Hey.

It's whatever, my dudes. they/them. queer and gay married

[designtheendless]

[go-learn-esperanto]

Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.

They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.

Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.

You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.

This article specifically notes:

For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.

Microsoft admits Windows 11 has a GDID tracker with no off switch, first documented publicly in an FBI hacker complaint

GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.

Other important quotes:

What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.

Two things back that up:

There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.

Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.

[beaft]

common advice for social anxiety is to tell yourself "people aren't going to think less of you just because you said something a bit daft" but the thing is. sometimes they will. and you just have to learn to be cool with that and to treat it as a dnd random encounter rather than letting it ruin your whole day

[beaft]

recent example. lady at my careers appointment had a post-it with her name on it stuck to the monitor, so i introduced myself by saying "hello, i'm eliot! you must be [name], it's nice to meet you!" and she stared at me as if i was the stupidest person alive and said icily, "yeah, i'm [name]. congratulations, you can read."

in bygone times this would have reduced me to a sort of quivering blancmange. thankfully i am now in a place where i was able to pull back, calmly evaluate this interaction, and say to myself "this woman should probably not be working in a customer-facing job"

[beaft]

important additions!!!!

[avidcollectorofdust]

hi guys ask me about the show i just watched

[shadow-manor]

The rest of the thread is here.

tl;dr: Don’t monetize AO3, kids.  You won’t like what happens next.

[ratherembarrassing]

read this thread. this is by far the most concise explanation of a lot of different issues that i’ve seen in fandom spaces in a while. cosigning both the linked thread and the thread about aus/uk/can law that’s linked in-thread.

[billybluboy]

AHDHXHEBSG TWITTER WRITERS DID WHAT NOW???? AND PEOPLE PAID THEM????

[prof-grace-aspen]

If someone has never taken a class that includes copyright law, they may not know this stuff, so I don’t necessarily blame random people for not knowing what copyright is, but like… maybe just maybe it’s something that should be taught????

[antifa-stray]

[mercurywells]

Just another reminder, because this always drives me crazy, but even if monetizing your fic was 100% unambiguously legal and protected, AO3 would still not let you do it because AO3 was founded and is supported by people like me who want a fandom community that is completely divested from making money off of fic.

[naryrising]

Yes, this. Lots of fanworks on AO3 are unambiguously legal. Fics based on Shakespeare plays and fairy tales and Greek mythology and The Great Gatsby and your original character from your D&D game are not violations of copyright, because no copyright applies to those things.

AO3 still doesn’t let you monetize those things on the site, because we don’t want the site to be commercial! Because that’s not what it’s for!

It’s not there for you (generic you) to make money off the efforts of the people who build and maintain the site for free! We aren’t getting paid for the work we do to give you a nice site to use, just like you aren’t getting paid for the work you do to create whatever art you share there. Because fandom is supposed to be a community where we share with each other, and therefore we all benefit.

The deal is, we give you a free, stable, safe platform to host your works. In exchange, you get a site that isn’t covered in ads and tip jars and links to gofundme and “read the next chapter at my patreon”. You get one goddamn place on the internet that isn’t trying to make money off you. And we will defend that space and keep it non-commercial.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

If you want to make money off your fics, you can instead post them somewhere like royal Road. “Oh, but Royal Road’s culture is so much more negative and stressful and lacks the supportive norms of AO3!” Yeah, because people are trying to make money there. Half the userbase is treating it as a storefront and hustling is the natural social consequence of that. AO3’s culture can only exist because it’s not commercial.

[persephonexdreaming]

Mutuals to have floor time with

[only-tiktoks]

[devantnuit-ladeluge]

[cryoverkiltmilk]

The absolute contempt for these locks is palpable.

[nougatnora]

Post of jayvik with glasses~☆👓

[expressions-of-nature]

by Zhou Hong

[noisytenant]

Whenever I see some anon asking an artist if it's "okay to take inspiration" from their art it makes me want to make some kind of manifesto or billboard or PSA or skywriting campaign to undo whatever damage strange litigious illustrator types inflicted upon the most basic foundations of the creative process. We can't let them get away with this

[tallsuperstar]

Breaking my several year harry potter silence just to say that in the Apollo Justice Trilogy, they removed the harry potter reference they originally had in the game. Which means that if you still consume hp content and talk about it, you are doing worse than fucking capcom

[tallsuperstar]

@endigolikesarson In the original, for the running joke regarding Valant and doors, Apollo calls Valant a muggle

While in the remaster, he says this which is way funnier even without the baggage

[tallsuperstar]

Everyone reblogging this post saying stuff like "they probably changed it because of copyright/dated reference" NEEDS to know that 1. There are multiple references to Doctor Who and Star Trek and a character probably named after someone from Battlestar Galactica of all things and 2. The lead writer for the localization stuff with Ace Attorney uses they/them pronouns.

[baygeethefirst]

[yetanotherdayofdrudgery]

Myth: "I only wear vegan fabrics. Better for the animals, better for the planet." Let's check in on Doris's annual contribution. Once a year, in late spring, Doris is sheared. The procedure takes approximately three minutes. Doris does not enjoy it. Doris does not, by any visible measure, suffer from it. Doris is, immediately afterwards, a noticeably more comfortable animal in the British summer. The fleece weighs approximately 3 kilograms. It is sold to the British Wool Marketing Board for, depending on the year, between £0.40 and £2.50 per kilogram. The shearing costs more than the wool fetches. Brian is shearing Doris at a loss. The wool is then: - Naturally flame-retardant - Naturally antibacterial - Moisture-wicking - Biodegradable - Renewable, annually - Carbon-storing while in use The replacement, in performance fabrics: - Polyester - Polyamide - Acrylic - Polypropylene - All petroleum-derived - All shedding microplastics on every wash - All requiring fossil fuel inputs to produce - All non-biodegradable, with a typical landfill lifespan of 200-500 years A single wash of a polyester fleece can release up to 700,000 microplastic fibres into the water system. These fibres are now in: every tested water source on earth, every tested human placenta, every tested rainfall sample, the deep ocean, the Arctic ice, and the lungs of marine mammals. A single wash of a wool jumper releases: nothing. The wool, when eventually disposed of, returns to soil within a few years. The fabric being marketed as the "ethical" alternative to wool is plastic. The plastic is "ethical" because nobody has been asked to slaughter the polymer. The polymer also has not been asked. Doris, by being a sheep on a fell, is producing the most thoroughly sustainable performance fabric humans have ever made. Brian is selling it at a loss. The fashion industry, meanwhile, is selling petroleum at a profit and calling it ethical. Reject plastic. Wear wool. Doris is, this morning, growing next year's batch.

Note: if you're allergic to wool, you might be allergic to the dyes and fine with undyed wool. Maybe not, but it's worth a try.

[qi-mera]

More of you need to learn about these ☝️

[jadenebula]

[aidaughter]

t shirt that says I PUT A NORMAL AMOUNT OF THOUGHT INTO STUFF

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

Apparently some people still need to hear this so: using an 'ai checker' is still using ai. If you are feeding someone's fic to one of these checkers, you will still not be sure their fic is ai because they are not 100% accurate, but you can be 100% sure that you are using ai. For fic. Furthermore you are doing the work of an ai scraper for them. You are, personally, feeding the machine. There is no actual excuse for using an ai checker on fanfic as a hobby. YOU are the problem.

If you think a fic is ai, mute it and move on. That's it. That's all you do.

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

Um. Yikes

[wr0wn]

We'll fix that. I know.

[refrigeratedwater2]

people who grew up with money will deadass look you in the eye and ask if you’ve ever gone skiing