Just a heads up right now: on the day when Trump dies, I’m going to be extremely tasteless about it. It’s going to get ugly. You are going to see a side of me I am not proud of. I don’t want any call-outs in my inbox, I’m stating right now that lines will be crossed.
Anyways all of y’all AND the evil that literally lives inside of you are invited to the sick ass house party I’m throwing when lord dampnut kicks the bucket
I feel like all you Americans need to take a look at what happened here in the UK after Maggie Thatcher died. Because when it comes to tasteless celebrations fuelled by anger and the death of a hated political leader, we REALLY pushed the boat out. We had street parties. We had burning effigies. We pushed “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” to the top of the charts out of sheer hatred. Bone up kiddos, and I really hope you manage to do that truly American thing, of dramatically outdoing us with your celebrations.
Look, I’m gonna level with you americans for a second. When old wrinkly and orange kicks the bucket, for once in my life, possibly the only time, I’ll actually want to be able to see the fireworks from across the Atlantic. And I daresay I won’t be the only one. So listen to me and listen closely, cause I’ll only say it once: When the moldy Cheeto bites it, it’s the one and only chance you’ll likely have at being loudly, unbearably, obnoxiously American in your celebration and for once, the rest of the world won’t complain.
reading a historical romance novel and reflecting on the way these stories often present woke nobility for the contemporary reader. a big thing is servants. you can’t not have servants in those times but many modern readers think “but I would never have servants. it would be so weird to have servants” and in order to make the protagonists of the story more relatable they are actually friends with the servants. but flip your perspective and think of it from the side of the servants. wouldn’t it be so awful if your boss was always trying to be friends with you. a really common thing you’ll see is the woke baronet having tea in the kitchen with the servants bc he’s not like other baronets. but what if your boss wanted to hang out and talk during your lunch break every day. not so charming when you think about it that way
Drug arrives years after pandemic’s peak, but could still offer protection to vulnerable populations.
An antiviral pill has, for the first time, been shown to prevent COVID-19 in people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus at home, according to trial results published today in the New England Journal of Medicine1.
The drug could be a lifeline for those who still face real danger from the virus, such as care-home residents or transplant recipients on immune-suppressing medication.
Households exposed to COVID-19 now have an oral drug specifically cleared to prevent infection after contact with a sick person. The FDA listed Xocova, the brand name for ensitrelvir, as a 2026 novel drug approval for post-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 following contact with an infected individual. The decision fills a gap that has persisted since the pandemic’s early years: until now, no oral antiviral carried an FDA-approved indication for prevention rather than treatment.
You know, I wonder if the recent plague of "being selfish is a good thing ackshully! being selfish is emotionally healthy!" is because of therapists and self-help video makers saying "it's okay to be selfish sometimes" because it's easier to get that into someone's head than to deprogram all the little ways they've been taught that caring for themself is selfish and therefore Bad.
And then instead of going on to actual deprogramming and diving into the complex depths of "in order to be a good person I have to be kind and help others when I can, but in order to be a healthy one I should consider carefully when it's worth putting my own well-being at risk for their sake", people just stay in the psychological kiddie pool of "I don't have to think of anyone else because my therapist said so!"
Sorry, my what? My pronouns? Oh, yeah I'm between genders at the moment. No, it's cool, I quit my last gender a little while ago because it really wasn't working out. I don't know if I even have a dream gender anymore.
Oh yeah, it did come with benefits, but they weren't really worth it. The culture was really toxic. To be honest I think I'd prefer a part-time gender so I can just be self-described in my spare time.
I mean, in a perfect world we wouldn't need gender, you know? We could just voluntarily be perceived as much as we're able, as much as makes us feel fulfilled. Having a full-time gender shouldn't be a prerequisite for food, shelter, and healthcare.
Did you know that AO3 allows fics with homicide in them? There’s a whole tag for Major Character Death and even more tags so you can find exactly what kind of character death you want to read.
Don’t they know that murder is illegal? You just know there are a bunch of homicidal maniacs out there who love to read those stories. They write them, too, in between killing people.
