鑽牛角尖 "Boring into the tip of the ox-horn." edition
(Definitely boring for folks not into it!)
*
The alleged story is embroiling me in questions of grammar in a constructed language.
The beautiful Dai Bendu conlang created by @aroacejoot , @ghostwriterofthemachine , and @loosingletters on @dai-bendu-conlang, is very deeply constructed around being. Nouns are meticulously inflected for case, number, and even semantic category. (With explanations! Check them out!)
Similarly, the construction of the verbs and their tenses (including some wonderfully inventive ones) feels very reflective of a Jedi philosophy of time, and cause and effect.
As best I can determine from the resources I've found, the matter of verb-subject agreement is simply that one must specify a subject with a nominative case noun or pronoun in the sentence. Thus, one does not have constructions such as in Spanish: where the verb ending tells the subject (first/second/third person, singular or plural), and so pronouns are often omitted in a sentence. [E.g. ¿Viste la película? (Did you see the movie?) ~~ The ending of the verb tells not only that the question is about something in the past, but also that it is about the person being addressed, i.e. “you” / 2nd person singular.]
As I'm writing, I often find myself wanting to write a Dai Bendu sentence as comprehensible without having to name the subject (especially in cases where the subject would be named by a pronoun.) (Not sure why that is. Spanish or similar languages are not my first.) Somehow the sound and sense feels smoother? But without conjugation of the verbs for person and number, leaving out a subject pronoun can lead to confusion.
Is it kosher for a random writer to "contribute" to a constructed language by adding new features? When they are not part of the team who created the language?
Together, we reached the full $300 goal for my university application fund.
I honestly didn't know if I would make it when the deadline arrived. After six days of effort and one final extension, your support made this possible.
Thank you to everyone who donated, shared, encouraged, and believed in my journey.
This is not the end. It is the first step toward my Master's degree and a future I have been working toward for years.
Mahmoud is a gazan student who has been working really hard to support his fellow university students through the Isnad Foundation (please check it out at @isnadfoundation Tumblr), even as he works toward his own studies.
Here is his campaign link, because the road ahead is still filled with hardship.
This is not the kind of post a mother wants to write
When I look at this picture, I see a child who should be allowed to enjoy a beautiful moment without fear or worry. But I am writing this because I need help providing basic essentials for my family.
I am sharing this because I want people to see him first, and to remember that behind every fundr@iser_ there is a real family trying to hold on.
If you can don@te_, thank you.
If you can’t, reblogging this post would still h_elp us.
“Life for Gaza 2”. Donations will be directed toward:
Water supply enhancement projects
Maintenance of water wells
Implementation of water desalination initiatives
Management of waste collection and disposal systems
Reconstruction of roads demolished during war
Implementation of sewage water pumping and treatment schemes
Execution of pest control and rodent eradication programs
“One Step Closer”. The Artificial Limbs and Polio Center is one of the most essential facilities under the management of Gaza Municipality, responsible for its administration and providing essential resources, equipment, and supplies to enable the center to serve citizens for nearly 50 years. Established in 1976, this is the only facility currently operating in Gaza City, offering prosthetic services to the injured. It also provides therapeutic and medical care for children with disabilities, the elderly, stroke patients, and physical therapy services.
Donations will be directed toward operational expenses to ensure the continuity of essential services for citizens, sustain the Artificial Limbs and Polio Center, and provide the critical medical care that has become even more urgent due to ongoing aggression. Including:
Manufacturing and fitting prosthetics for all levels of upper and lower limb amputations.
Offering psychological support and rehabilitation to help patients cope with the mental challenges of limb loss and develop coping strategies that foster self-confidence and social integration.
Maintaining and repairing prosthetics to ensure their ongoing effectiveness.
Designing and supplying orthopedic devices for various levels of amputation and spinal support.
Providing custom-made medical footwear.
Training individuals with disabilities to use their devices effectively, focusing on empowering them to engage in society and rely on their self-capabilities.
Supplying polio patients with essential assistive devices to support their needs.
19-year-old Khalil Al Habil's liver and kidneys are failing. Shrapnel damage from the bombardment that killed his baby brother Omar has gone mostly untreated due to a lack of funds and resources. The ill effects of this damage have progressed to the point that the organs are losing their ability to function. Khalil urgently needs 3 rounds of treatment to combat the effects of his deteriorating liver and kidneys.
