then we wouldn't be able to move forward with the tech support process. Literally, if I did not do these things, the agent would not even attempt to provide any more help. I basically told her that was unacceptable, and we went back and forth for a while longer. She told me that adblockers are not a form of Internet security, so removing mine would not leave me vulnerable to anything, and told me to install Chrome an additional four times. I told her that I was not going to install Chrome. She told me that we couldn't move forward unless I carried out every step she instructed me to do in order to fix the problem.

I told her that I was sorry if I seemed nasty, but it seemed like she had no intentions of actually offering any help and was just following a script telling her to make me install Chrome—and that she needed a better script. Her response was "I'm sorry I don't have better news for you," and that ended the conversation.

Again, one more reminder, I have Premium. I am not being served ads at all. That didn't matter, I was still instructed to uninstall those extensions outright, and refused assistance or access to a platform I pay for unless I agreed to do so.

Want to know how I got the platform to load again?

I manually turned off JUST the tracking cookie blocker.

They don't care about users' money, they care about users' data. They care about knowing what you are doing and where you're doing it, even when that information isn't being used to serve ads.

Anyway I cleared my cache/cookies, updated the extension, logged out, restarted Firefox, manually turned the tracking blocker back on, and logged back in. It's worked fine since then.

Wow did you see this unreleased official dungeon meshi comic???

hey. im one of the people who does a specific and noticable thing right after you wake up so you realize youre in a timeloop. yeah im the guy who drops a bucket of paint off a ladder haha. yeah its a thankless job but i get paid per loop so like. dont learn your lesson too quick haha

not to sound old fashioned or whatever but getting rid of payphones is a mistake, and the only reason we should do it is if we're replacing them with free, public use phones. Having the ability to reach out to others in every place of public congress and transit is an important safety feature and the advent and adoption of smartphones does not negate their utility.

I know i've already lost this battle, so it's somewhat pointless to say, but smartphones die. chargers aren't always there. smartphones break. some people don't have them. Being able to call someone and ask for help, to get in touch with friends and family, without relying on something you yourself own, is a societal good.

Furthermore, expecting everybody to have a single piece of fragile technology on them at all times to the point that critical services are not available without them is truly mind-boggling to me. This goes for things like restaurant menus and transit maps as well. you should be able to navigate the world without a brick made by Apple or Samsung, and if you can't, then something is fundamentally broken. It's one thing for new technology to augment an existing real-world experience, it's another thing to usurp it entirely.

who up thinking about marooned

yes, doctors suck, but also "the medical ethics and patient interaction training doctors receive reinforces ableism" and "the hyper competitive medical school application process roots out the poor, the disabled, and those who would diversify the field" and "anti-establishment sentiment gets applications rejected and promotions requests denied, weeding out the doctors on our side" and "the gruesome nature of the job and the complete lack of mental health support for medical practitioners breeds apathy towards patients" and "insurance companies often define treatment solely on a cost-analysis basis" and "doctors take on such overwhelming student loan debt they have no choice but to pursue high paying jobs at the expense of their morals" are all also true

none of this absolves doctors of the truly horrendous things they say and do to patients, but it's important to acknowledge that rather than every doctor being coincidentally a bad person, there is something specific about this field and career path that gives rise to such high prevalence of ableist attitudes

and I WILL elaborate happily

goddddd nanami and anthy’s dynamic makes me insane. i hate you because i am you. i hate you because i’m scared of you, and i’m scared of being like you (i already am). i’ll hurt you so i can prove we’re two different people and i am so much better than you, so much less sick. i see myself in you and you in myself and that scares me, and i can’t flee so i’ll fight. also i’ll send you a fuckass magic cowbell and put snails in your pencil case loser

wander <--> peepers bodyswap thoughts

the concept of a woy bodyswap thing has been taking over my mind lately…specifically between wander and peepers. they’re the most interesting option i think!!! they have a lot of parallels i feel but they don’t often get explored which is a shame because i love them. and i feel you can do more with them than other potential bodyswaps

read more is a bunch of thoughts i have about this concept!!! directly copied from a twitter threads i wrote about it so they’re a bit disjointed i don’t feel like writing anything more coherent at the moment

It had to be done.