Anyone can read the stories on AO3! Kids can read them! They’re getting exposed to stabbing, poisoning, even guns! And they’re writing the heroes doing the killing, too! That’s basically telling kids it’s okay to go out and murder their families. It’s promoting violence and encouraging homicide and if we don’t do something about it soon, you’ll be murdered next!
Talking to allo people who haven’t really interrogated how society has told them to view sex feels like that bit in SpongeBob where Patrick keeps failing to put his hand on the lid
Sex is just a thing. No it’s just an activity. It doesn’t have to be… no listen it’s just an activity. An activity. It’s just a thing. A thing. No it’s not the same for everyone it’s just an activity. No it’s a value neutral activity. An activity. An activity.
I’ve been experiencing this lately with people trying to argue with me about my views on sex work.
“You can’t compare sex work to other types of work because having sex you’re not enthusiastic about is really traumatizing”
I’m sure for a lot of people that’s true but for me sex and masturbation occupy a similar emotional space to brushing my teeth or doing the dishes and I certainly don’t feel traumatized about it and I know for a fact that I’m not the only person who feels this way.
Also I think that someone physically and violently forcing me to brush my teeth might end up being traumatizing.
Sex is so taboo and mythologized that people have forgotten the mechanics of it.
Yeah sex might be sacred and important to you. To me it’s a chore I’ve gotta do sometimes. Like cooking. I love cooking and put great importance on it and who I do it with. A lot of people just cook to live though.
Yeah if to you sex has a lot of emotions caught up in it I’m not gonna tell you that you’re wrong for feeling that way. That’s normal. It’s not a universal experience though. And if you can’t accept that, then too bad. Other people’s personal realities don’t exist to confirm your personal worldview.
A huge blocklist of manually curated sites that contain AI generated imagery for uBlock Origin & uBlacklist. - laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-A
Install this blocklist using the instructions on the GitHub page. For Firefox, you will need to install uBlockOrigin for this. Google Chrome no longer allows the uBlockOrigin extension, so I'm assuming you're at least primarily a Firefox user - or about to be (see browser alternatives below).
For Google Chrome or mobile browsers, this will work with uBlacklist. See the GitHub page for full details on compatibility.
Remove AI Widgets:
If you go to your uBlockOrigin Filter lists page, you can select to filter out AI Widgets - this should completely remove the 'AI Mode' widget/button from your Google search page, in addition to the work done by the Huge AI Blocklist.
Using the uBlockOrigin Huge AI Blocklist filter has made my Google searches look like they used to, and gives me genuine search results.
Look at this. It's beautiful. It's informative. It's not a heap of burning trash bloated with fake information made up by a hallucinating chat bot.
We can go even further: return to the old school search results.
Now, the above results are great and should be free of generative AI junk, but some people would rather not see any of the summary widgets or 'people also ask' box at all. Fear not! You can remove all that by using the 'Web' mode in the Google search bar. Click the 'More' drop down menu and select 'Web'.
Huzzah! Incredible. It's like a functional search engine again.
You can make this the default Google search mode in Google Chrome using Method 1 from this page (https://allthings.how/how-to-turn-off-ai-mode-in-google-chrome/). Unfortunately, I don't know if there's a way to do this in Firefox too. This is why for the most part I still use DuckDuckGo (see below) as my default search engine, and only use Google to supplement my searches on the rare occasion I'm just missing something.
Remember, if you clear your cookies, your search engine preferences will reset, including any settings you enabled/disabled to avoid AI. This applies to DuckDuckGo as well; check your settings every time you clear your browser!
Extra filters (optional):
I've also added four filters (their order doesn't matter) to the My Filters page. Full disclosure: I'm not sure they still work, or may only work on Chrome, but I'm keeping them anyway, just in case.
From https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1i7kg83/comment/m8lllwr/: see which solution in the list works for you, it seems to be different for everybody.
From https://allthings.how/how-to-turn-off-ai-mode-in-google-chrome/:
www.google.com##.Beswgc
www.google.com##.olrp5b
www.google.com##.hdzaWe
Make sure you hit the apply changes button when you add filters.
Browser alternatives: escaping Google Chrome.