We've paid off the first round of treatments but Khalil has two treatments that he still needs. The second costs about $1,250 usd, but we haven’t made much progress in more than a month and his condition is getting progressively worse. We need to meet this second goal ASAP!!!
Current: $9,829 out of $10,407 usd (3 May)
Need to raise: $578 usd
Hello, my name is Khalil, I'm 19 years old, from Gaza.
Vetting information linked in the last reblog of this post, courtesy of murderbot
Elections stay safe, lawyers take a pay cut, immigrants stand their ground, and a pension fund earns an advocate.
Good things are happening! The Senate votes down voter suppression, Hawaii lawyers take one for the team, immigrants fight to stay in Tennessee, and Massachusetts teachers oppose private equity.
Dodging A Voter Suppression Nightmare
A major voter suppression bill failed in the Senate this week. On June 4, senators voted against adding the SAVE America Act, which President Donald Trump has called his top congressional priority, to a filibusterproof reconciliation package, effectively killing the bill for now.
Four Senate Republicans — including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is up for reelection in November — joined Democrats in voting down the legislation, which, if passed, threatened to significantly disrupt the current primary elections. The SAVE America Act would have required proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, in order to register to vote and photo identification to vote.
This change would have taken effect as soon as it was signed into law, even though millions of people have already cast ballots for primaries nationwide, and millions more don’t have proof of citizenship on hand.
The bill would also have forced states to hand over their voter rolls to the federal government. The Trump administration has previously sought to purge these lists of people it does not believe are authorized to vote. Those efforts, without a congressional mandate, have not survived scrutiny from federal courts.
Under pressure from President Donald Trump, Republicans have tried to pass the SAVE America Act for months in the Senate, after the House pushed it through in February along party lines, claiming it would solve the problem of widespread voter fraud. No such fraud exists in the country.
Maui Judge Puts Maui First
After victims of the 2023 wildfires on Maui, Hawaii, won more than $4 billion in a settlement with the island’s electric utility company, a Hawaii judge capped legal fees at $222 million, only a fifth of what the lawyers had asked for, allowing more of the money to go to the wildfires’ victims as they rebuild.
In August 2023, wildfires ripped through the historic town of Lahaina, killing over 100 people and destroying thousands of buildings. Out-of-state lawyers quickly pounced on the disaster, eager to sign up clients for a future settlement with Hawaiian Electric Company, Maui’s electric utility, as well as landowners accused of allowing fire-hazardous invasive grasses to grow on their properties. Other attorneys signed up their clients only after much of the legal work had already been completed or after the settlement had been reached.
Lawyers involved in disaster lawsuits are typically paid 25 percent of the settlement amount — in this case, $1 billion of the $4.03 billion that victims of the wildfires were awarded. Those sorts of figures are driving a booming post-disaster class-action lawsuit industry, one that critics say often benefits everyone but the victims. But the judge took issue with the disproportionate amount of work some lawyers had done compared to others.
One of the lead lawyers on the case, Jesse Creed, supported the decision, even though it meant he would be paid less. “I see this as a matter of sacrifice for the community,” he told Honolulu Civil Beat.
Hawaii institutions, including the state, the county, and the private school system Kamehameha Schools, also agreed to contribute to the settlement fund to help rebuild the Lahaina community.
ACLU Challenges Crime Of Existing
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and National Immigration Law Center (NILC) filed a lawsuit against Tennessee on June 4, challenging a recently enacted law that makes it a crime for adult immigrants with final removal orders to be in the state.
The law, set to go into effect on July 1, was drafted by state Republicans with the help of Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff and architect of the federal government’s mass deportation policies. Miller also helped devise a new federal effort in which immigrants who defy deportation orders are slapped with multimillion-dollar fines and hounded by private debt collectors with long records of abuse.
In their complaint, ACLU and NILC argued that Tennessee has unconstitutionally set up its own immigration removal powers, unaccountable to the federal government.
The organizations filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Memphis, Tennessee, residents, one of whom is a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which conditionally protects undocumented adults who entered the United States as children from being deported.
The law includes a section that would make it a crime for undocumented migrants who have been deported in the past to enter the state. That would not go into effect unless the Supreme Court overturns a 2012 decision that struck down an Arizona law making it a crime to be undocumented within state lines. Donate To The Lever
Retirees Elect Private Equity’s Worst Nightmare
In an overlooked but important election, Massachusetts teachers and retirees voted overwhelmingly to elect Matthew Scheffler, a high school history teacher opposed to private equity investment, to the board of the state’s teachers’ pension fund.
