Hey do y'all remember several years ago when we were all freaking out about net neutrality being overturned? Well despite net neutrality's win in 2024, a federal court just overturned it.
For those who aren't aware, net neutrality is the simple principle that companies like Verizon and Comcast should treat all web traffic equally – not pick and choose based on who is willing to pay more or who they like best. Big Tech companies obviously don’t like that – which is why they spent millions lobbying against it over the years.
Now, these megacorporations will be able to seize control back over our Internet. The likely result? Throttled access to streaming services, monopolistic pricing that cuts out competition, and a slower, walled off, and less free Internet for all of us.
And unfortunately, rulings like this will only get more common now that the Supreme Court has overturned the “Chevron deference” – giving judges, rather than qualified public servants, a blank check to toss out protections like net neutrality, environmental safeguards, or food safety standards.
When Trump’s FCC repealed net neutrality back in 2017, they gave big corporations total control over our Internet – putting free and open access at risk.
Internet providers responded by exploiting their newfound power to speed up certain websites, and slow down – or even block – others. They failed to provide crucial Internet infrastructure in rural areas, low-income communities, and communities of color. They even slashed firefighters’ Internet access during severe wildfires.
But over 126,000 people spoke out and we were able to reinstate net neutrality – until now.
The time has come again to take action: please sign this petition from Common Cause so we can reinstate net neutrality.
once again i am so in love with the way that leverage treats parker. because oh boy, the grave danger job. hardison is buried alive, he's freaking out on the phone, and parker feels like she can't help him, she's not good with emotions in this way, not like sophie, so she says that hardison needs sophie. but sophie knows that what hardison needs is to hear parker's voice, that whatever is going on with those two, parker is the person who will be most reassuring for hardison right now, but she also knows parker won't be convinced by that, and she needs parker to feel confident. so she speaks parker's language. she gives parker a reason for why parker is the best person for this job - not he loves you, not you love him, not even he just needs to hear your voice it doesn't matter what you say, none of that will land with her. sophie says, parker, you've spent more time in air ducts than anyone. if anyone knows how to hold their breath it's you. that's what hardison needs right now. she gives parker a job: help hardison breathe. she doesn't try to push parker, she doesn't make it into some more profound thing that parker might not be ready to hear or able to understand at that moment; she takes stock of the situation and knows (1) hardison needs to hear parker's voice right now and (2) parker needs to feel confident and useful right now and she feeds them the answer, because she loves them exactly how they are. i can't put it into words any better than this but i just love that over and over leverage says "you can be loved and love in return without trying to be different than you are" and never more than with parker.
As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.
Oh _lovely_. Everyone go turn this off:
Enhanced Visual Search in Photos allows you to search for photos using landmarks or points of interest. Your device privately matches places in your photos to a global index Apple maintains on our servers. We apply homomorphic encryption and differential privacy, and use an OHTTP relay that hides [your] IP address. This prevents Apple from learning about the information in your photos. You can turn off Enhanced Visual Search at any time on your iOS or iPadOS device by going to Settings > Apps > Photos. On Mac, open Photos and go to Settings > General.
Disabling this is easy on iPhone: go to settings > apps > photos, and scroll all the way down to the bottom.
This is the magic lucky word count. Reblog for creativity juice. It might even work, who knows.
Hi my name is Tez and I first read Thief of Time 17 years ago and I only just goddamn realized why Lobsang freezing himself in midair after falling off a building is called “the Stance of the Coyote.”