If you haven't jumped ship from Chrome yet, I'd recommend doing so. Sometimes Chrome outperforms Firefox for niche purposes or because a website doesn't bother to fully support non-Chrome browsers, but the days of Chrome being the superior browser are long gone — by about 10 years. If you're trying to escape Chromium browsers, beware that a lot of the popular Chrome alternatives are just Chrome in a different hat.
Firefox has been the most popular non-Chromium browser for years, and for good reason. However, the company running Mozilla Firefox has annoyed their users, me included, by refusing to take an anti- generative-ai stance, and even included AI features in the Mozilla Firefox browser. Most Firefox users specifically use it because they hate Google's enshittification and want a privacy-focused, clean browser that doesn't hog their RAM and CPU for no reason. So, you can imagine that Mozilla's attitude has pissed us all off recently. You can turn off the AI features in Firefox with the built-in settings, but the company has recently steered straight into the burning garbage heap by saying they want to make the browser based on AI.
Waterfox and LibreWolf:
There are really good alternatives based on Firefox (open-source) which are not affiliated with Mozilla (the company), if you don't like how it operates. Waterfox and LibreWolf are even more trimmed down and privacy-focused than Mozilla's Firefox, and don't use AI. Anti-ai statements: Waterfox and LibreWolf.
From this page: https://programming.dev/post/42546774
In short: LibreWolf is for those who want a “locked-down” fortress out of the box, while Waterfox is for those who want a privacy-conscious browser that still feels like a normal, convenient daily driver.
Choose LibreWolf if: You want the highest level of privacy without having to manually edit config files, and you don’t mind occasionally “fixing” a broken website or re-logging into accounts.
Choose Waterfox if: You want a privacy-respecting browser that supports Firefox Sync, has an Android counterpart, and handles streaming sites/logins without any extra friction (it supports WideWine out of the box, which lets you stream DRM protected content (netflix, hulu, disney, etc).
— [email protected]
I've heard good things about both of these browsers and will investigate them further to decide whether to personally switch from Mozilla Firefox.
DuckDuckGo:
I would also recommend installing the DuckDuckGo extension to your browsers and setting it to be your default search engine.
I've had DuckDuckGo installed on my browsers, Chrome or Firefox, for like 10 years now. It is a good search engine, it's unobtrusive, and blocks trackers, cookies, and does not save any data about you. I've also used it as my default mobile browser for years, along with Firefox mobile, which you can add the AI Blocklist to (see again the GitHub page). I haven't tried the DuckDuckGo desktop browser yet, but I imagine it works just fine like the mobile version. I think DuckDuckGo's browser is also Chromium-based, at least indirectly. I use Firefox with the DuckDuckGo extension so I can have a widely-supported, non-Chromium browser, but include all of DuckDuckGo's anti-tracking features.
Note: DuckDuckGo has included AI in its browser product, however you can opt-out of all AI features with the built-in settings and they will not push it on you like Google does. I hope they remove AI features entirely in the future, but for now I am comfortable with the barriers in place to keep AI out of my face. Firefox also has AI features like Chrome does, which you can turn off with the built-in settings.
There's also noai.duckduckgo search, an alternative version of its normal search engine which removes AI-generated images and turns off AI results/assists by default. Even though DuckDuckGo's inclusion of any AI features annoys me, its policy to make these features 100% optional builds trust with this browser/extension/search engine.
You can always use Google search if you need to, but with uBlockOrigin and the AI Blocklist filter added on, at least you shouldn't have AI-altered search results or the AI overview anymore.
Other browsers exist, probably:
There are certainly more non-Chromium alternatives out there, but Firefox, Waterfox, and LibreWolf are the top three recommended to me. That link to alternatives, plus this ComputerCity page are the best lists I could find in a brief search. If you google "non-Chromium browsers" you'll get a lot of mixed results which require a bit of digging to realise they're not really recommending you what you looked for at all.
I've heard about Ecosia over the years, and while I like the idea of a search engine that plants a tree for each query, I don't think that's actually what happens — at least, that's what they used to be reputed to do, but I believe that's an unsustainable business model which has likely changed. In 2026, Ecosia says it uses 100% of its profits for the planet and runs its search engine off clean energy. That's cool! It's still Chromium-based. And it also uses generative AI for chat bots, so I don't trust its principles on environmentalism. I need to do more reading on this to form a stronger opinion about it.