Massachusetts’s teachers’ retirement system had one of the largest increases in debt of any pension plan in 2024, growing by $1 billion and bringing its total debt to $26 billion.
Scheffler has attributed that debt to investments in the risky, illiquid, high-fee world of private equity. Public pension funds are some of the biggest investors in private equity, but retirement systems across the country are slowly divestingfrom the sector, noting their underperformance, not to mention their history of stripping American institutions for parts.
In the meantime, private equity is seeking access to workers’ 401(k)s, which is widely expected to produce similar results in retirement accounts as it did in public pension plans.
Scheffler told The Lever over email that he has advocated for a “Norway model” of management. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, has banned alternative investments like private equity and venture capital.
“As fiduciaries of public funds, we need to swear an Hippocratic Oath,” Scheffler wrote in a statement to The Lever. “Do no harm.”
In Gaza, war has destroyed homes, blocked roads, and left countless people without work. Yet, amidst the rubble, hope remains. Students and
We aim to create a safe, fully-equipped workspace with reliable electricity and fast internet, offering students and freelancers in Gaza the environment they need to continue their journey despite the hardships.
💡 What will your contribution achieve?
✅ Free access for students to study in a safe and supportive environment.
✅ Affordable workspace for freelancers to sustain themselves and support their families.
✅ A better-equipped space with more chairs and proper lighting.
✅ Uninterrupted electricity through generators that require costly fuel.
[All transfers are tracked publicly here for accountability.]
LATEST UPDATE
Sat, Apr 04
Spark Space is now hosting courses for students & nurses - help bring them hope
Thanks to your generous help, good things are happening and we are progressing, with new students and new teams coming to the space. But in addition to the groups benefiting from the space in a humanitarian way, some new developments have emerged. We are now also accommodating several work teams to work together at Spark, and, at the request of some students and nurses, we have been organizing courses in several fields: economics, first aid, and programming. We are now about to launch several courses in various fields.
Your support is essential to our work. The project's biggest challenge is the cost of energy, currently 25 NIS/kWh (about $8, or £6). (For comparison, in the UK, it's around 15–20p/kWh!) This is one of our essential costs, excluding labor, kitchen, rent, and other expenses.
Thank you for your ongoing support. For us, these challenges fade away when we see our community thriving and able to survive—not just survive, but to work together to rebuild and reconstruct our nation. This work means building people and cultivating conscious and ambitious youth. We are certain that the outcome of this work will be immense, and that the seeds will one day sprout and bear fruit.
Google’s new remote attestation scheme is every bit as terrible as its old remote attestation scheme
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Long before "agentic AI," we had the idea that software would act as your agent on the internet. That's why the old-fashioned technical term for a browser is a "user agent." Your browser acts on your behalf to retrieve information and then show it to you, in the format you choose. It's your agent:
This is a powerful and profound idea. It is because browsers are our "agents" that we expect them to accept our directives, say, by blocking pop-ups, or by turning off autoplay sound, or by blocking commercial surveillance trackers:
https://privacybadger.org/
Your browser does all that because your browser works for you. The reason your browser can work for you is that the web is an open, standardized technology. In theory, anyone who follows the standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) can make a browser, and that web browser can connect to any web server. Browsers and servers are interoperable. It's the same force that means you can put anyone's gas in your gas-tank, or anyone's shoelaces in your shoes, or anyone's milk on your cereal.
But what if manufacturers could dictate those choices to you? What if your light socket refused to use a lightbulb unless it was officially blessed by the socket's manufacturer? What if your dishwasher refused to wash your dishes unless you bought them from one of the manufacturer's "dish partners"? What if your toaster refused to toast "unauthorized bread"?
It's hard to see how a company could win its market with this strategy. After all, if the dishes are really better than the competition's, you'd buy them voluntarily, without any need for law or technology to force the matter. The only reason to make a dishwasher that refuses a rival's dishes is if the manufacturer's own dishes are ugly, expensive, and/or badly made.
But once a company owns the market – once they've achieved dominance by buying out their rivals; by bribing potential competitors to stay out of their lane; and by engaging in deceptive conduct to trap key suppliers and customers – they could cement their dominance by blocking interoperability, keeping out rival dishes, milk, gas, lightbulbs, shoelaces and bread, capturing their whole market and squeezing it.
