Nothing to see here

[blumineck]

The Odyssey if the suitors were competent…

Go Check out Neet- she’s awesome (her socials are at the bottom of the linked page if you want to see some of the training videos for this and other silliness)

[enki2]

[amazoogle]

the enemy drank water today. did you?

[ewoly5]

i drank water three days ago. im several steps ahead of the enemy. this is what it takes to win

[captain-price-returns]

It turns out the great egg price increase that helped topple Joe Biden's regime was (checks notes) due to an alleged conspiracy among egg producers to artificially increase prices and the coverage of that fact is a blink-and-you-miss-it story on the NYT website

[biblioaesthetica]

Egg producers settle with DOJ, states over price-fixing complaint

Seventeen states and the Department of Justice have settled a case of alleged price-fixing by major egg producers. Egg prices soared in rece

[papenathys]

Absolutely insane lines to just drop in the middle of an academic text btw. Feeling so normal about this.

[ A Critical History of English Literature, Vol. 1, Prof. David Daiches, first published in 1960 ]

[pocketsizedquasar]

[ID: “The tragedy of Hamlet, as in some degree of Othello, is that moral outrage demands action when no action can be of any use. In a sense, we can say that the ghost was at fault in appearing to Hamlet in the first place and setting him-for what might be called purely selfish reasons--a task which, even if accom-plished, could do no possible good. When Hamlet's whole nature was outraged by his mother's behavior and then by the news of his father's murder, he naturally felt that something must be done. But what? What could be done that would make any diference-any difference at all to the things that really mattered? Would a dagger through Claudius' ribs restore Hamlet's shattered universe? Would it restore his earlier idealized image of his mother or remove the "blister" that had been set on his innocent love? This is a tragedy of moral frustration. What are you going to do about past crimes which have shattered your preconceptions about the nature of life? There is nothing you can ever do about the past, except forget it. And yet, of course, Hamlet could not forget. Revenge is no real help-what sort of action, then, is of help? None that is directed toward undoing the past: only purposive action directed toward the future can ever help. And that is at least one explanation of Hamlet's long delay in carrying out the ghost's command: he wanted action that would undo the past, and no action could do that, revenge least of all, for that would only re-enact the past.

The punishment can never fit the crime, for it can never undo it.” End ID.]

[desertangels70s]

"Snoopy in Fashion" photo book from 1984.

[netherworldpost]

Tumblr’s fucking insanely poor programming on the mobile app ads is doing absolute power numbers on my desire to use my phone less in spaces where I need to wait for something.

Tumblr has joined the war against advertising on the side against advertising.

Which is.

A bold choice.

[netherworldpost]

“hey atty why did you leave the tech space years ago?”

normal people reasons

[netherworldpost]

The solution is simple as meatballs on a frozen lake.

Tumblr is a Saas — software as a service, this term is important to link what is going on. Twelve seconds of research will show you how cheap it is to add a user to a Saas. It isn’t $0.00 but it’s a fraction of a cent. The big cost is the initial load.

It’s $7 a month to pay for Tumblr Premium.

That’s fucking insane.

It should be $1-2.

You will obviously need a significantly higher volume to make the same amount of cash. I have an idea. Stop introducing shit people don’t want.

I am here on this site because of the perverts and artists and people with interestingly unhinged takes on media and/or life events.

There is no feature I crave on Tumblr beyond maintenance and a “reply via email” because I hate having inboxes outside of my email.

This is a business. I get it. I do not want this site to go under. I want the crew that runs it to be compensated well.

And.

There is no content Tumblr as a business is producing that I give a shit about. I am here still because it is the most convenient meeting ground to be weird and to enjoy weird and discover weird.

Premium experiences are so goddamn overrated and over bloated.

You have lost the plot and gotten way too big for your britches.

Charge fairly, provide the core service intended, and get out of the way for the mechanism that makes your product worth it — in this case, the evolving nonsense essays, comments, hilariously specific and targeted hate mail that feels at least half loving, and comics.

This place is wires and a collection of bad decisions in a group project for a teacher that is themselves about to get fired. It’s special because of the people. Not the fucking software.

Look into my beautiful eyes, tumblr staff.

Ban the nazis.

Stop banning trans people for being trans.

Keep the lights on and the floors swept.

Understand that every feature to compete with another network misses the point that this is place is a dive bar.

You bought a dive bar. You can’t make it into a gastropub. Your attempts to bring in headlining entertainment is going to fall on deaf ears, we are here to see the local folks live their theater kid nightmare orgasm comedy fest.

This brought to you by counting how many ads I had to scroll past on my phone while stuck in traffic where the ad purposefully slowed down the scrolling mechanism.

You are not going to annoy me into supporting this business.

Any money I have / will in the future spend here is because it serves the purpose of putting my weirdos in my life and me in theirs. My tolerance to the bullshit terrible programming extends only as far as the path takes to replace this with newsletters and mailed zines.

[netherworldpost]

Because I love data (being a big ol' nerd), let's do some math.

CURRENT PRICE FOR TUMBLR PREMIUM: $7.00

ESTIMATED NET RETURN (($7 x 0.971) - $0.30): about $6.50

This accounts for basic credit card processing fees of 2.9% + $0.30. Something at Tumblr's size should be able to negotiate better, but we are being malicious in our calculations, and saying "you get the basic rate" to prove a point.

