My DS is cooler than you

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
pea-gravel
theculturedmarxist

My son has set the house up with a Pi-Hole. It’s a raspberry pi running Ad blocking on the whole house’s network.   We’re a few hours in and we’re seeing effects, as well as some teething problems.  — Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 11, 2022ALT

>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

For you can do it too!https://t.co/l1SLzPrzp6  — Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 11, 2022ALT

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

They show your your stats on a neat little dashboard. pic.twitter.com/RQB39IvnKD  — Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 12, 2022ALT

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

There’s a handy explanatory video from Dr. Johnny Ryan which sets out how we could end up with Just So Much ads.  Each webpage load can potentially run an auction (with you as the prize pig on the block) sending data to loads of different brokers. https://t.co/wUosBLjM3f  — Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 12, 2022ALT
Privacy International has a short and clear guide to what hardware you can use for setting up a Pi-Hole as well as some setup instructions.   Ad-blocking (home surveillance thwarting) is a human rights issue too!https://t.co/1vphCsaug1  — Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 12, 2022ALT

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

This has proved a popular thread. I have no soundcloud, and the things I sell are not of general use.   But you can always follow & support Digital Rights Ireland (who once knocked down a state surveillance law for half a billion people) @DRIalerts https://t.co/vrAPYsxjP4  — Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 13, 2022ALT
monitor-offist

fastest reblog in the west

dduane

Yeppers. :)

teaboot
orbitalyear-deactivated20230513

image

old gods are waking

meatgirlfriendmoved

image
brookreader
gargelyfloof118

I need everyone to stop what they're doing and freak out with me.

THIS IS A PLANT GROWN FROM A 32,000 YEAR OLD SEED!!

Do you understand how unbelievably amazing this is?!

humanityinahandbag

THEY FOUND THE SEED IN A FROZEN SQUIRREL

vaspider
respectissexy

It feels taboo as a childfree person to admit this but I actually do have concerns about who is going to take care of me when I'm old. The elder care system in our nation relies A LOT on the unpaid care labor of adult children. I just don't think that's a good reason to have kids.

"But you'll have more money!" does not completely put this to rest for me. Neither does "Buy care insurance!" Even if I can afford direct personal care, who is going to advocate for me to get it? Who is going to navigate bureaucracy for me when I'm 80?

"If you do have kids, there's no GUARANTEE that they'll take care of you when your old!" That's true, but doesn't solve my problem.

I think childfree people get very defensive about this question because its used as a kind of "gotcha!" against us, but I actually do not feel we can afford to be in denial about this reality. Based on current trends of more people in their 30s stating they intend to be permanently childfree, we are going to see a huge wave of childfree adults hitting the eldercare system at once in a few decades. Childfree people in their 30s should be advocating around eldercare NOW.

drtanner

We desperately need to cultivate a society in which everyone, even the most bitter, unlikeable, miserably lonely person in the world, has a social safety net that they can rely on from the day they're born to the day they die, and that includes their elder care.

We are not going to achieve this meaningfully under capitalism. :')

conqueringthenoodle
conqueringthenoodle

Listen I have real beef with the whole “mind reading is super easy to do because you will just hear sentences like someone’s talking” idea because bitch!! What the fuck happens when you come across a visual thinker? Or someone with photographic memory who literally recalls text by reading the picture in their head.

Personally if someone read my mind it would be so much random colours and pictures with occasional text or narration. Would a mind reader be able to interpret that naturally or would they have to guess or build that skill in order to understand me?

That’s not even getting into the fact that emotions and all of our senses are deeply tied into memory, experience, and thusly creativity as well! What will a mind reader experience if they “read” you while you’re imagining the smell of vanilla? Your childhood home? Or the way paper feels? Or the time you twisted your ankle, or almost died?

What if they could feel your psychosomatic pain?

Also, imagine how traumatized you would be if you could read even only the textual narrative-style thoughts that are often portrayed in media.