That's what Google has done, and that's what Google wants to do more of. Google's commercial behavior has been so unethical, deceptive and abusive that the company just lost three federal antitrust cases:
They cheated app vendors, ripping them off with sky-high junk fees and onerous conditions that raised prices while lowering the share of your spending that went to the companies whose products you were paying for:
They cheated advertisers, rigging the ad market to gouge businesses on ad prices and underinvesting to fight rampant ad-fraud, sucking hundreds of billions out of the productive economy for overpriced ads that no one saw:
Google wasn't always this way. The "don't be evil" company owes its very existence to the open web ecosystem. When the company started to index the web in 1998, it was playing on an open field, where any web server could talk to any "user agent," even one whose user was a startup like Google, that was making a copy of every page on the server.
For years, Google thrived on the open web, and built open technologies. Android – the mobile operating system that Google bought in 2005 – was presented as an "open" alternative to existing mobile offerings, and as the mobile market collapsed into two companies – Google and Apple – Google always presented Android as the open alternative to Apple's "walled garden."
There were always ways in which Google's "open" Android wasn't exactly open. The company engaged in illegal "tying" arrangements that forced hardware vendors and carriers to lock out versions of Android that were created by Google's competitors:
In other words, even though Google offered a mobile platform that was (mostly) technically open, they used commercial and legal strategies to choke off the market oxygen for alternative Android versions that tried to capitalize on that technical openness.
But life finds a way. The existence of an open, modifiable, tinkerer-friendly mobile operating system meant Android hackers could create alternatives to Google's (de facto) walled garden, which thrived in the cracks in that garden wall. Operating systems like CalyxOS, PureOS and Graphene offered a more private, more secure Android experience, one that was largely "de-Googled," blocking Google's relentless acquisition of your private data:
https://grapheneos.org/
And Google's data-hunger is relentless. Android exfiltrates a chunk of your personal and behavioral data every five minutes. The "resting heartbeat" of Android surveillance pulses and pulses, irrespective of whether you're using your device, and the instant you unlock your screen, that heartbeat quickens, sending even more data to the company:
All that data has proved irresistible to authoritarian governments. Donald Trump's enforcers have seized on Google data as a vital source of information about the identity of protesters and the location of migrants hunted by ICE:
So there are plenty of reasons why users would seek out these de-Googled alternatives to Android, finding them in spite of Google's illegal commercial tactics to block access to competing technologies. The worse it got, the better those alternatives looked.
Perhaps this explains Google's years-long effort to increase the technical barriers to using modified versions of Android, beefing these up to match the commercial restrictions that stand in the way of a de-Googled existence.
Back in 2023, Google floated the idea of "Web Environment Integrity" (WEI), a set of modifications to web standards that would force your computer to disclose its operating environment to the web servers it connected to, even if you objected to this disclosure:
WEI was a form of "remote attestation." That's when your device uses a sub-processor (sometimes called a "Technical Protection Module" or "TPM") or a walled off part of its main processor (sometimes called a "secure enclave") to produce a cryptographically signed description of your device and its configuration: which hardware, software, plug-ins and settings you're running.
When you connect to a server, it demands that your device send this "attestation" before it handles your request. If your device won't provide this data, or if the server doesn't like (or recognize) your device and its details, it can refuse to deal with you. And because the attestation is prepared by a TPM or a secure enclave that you can't modify or override, you don't get to decide which facts about your device it's allowed to see.
Practically speaking, this means that remote attestation lets a server refuse to deal with you until you turn off your ad-blocker and your tracker-blocker. It means that the server can discriminate against users who block auto-play sound and video, who block pop-ups, who put the tab in the background when it's playing a mandatory pre-roll ad.
WEI was especially disturbing in light of Google's efforts to kill ad-blockers and privacy blockers through updates to Chrome, an effort that continues to this day:
These blockers are an important part of the dynamic between web publishers and their users. In the real world, when you get an offer, you can make a counter-offer. That's all an ad-blocker is: a way for users to respond to a server whose opening bid is, "How about you give me all your data and let me take over your computer in exchange for showing you this page?" with "How about 'Nah?'"
We didn't get rid of pop-up ads by making them illegal, or by boycotting advertisers who used them. We got rid of pop-up ads when web users installed pop-up blockers, which made pop-up ads pointless. Take away our ability to block obnoxious digital content and you guarantee that we will be flooded with it.