An intro to doing crosswords for complete beginners
as told by someone who didn’t do any before this year and now has gotten so deeply into them
with examples pulled almost entirely from crosswords published in American publications this week
- A crossword is not a measure of general knowledge or intelligence or skill with words anymore than a Mario game is a measure of how good you are at plumbing. It certainly helps to have the same cultural reference points as the puzzle, but you can brute force your way through a lot of it if you just know how crosswords work
- Easiest on Mondays and then get harder over the week
- The answer is in the same verb tense as the clue (ex. “doesn’t float” is “SINKS” while “didn’t float” is “SANK”)
- If there’s an acronym or abbreviation in the clue, the answer will have one as well (ex. “Toothpaste-approving org.” is “ADA” because that the short way of referring to the American Dental Association)
- If the answer is in written like a text from a teen girl with her first flip phone, the answer will be a common texting abbreviation (TMI, OMG, LOL, LMAO, BRB, TTYL, etc) (ex. three letter word with clue “i can’t believe u told me that” is “TMI”)
- If the clue is in quotes, it’s dialogue and the response should also be dialogue (ex. the clue “‘That’s it for me!’” is “IQUIT”)
- An answer can be multiple words, (see above) so some correct answers can make you second guess yourself because it creates letter combos that seem impossible to be in one English (mostly) word or mess you up bc it’s ambiguous where one word ends and another begins (ex. you have the letters “OWFO” and the answer ends up being “PILLOWFORT” or “UDAT” being “BERMUDATRIANGLE”)
- Treat clues with a question mark like they’re going to be puns that make you groan so think about other meanings of the words in the clue (ex. “Volumes you can hear?” is “AUDIOBOOKS” or “Not fancy at all?” is “HATE” or “Remained under cover?” is “SLEPTIN”)
- Clues that add hedging language line “they could be called…” or one might use this as…” are telling you to think very laterally. These are the ones that make you a little mad when you get them (ex. “They might be said to be dancing or raging” is “FLAMES” or “They admit they might be punched” is “TICKETS”)
- The word “maybe” usually indicates the answer will be an example of the clue, not a synonym (ex. “Pet, maybe” is “CAT”)
- If a person is in the clue and a person is the answer, the answer will be from the same part of name as the clue (ex. Trevor Noah replaced John Stewart on the Daily Show. So the clue “Stewart’s successor on the Daily Show” is “NOAH” while “John’s successor on the Daily Show” would be “TREVOR”
- No word in the clue will be featured in the answer (ex. “What Beyoncé Knowles goes by” could be “ONENAME” but could never be “BEYONCÉ”)
- A answer can be a phonetic spelling of a letter (ex. “Epic finale?” is “CEE”)
- Not every clue is going to be tricky and clever, don’t rule out an obvious choice just because it’s obvious (ex. “Do ___ disturb” is “NOT”)
- Roman numerals pop up a lot but typically only in clues where a Roman numeral makes sense, so “finale of a play?” could be “ACTII” but “Number of Stooges” is not going to be “III”
- There’s a ton of really common clues. If you do enough crossword puzzles you recognize them. (ex. Literally almost anything about oil is going to be OPEC, any variations on “things on a smartphone that someone can download and use” is going to be “APPS”, and anything about a european capital city is probably “OSLO”)
- If a clue can be about a cookie, the answer is almost certainly “OREO”
Send an email to your representatives demanding an immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and other healthcare worker hostages illegally detained by Israel. Demand to end Israel's genocide Palestine and to uphold medical neutrality.
that's... not how it works. you can't guarantee that your work definitely won't squick anyone. what do you think you're saying?
"squick free" someone writes on their wholesome family fic about married characters expecting a baby.
I read it and am extremely squicked.
You do not know what squicks other people. "Squick" is not a category of elements, it is a description of a reaction.
Squick is literally a personal thing, you literally cannot know what squicks another person.
Same goes for triggers, by the way. You can't guarantee something is trigger-free because literally anything can be a trigger because the human brain can be weird like that sometimes.
No no, actually there's a perfect way to write an absolutely squick free fanfic! Plenty of writers do it successfully every day!
Here.
Blank documents squick me out because they remind me of all my unstarted writing projects. :/
guys. c'mon.
oh my goddd
Okay, for anyone ACTUALLY unsure and wanting to learn: "squick" is an old fandom term. It means something that grosses you out or makes you deeply uncomfortable, but doesn't give you as intense negative reactions as a trigger. They are incredibly personal, though often times, just like with triggers, you can tag relatively common squicks.
For me, mpreg is a squick. It makes me deeply uncomfortable, but it doesn't send me into a panic spiral, a deep depression, or make me angry like reading about eye trauma does.
My cousins in Lannister, ‘squick’ didn’t even originate in fandom.
Also useful to note that ‘squick’ is specifically used to mean “this isn’t for me, personally” without adding a moral judgement to it. A simple easy way to say ‘no, thank you but you do you’. Unlike ‘cringe’ which has negative connotations. Squicks are also more than just uncomfortable.
Daddy kink makes me uncomfortable
Degradation squicks me out
Hand trauma is a trigger
First known usage of "squick" was in 1991. It's not some new term that was made up for this post.
The idea that something can be squick-free or trigger free is sooooo tied to the neopuritan bullshit we’ve seen grow in the past decade.
The only way you can consider something “squick-free” is if you believe that there are some things that squick everyone out and some things that do not squick anyone out. Which means there are “right” and “wrong” things to be squicked out by. Which is just one more way of attaching moral judgments to your personal disgust reaction, which is the core of the anti movement.