I hope this post has helped at least some of you have a better experience browsing the web and googling your questions.
The Huge AI Blocklist really has been an amazing tool to keep my internet life free and clear of a lot of generative AI rubbish. I'm not a tech expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm savvy enough to understand what genAI is and does, and that the more I learn about it, it's even worse than I thought. I truly hate it, and I hate the enshittification of all our experiences, even those as simple and innocent as googling "snow leopard" or "how to cook pasta" or "what is a phascogale" (go ahead and test your freshly-cleaned search engines out with that one hehe).
this one is formatted like a powerpoint presentation. to be clear I'm not in charge of any descision making I'm just going through redacting identifying/potentially biasing info but like...some of these formatting decisions are also potentially biasing
Yeah, I remember getting some wild ones when I was hiring manager
So many women feel the need to mention their young children in their cover letters and CVs. Some young people slip in that they can't drive, a sort of pre-emptive "but it's okay I have a bus pass". So many people go and shove their mental health issues with anxiety and depression in there.
I remember one girl had clearly been told that she needed to explain any gaps in employment in the cover letter (terrible blanket advice), and so had described how she had developed depression after a traumatic miscarriage and spent a year in a terrible spiral getting worse and worse before getting on a new medication that, and I quote, "seemed to be finally starting to work." There are ways she could have written that information if she was desperately wanting to include it (I cannot stress enough that she should not have included a word of it), but the way it was written was almost literally a description of how she would be a horrendously unreliable employee who could dip out at a moment's notice and would never be seen again, while also demonstrating that she cannot determine appropriate professional communication.
(And for the record, the latter is the actual issue. I have no problems at all hiring employees with mental health issues, and did several times hire people in recovery to help them get back on their feet. Only once did that not work out; all others were amazing, and two became some of our best employees - one is now a manager there, in fact. But if an employee can't be trusted not to over share personal information with customers or colleagues, particularly triggering topics... That's a different issue. She did herself no favours at all there, and nor did whoever told her employers will always need employment gaps explaining in a cover letter).
Another guy once wrote in his cover letter "I want this job because after years of messing about I now have a little girl, so I need to sort my life out for her, and if I can't do it even for her then more fool me." Which, like, I admire the drive and passion. But again. Why are you telling an employer that you're a flight risk. Why are you telling us this.
One 18 year old volunteered, unforced, that he was gay. Just right in the cover letter. That he sent to a future employer.
And then, of course, the thousands that send in CVs and cover letters that are horrendously mis-spelled. Again, as an employer, I care dick-all if you're dyslexic or what have you; but I do care that you didn't think it was important to get someone to proofread a professional document for you before submission. That tells me quite a big thing about the level of professionalism I can expect from you in the role. It wasn't massively relevant for the job I was hiring for (escape room game master), but if we'd had slightly different job duties (e.g. writing official soc med posts), that would be the difference between getting an interview or not.
Honestly, half of my role as a hiring manager was just... having to explain to the other hiring manager that she was being biased based on information neither of us should have had in the first place. And she wasn't a bad person, but bias gets you even if you don't want it to. Give yourself the best chance. Don't fuck it by sending in a dumbass cover letter.
In the time I have spent consuming media that involves popular bad™ male characters and/or M/F ships where the male character is morally gray or outright evil or conflicted or basically anyone who isn't completely safe and defanged, I have often comes across this statement and its countless other variations.
"Stuff like this is made to brainwash young girls into thinking that they can 'fix' dangerous men. Such girls usually end up in abusive relationships and their parents are right to worry."
It is rather strange to come across such a gross generalization, operating on an assumption that girls are blank slates whom anyone can manipulate and who can't distinguish between real and make believe on top of it.
In my entire "career"(if you can call it that) of engaging with fiction , the girls and women that I have run into in fandoms happened to be some of the most intelligent, talented, cool, witty and insightful people I have ever met. I've devoured the fics they have written. I have delighted in the arts and edits they've made. Their perspectives and interpretations about the characters and their relationships are genuinely fascinating to read about regardless of whether I agree with it or not. They are the ones who are most often at the receiving end of the antis' ire for no valid reason but they just keep deriving joy and inspiration from their favourite characters and ships and keep sharing it with others through stories, art and thoughts. They are not just smart but incredibly resilient, sensitive and aware not just about the media they consume but about the world around them and its issues.