These kinds of modifications aren't just used to block ads – they're also key to accessibility. People who have photosensitive epilepsy or who (like me) suffer from low-contrast vision problems use add-ons to reformat pages so that we can safely and legibly access them.
WEI's creators said they were only trying to put the web on a level playing field with apps, which routinely rat you out to the companies you connect to. Apps are a source of bottomless enshittification, not least because (unlike the web), they enjoy special, dangerous legal protections that make it very legally risky to modify them:
WEI wasn't an effort to level the playing field between apps and the web – it was a race to the bottom, an attempt to make the web as enshittogenic as the app hellscape.
Public outrage to WEI killed the project, but Google's commitment to augmenting its illegal commercial lockdown efforts with technical lockdowns never ended. Now, Google has rolled out an experimental "reCAPTCHA Mobile Verification" that uses an app, your camera, and your device's TPM or secure enclave to produce an attestation about your Android device:
This will make it much easier for the apps and other services you interact with to block your device if you run an Android alternative, or if you install a mod that overrides the actions of Google's stock Android:
This is a terrible idea – it's every bit as bad as WEI was. In an age in which Big Tech is ever-more tied to authoritarian governments, redesigning our devices to tell strangers things we don't want them to know isn't just shortsighted, it's inexcusable.
$900… not just a number, it’s a roof over our heads
Support our staying in our land❤️💚🤍🖤
I’m from Gaza. I have a small family, Maria and Kenan. We lost our home and my job, and I’m trying to cover May’s rent along with basic needs like food, water, and clothes.
Any support—even small—or sharing this post makes a difference.
Donate via CHUFFED👇🏻
Hello friends, I am Moataz, a graphic designer from Gaza. I have been married to Mariam for two and a half years, and we have the most beaut
Donate via PayPal 👇🏻
Go to paypal.me/Najia1995 and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.
Vetted by @northgazaupdates @northgazaupdates2
I don’t need campaign verification—I’m known on Instagram, where I documented the war in Gaza. This is my account.
Gaza Emergency
After 2 years of brutal attacks on Gaza, MECA team and partners are still providing emergency assistance to children and
The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) is a nonprofit humanitarian aid organization based in Berkeley, California. We support children and families in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon through:
Direct aid including food, medicine, medical supplies, and clothes as well as books, toys and school supplies. Since 1988, we have sent more than $54 million in aid to children in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon
Financial support and professional assistance to community organizations in the West Bank and Gaza that help meet Palestinian children’s needs, including clinics, kindergartens, counseling centers, libraries; accessible parks and playgrounds; sports teams, and dance, music and art programs
University scholarships for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank
Educational and cultural programs in the US and internationally to increase understanding about the lives of children in the Middle East and the impact of US foreign policy on people in the region
True info. Now let me add something: The power of documentation. (I was a long time steward in a nurses union.)
Remember: The "'E" in email stands for evidence.
That cuts both ways. Be careful what you put into an email. It never really goes away and can be used against you.
But can also be a powerful tool for workplace fairness.
Case 1: Your supervisor asks you to do something you know is either illegal or against company policy. A verbal request. If things go wrong, you can count on them denying that they ever told you to do that. You go back to your desk, or wherever and you send them an email: "I just want to make sure that I understood correctly that you want me to do xxxxx" Quite often, once they see it in writing, they will change their mind about having you do it. If not, you have documentation.
Case 2: You have a schedule you like, you've had that schedule for a while, it works for you. Your supervisor comes to you and says "We're really short-handed now and I need you to change your schedule just for a month until we can get someone else hired. It's just temporary and you can have your old schedule back after a month." A month goes by and they forget entirely that they made that promise to you. So, once again, when they make the initial request, you send them an email "I'm happy to help out temporarily, but just want to make sure I understand correctly that I will get my old schedule back after a month as you promised." Documentation.
[Image ID: Text reading: In the middle of a busy clinic at our practice, I got pulled in by my manager to speak to HR, who must have made a special trip because she lives several states away, and told I was being 'investigated' for discussing wages with my other employees. She told me it was against company policy to discuss wages.
Me; That's illegal.
Them: (start italics) three slow, long seconds of staring at me blankly (end italics) Uh...
Me: That's an illegal policy to have. The right to discuss wages is a right protected by the National Labor Relations board. I used to be in a union. I know this.
HR: Oh, this is news to me! I have been working HR for 18 years and I never knew that. Haha. Well try not do do it anyway, it makes people upset, haha.
