Zelse

100%; it's not enough that the good guys win once, they have to win every time and the (proposal) deck is stacked, especially with something like this that most people will assume is the domain of technocrats even though it erodes everyone's rights.

The paradox of tolerance unfortunately means that rooting out the problem requires a level of care, vigilance, funding, and education that it is very difficult to convince even the well-meaning parts of society to pony up. (The Preparedness Paradox awaits us even with success.)

I rarely use Twitch - though it can be fun - but have seen you stream on YT and enjoyed it, FWIW. So long as people know when and where, it's all good IMO.

100%, and then they will go back to targeting other queers, where they distinguish between them at all (and many of them don't.) We're all fucked if we don't close ranks and make sure allies make their voices heard.

100%. If it was really about protecting kids, they would be proposing "zero proof" ID verification - like how you go to the store and buy beer. (Instead, you buy a scratch card that has an authorization code; have a valid code? You showed ID to buy it, so are of age.)

There's two layers of fash - the majority are indeed (useful) idiots, but at the heart of the thing there's people like Peter Thiel and Stephen Harper (of the IDU) who are very aware of what they're doing and where it's going. Maybe not as granular as this, but def a boot stepping on a human face.

@fatsquirrel.bsky.social Happened across Anguish and your article on getting an old JavaStation to run. With all the awful news lately, it brought a smile to my face. Just wanted to say thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the reply!

"Could never have worked" - if you don't mind a question from a stranger, do you believe it was doomed to fail intrinsically or under (say) capitalism/the corporatized internet hellscape as it exists presently?

It goes a bit beyond that IMO - there's also their popularizing of "every side in every conflict is equally shitty and therefore equally legitimate, andthusallreformattemptsarefundamentallyawasteoftime".

Yup! "Kids can't go anywhere, but also can't do anything by themselves, and also any adult who takes an interest in providing entertainment to kids is low-key assumed to be a predator." ->
"Gee I can't figure out why all the kids are <shut ins, depressed, forming 70s dystopian sci-fi gangs, etc.>"

Evil, clever, and batshit crazy is a terrifying combination.

Oh sweet lord no. And it's chocolate-adjacent.

I once told a relative: "To you, voting for [my country's right wing party] is a matter of lower taxes, to me it's about my human rights. If you choose to prioritize a promise of lower taxes over my human rights, how do you expect me to just quietly accept that? It's like that for all queer people."

Until the non-fascists unite in their absolute intolerance of intolerance, it doesn't. The US' political system is a ratchet: the GOP pulls things to the right and redefines the centre, and the Democrats' primary body, being fundamentally rightist itself, prevents any reversion to an earlier state.

And now to very carefully avoid the news until the thing's decided, or, more likely, until either the more authoritarian nutjob has won OR has lost and begun shouting the quiet part rather than simply saying it at normal volume. (The quiet part hasn't been quiet for quite some time.)

That would mean the Democrats would be serving a purpose other than "acting as the pawl to the ever-rightward ratchet that is modern American politics", though - and apparently asking them to actually fix things instead of "vaguely slowing down the decline, sometimes, maybe" is asking too much.

Consequences are for poors, apparently. I remember reading somewhere a discussion how EULAs in many countries were likely unenforceable in many cases, but it almost immediately noted "of course, the only people with the means to pursue such a finding have a vested interest against it."

You can't just say that and not link/show off this shirt.

The more you think about it, the worse it gets. Think of EULA shit or unilaterally altering deals post facto. My utility company 3xcharged me and then told me they were keeping the money for 3 months credit rather than refunding. If a consumer did that, they'd be sued AND sitting in the dark.

Plus even if a fan is selfish/cynical, a creator following multiple passions is less likely to suffer burnout and just quit altogether. I'd rather someone produce something I enjoy 1% of the time topic-wise than just stop producing content 100% of the time and leave us all poorer for it.

📌

Needs more unlabelled ziplock bags and reused jars with clearly incorrect labels crudely taped on. Unless that's just me?

<Insert drivel here about how companies should only care about money and this is somehow virtuous and not a cop-out so obvious a toddler could see through it>

How do you connect dozens of modems to your 90s ISP? We embark on a mission to find out by comprehensively evaluating terminal servers in this epic two-part ... Epic Terminal Server Showdown! - ISP Series Episode 4

Really enjoying The Serial Port's ongoing series on setting up a dial-up ISP. Informative and entertaining. Plus, it's been fun to learn that the way I naively assumed dial-up ISPs worked as a child is actually fairly close to the reality.