I look up to their brilliance. I marvel at their passion. I admire them. I adore them.
Actual marketing tactic that DOES exist btw. I can't remember the term, but all major businesses have special roles specifically for people who understand how to manipulate human behaviors & emotions. Why are snacks at the checkout area? Temptation. Why is candy so low to the ground? Children. Types of store lighting can affect peoples mood. Cheaper products are low or very high so people won't look for them. Branding companies have this as well for packaging & logos that hide products lack of quality & manipulate people to impulse buy.
I know damn well I watched a documentary on this in high school, but that was quiet awhile ago. Everything is designed to subtly manipulate your perceptions & tastes. Once you see it, it's everywhere & you can work against it out of pure spite.
I don't know if this is still a thing but they used to go so far as to make the flooring material in big stores in shopping centres slightly softer than the floors outside the store, so that customers would stay inside a bit longer since people have (largely subconscious) preferences about floor textures based on how easy they are to walk on and how much they hurt tired feet. The amount of research that goes into choosing the lighting in makeup and clothing stores is bonkers. Bakeries often smell a lot more like fresh bread or donuts than their actual baking activities would create -- they pipe the smell out front on purpose. Grocery stores are deliberately laid out to be very slightly confusing -- not confusing enough to impede buying, but confusing enough to send people down a few wrong aisles to look at products that they wouldn't otherwise see. Signs are often placed in aisles so that you have to go into the aisle a bit to read them clearly, or at least take a good look down it.
Sorry to get preachy outta nowhere but if you are a person who's never had a phobia PLEASE don't say shit like "it's not dangerous" or whatever because phobias, especially IRRATIONAL phobias, don't fucking work like that.
I personally have a specific phobia that, when triggered, used to make me spasm and hyperventilate and cry, and it was super embarrassing because I was fully aware that there was nothing really wrong. You can experience the effects of a phobia while objectively knowing you're safe! And STILL I would get people telling me to chill out cause I was fine.
I've gotten better at managing it. I can thing straight and control my breathing and not feel *emotional* fear, but my body still locks up and my heart still goes crazy and I still have to focus on breathing.
I am aware that it doesn't make sense. I am aware that I am not in danger. I'm practiced enough that I can sit still and have a conversation through the experience now. But it's still a phobia and no amount of reminding me how irrational my body is being is going to fix that- it's just gonna piss me off on top of it.
and you know what, I'm gonna add on the same thing I tell everyone who DOES tell me I overreact to my phobias: what are YOU scared of? Spiders? Snakes? Dirty needles? What makes YOUR body heave? Is it cold vomit? Spoiled meat? Dead skin?
When IM experiencing the effects of an irrational fear, imagine putting whatever awful or dangerous or nasty thing disgusts you in your mouth. Imagine experiencing a RATIONAL fear. Because it doesn't matter what I know is true, the effects of rational fear and irrational fear make your body do the same things.
Nausea, locking up, inability to make yourself move, panic, denial, refusal, shaking, disgust, revulsion, anger, fear, outrage, humiliation, vulnerability.
If my phobia is, say, walking past a 2002 Toyota Prius, then making myself do that FEELS just as difficult and horrific to me as licking broken glass off a gas station bathroom floor does to YOU. The only difference is *I* might have to do the thing ANYWAYS, while people make fun of me an I know that I look ridiculous, whereas YOU would at least know that your feelings are normal and your experience will be taken seriously.
WE KNOW OUR PHOBIAS DON'T ALWAYS MAKE SENSE. IT DOESN'T MAKE THEM STOP. Its why they're called "irrational phobias"
But anyhow, today I encountered one of my phobias and was able to react to it calmly and rationally while my brain screamed instead of physically locking up and doing the screaming out loud, so here's to gradual progress
Also, figured out a better analogy over the years:
If Fear is like disgust, think of a Phobia as an allergy
I'm not DISGUSTED by the thing. Telling me you have a better recipe is not helpful. My throat is closing up and I need an epipen