Me: people are entitled to their opinions about what their work is worth. Bye.
I then left, and sent her several texts and emails saying I would like a copy of their company policy to see where this wage discussion policy was kept. She quickly called me back in to her office.
HR: You know what, there is no policy like that in the handbook! I double check. Sorry about the confusion, my apologies.
Me: You still haven't given me the paper saying that we had this discussion. I am going to need some protection against retaliation.
HR: Oh haha yes here you go.
I just received a paper with legal letterhead and an apology saying there was no verbal warning or write up. Don't even take their shit you guys. Keep talking about wages. Know your worth. /End ID]
At one of my old (shit) jobs my boss would continually come have these verbal discussions with me and would never put anything in writing I took to summarizing every discussion we had in email. Like “just to confirm that you asked me to do X by Y date and you understand that means I won’t be able to complete the previous task you gave me until Z date - 2 weeks later than originally scheduled - because you want me to prioritize this new project.
The woman would then storm back into my office screaming at me for putting the discussion in writing and arguing about pushing back the other project or whatever. At which point I would summarize that conversation in email as well. Which would bring her storming back in, rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
Anyway I cannot imagine how badly that job would have gone if I hadn’t put all her wildly unreasonable demands in writing. Bitch still hated me but she could never hang me for “missing deadlines” because I always had in writing that she’d pushed the project back because she wanted something else done first.
Paper your asses babes. Do not let them get away with shit. If they won’t put what they’re asking you to do in writing then write it up yourself and email it to them.
Does anyone have that one story of the lady who worked at a bank or something and management tried to can her, but she had evidence or something that ended up having her win a lawsuit? If I recall that story had both evidence, and the importance of employee communication as a co-worker tipped her off so she made sure she had an evidence papertrail
Maryam, my family, and I forgive everyone who saw our posts or received our appeals and was unable to help us. Life is full of responsibilities, commitments, and circumstances that may prevent someone from offering help, even when they genuinely wish to do so.
Our faith, like Christianity and the universal values that unite humanity, calls upon us to practice forgiveness, show compassion, extend understanding, and support one another in times of need.
Maryam once ran through the streets of Gaza, full of light and laughter. Then war took her home, her family, and her health. Now, if an innocent child like her is not worthy of help, then who is?
I WAS FUCKING WONDERING WHAT THOSE DIGITAL PRICE TAGS WERE ABOUT SUDDENLY i had hoped they were so the workers didn't have to finagle those little papers into the slider part anymore 😭
Hi, yes, that is the OFFICIAL excuse made to me by the guy replacing the paper tags with digital ones at my local Walmart, but the end goal is to remove the numbers off the shelf entirely, replacing them with QR codes that you have to scan with the app…. Which requires your login information….. and also stores your card information so even if you didn’t use your Walmart account at the physical checkout, if you used a card they recognize, they assign that purchase to your Walmart account purchase history.
I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.
Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:
Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.
No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.
So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:
Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:
Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.
Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.
POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.
When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)
If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.
In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.
Yes, call your reps. Yes, push for more legislation like this in more places. But also take an extra minute out of your shopping trip to MAKE IT HURT for companies to pull this shit.
I've seen some people in the notes express (very fair) concern that this is only going to inconvenience already under-paid laborers, and not have any impact on corporate. While I can't speak for every company or every store, I do work in a grocery store and I can tell you this is precisely the kind of thing that would have an impact, especially if people are doing it en masse. Stores absolutely track their shrink numbers, and they do draw distinctions between what gets stolen, damaged, or wasted for other reasons. If people are making it clear that the reason they're bringing things to the cashier is that the prices are not adequately represented on the displays, and rather than improving business it's wasting product, slowing down transactions, and causing confusion and mistrust in customers, that is a language that shareholders speak.
I worked in retail for years. If this had happened while I was working retail, I would have been delighted and felt great solidarity with anyone who was wasting my employer's time and money and giving me busy work as an act of protest. In point of fact every moment the employee spends carting items back to the shelves is a moment not spent standing at a register.
I've written before about Abdul's son needing a new kidney. Unfortunately, he never got treatment and his condition is worsening rapidly. His parents are desperate to save him.
Donations are their only source of income, and the campaign has stagnated -- $23 in the last month.
Please share if you can't afford to donate.
I'm Nora, and I created this campaign on behalf of my friends, Abdul, Farah, and Safaa. Let me tell you about them.