Mind reading as a concept is imagined so lazily in nearly every media piece I’ve seen of it!!! Authors, poets, playwrites, screenwriters, game devs and dungeon masters, I beg of you. Please consider the implications of a mindreadung character next time you create one.

vaspider
thebestoftumbling

golden eagle having a relaxing time

youwantmuchmore

This is the world’s largest flying Engine of Murder marveling at the fact that it can actually have its tummy rubbed.

optimysticals

I feel like this is the next step up on “loose your fingers” roulette from petting a kittie’s tummy, but just below belly rubs for say a lion.

naamahdarling

Can someone who knows birds better than I do tell me whether this eagle is as happy as it looks?  Because I want it to be happy.  It looks so happy.  Bewildered by having a friend, but so happy.

suspendnodisbelief

Just popping on this thread to confirm: yes, the eagle is happy about the belly rubs. Golden eagles make this sound when receiving allopreening and similar affectionate and soothing treatment from their parents and mates. It’s the “I am safe and well fed, and somebody familiar is taking good care of me” sound. Angry raptors and wounded raptors make some pretty dramatic hisses and shrieks; frightened raptors go dead silent and try to hide if they can, or fluff up big and get loud and in-your-face if hiding isn’t an option. They can easily sever a finger or break the bones of a human hand or wrist, and even with a very thick leather falconer’s gauntlet, I’ve known falconers to leave a mews (hawk house) with graphic punctures THROUGH the gauntlet into the meat of their hands and arms, just from buteos and kestrels way smaller than this eagle. A pissed off hawk will make damn sure you don’t try twice whatever you pulled that pissed her off, even if she’s been human-imprinted.

If you’re ever unsure about an animal’s level of okayness with something that’s happening, there are three spot-check questions you can ask, to common-sense your way through it:

1. Is the animal capable of defending itself or making a threatening or fearful display, or otherwise giving protest, and if so, is it using this ability? (e.g. dog snarling or biting, swan hissing, horse kicking or biting) 

2. Does the animal experience an incentive-based relationship with the human? (i.e. does the animal have a reason, in the animal’s frame of reference, for being near this human? e.g. dog sharing companionship / food / shelter, hawk receiving good quality abundant food and shelter and medical care from a falconer)

3. Is the animal a domesticated species, with at least a full century of consistent species cohabitation with humans? (Domesticated animals frequently are conditioned from birth or by selective breeding to be unbothered by human actions that upset their feral nearest relatives.)

In this situation, YES the eagle can self-defend, YES the eagle has incentive to cooperate with and trust the human handler, and NO the eagle is not a domesticated species, meaning we can expect a high level of reactivity to distress, compared to domestic animals: if the eagle was distressed, it would be pretty visible and apparent to the viewer. These aren’t a universally applicable metric, but they’re a good start for mammal and bird interactions.

Pair that with the knowledge that eagles reserve those chirps for calm environments, and you can be pretty secure and comfy in the knowledge that the big honkin’ birb is happy and cozy.

Also, to anybody wondering, falconers are almost single-handedly responsible for the recovery from near-extinction of several raptor species, including and especially peregrine falcons. Most hawks only live with the falconer for a year, and most of that year is spent getting the bird in ideal condition for survival and success as a wild breeding adult. Falconers are extensively trained and dedicated wildlife conservationists, pretty much by definition, especially in the continental USA, and they make up an unspeakably important part of the overall conservation of predatory bird species. Predatory birds are an important part of every ecosystem they inhabit. Just like apiarists and their bees, the relationship between falconer and hawk is one of great benefit to the animal and the ecosystem, in exchange for a huge amount of time, effort, expense, and education on the part of the human, for very little personal benefit to that one human. It’s definitely not exploitation of the bird, and most hawks working with falconers are hawks who absolutely would not have reached adulthood without human help: the sick, the injured, and the “runts” of the nest who don’t receive adequate resources from their own parents. These are, by and large, wonderful people who are in love with the natural world and putting a lifetime of knowledge and sheer exhausting work into conserving it and its winged wonders.

iopele

reblogged for excellent info, I’m so glad that big gorgeous birb really is as happy as it looks!

osberend

Today’s bit of positive activism: A reminder that, although the world may contain many bad and awful things, it also contains an enormous winged predator clucking happily as a human gives it a belly rub.

vaspider
eros-vigilante

i'm stuck in florida as a trans teen because my family cannot afford any out of state colleges

v2nm0 is rubedo i'll draw whatever you want

eros-vigilante

for transparency the enrollment deadline is tomorrow and unless boulder gives me a better financial aid offer ill be going to a florida school for a year or something. iv gotten about $240 so far from the fundme and venmo and i am going to save it for when i can move out or for future gender health care costs

thank you so much, i will pay it forward one day