SUGGESTED PRICE FOR TUMBLR PREMIUM: $2.00

ESTIMATED NET RETURN (($2 x 0.971) - $0.30): about $1.64

So

I ungenerously estimate the current Tumblr premium gets them $6.50/revenue versus my suggested $1.64/revenue.

Seems bad?!

Let's do a bit more math.

How many users at $2/base ($1.64 profit) would it take to cover the income of 1 user at $7/base ($6.50 income)?

6.50 / 1.64... 3.96341463415

I will uh go ahead and

round up

to 4 users

So. 1 user = $6.50 (6.50 x 1) profit. 4 users = $6.56 ($1.64 x 4) profit.

we'll just let the ol' tumblr keep them there six cents and call it even an even swap

Now.

To be fair.

To make this work.

You have to attract 3 more users (1 versus 4) to pay.

This feels like a lot!

Until it doesn't!

Because personally.

I would pay $2.00/month to keep this site running. Feels like a rounding error in my books.

I flinch at $7.00/month. Feels weird to pay this much for a site that so regularly has "hm, this disasterous new feature is pissing me off."

:)

But

as always

what do i know.

To satisfy my various spoken and unspoken life/art studio ambitions I offer this as a free consultancy lesson to anyone making a patreon or paid newsletter or whatever thing -- where you have a digital product that does not require shipping, handling, etc.

You can make it expensive and aim to have a small audience.

You can make it cheap and aim to have a large audience.

I personally am really fond of cheap digital services because it feels like support when I realize I have not had time to keep up. When I do have time to keep up -- "Oh this is a great value"

And when I do not, I see the bill -- "Ah, I am glad THING exists. Happy to throw them a few coins."

In respect to my soul, please use this lesson exclusively for such things as

art

music

thinly-veiled self-insert fan fiction

non-tax evasion accounting practices

joyous pornography or other erotic silliness

history (all years available)

claymation

cartooning

books (novels or things longer or shorter)

poetry (erotic or non)

coffee

fiction

non-fiction

non-non fiction

non-fiction fiction

and, of course, real reviews of faux products that should exist, but do not, due to limitations of time, space, money, reality, magic, technology, theology, methodology, organic chemistry, biology (marine, terra), cosmology, topology and/or cartography

anything fun

thank you and good night

for at least

twelve minutes

[jlarkeyyz]

Thing Tumblr absolutely would have to do in order to get any dollars from me:

Stop banning trans people for being trans.

Thing they could do that might even get me at the current pricing:

Quit trying to be the arbiters of what is and isn't an acceptable image or whose nipples can be shown and whose cannot.

Thing about which I cannot work up any expectations:

ban the nazis

Look, I would love to see nazis and racists banned left and right. I would like to see the Overton window slammed shut on their filth. I'm not sure they can get it done at a price Tumblr users can afford. I wouldn't mind them trying.

[jlarkeyyz]

A one-sided argument in defense of fiction

My kid (fully grown, not significantly evil, pleasantly un-treacherous) has this friend (quiet, very intelligent, any history of misdeeds artfully concealed from my awareness) who simply does not read fiction. This sprains my brain. I would argue with him about it directly except, you know, kid's friend, very quiet, I would basically be walking up to a guest in my house and picking a fight for no obvious reason. One doesn't. Instead I have been having the argument all in my head.

Kid's friend is purportedly fond of saying, "fiction is just something that didn't happen."

My response is this: The person I want to be is something that didn't happen… yet. I want to set my horizons wider than the best person who has been documented by historians. I want to be the best person I can imagine. Fiction helps me dream bigger.

[ebonykain]

“The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about Basketball Diaries?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it. The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.” In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.”

— Roger Ebert (via flowersofthecity)

[omegaversereloaded]

i dont think i can listen to audio erotica man.

[omegaversereloaded]

"I plant kisses on top of your head" *SMACK SMACK SUUUCK SMACK* bro you are sucking my brains out that's not kissing 😨

[self-mortification]

[jlarkeyyz]

I prefer to call it "eating your head."

[robertreich]

Your regular reminder that trickle-down economics is a cruel joke designed by the wealthy.

[theunicorncomic-blog]

[randomushroom]

HE FOUND TUMBLR??????

[robertreich]

I’ve been here the whole time.

[spinningthehamsterwheel]

Dear god, he's not kidding...

[jlarkeyyz]

Come on, finish the joke.

[4waystreet]

the idea that predators and abusers are an ontological category of person, rather than everyone having the capacity to be predatory and abusive, leads to people having no regard for boundaries because they think that predation only comes from evil people ™

[jlarkeyyz]

There's a quote from Solzhenitsyn I heard recently that I liked so much that it's my forum sig in one spot: "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

[helenvaughans]

[jlarkeyyz]

This is true until it isn't. Large corporations have huge elasticity and no awareness of how much people will put up with until people stop putting up with them. Once the thing begins to tip, it tips fast. If you don't like this, don't eat at McDonald's. If enough people do it, the pain will kick in. That is the only lever that works. McDonald's and Coke don't need approval, but they do need revenue.

[robertreich]

If you’re wondering “Is it seriously Amazon Prime Day again?”, the answer is yes.

[spockvarietyhour]

Battlestar Galactica "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, Pt. 2"

[jlarkeyyz]

They were so good that they were also the best thing about the first Wing Commander game.

[ruinedchildhood]

[jlarkeyyz]

Unitaskers reign supreme.

[valencians]

the people of omelas have a moral obligation to bring as much of the surrounding territories under the banner of their city-state as possible, by force if necessary, lest the maximal utility of the suffering child go to waste