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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months

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Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

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:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

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sexybritishllama · 8 months

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in further neopets discord news, oh boy is there drama in my awful virtual pet game website today. strap in if you want way too much information on neopets’ broken economy

for some context, an event has just launched called the faerie festival. this is the first event to be run by the ‘new’ TNT (aka. the neopets team aka. the staff) since the leadership change, and they've said in recent editorials that this year’s faerie festival is going to be a combo of two previous popular events:

the faerie quest event, wherein people can get a free quest from a faerie every day in exchange for a reward (something that’s normally limited to random special events and therefore quite rare)

the charity corner, a highly requested event that hasn’t run since 2020, where you can donate random items to get points that can then be exchanged in a prize shop

there’s a LOT of ultimately worthless items on neopets that people gather from doing dailies and things, but charity corner actually gave a use to hoarding all of these, so people have wanted it back for ages. people have been going out of their way to hoard extra junk items for like 2 months now, after TNT teased the event in an editorial

this event was originally meant to start on 20th august, but got delayed 2 weeks, presumably because of issues behind the scenes. people were generally a bit disappointed but relieved if this meant they were going to get a proper, well prepared event without bugs

flash forward to 2nd october, the actual start of the event. nothing actually opens up for several hours on the day- that’s somewhat waved off by the fact that staff presumably need to be in the office to launch everything, a midnight launch isn’t expected

but, eventually, it opens!

well… kinda. there’s one page with one dialogue scene available and a link to an event page for spending neocash (the premium currency that costs irl money). the faerie quest page is giving out free daily quests, which is nice, but literally just the same as they did back in 2020. where’s the item recycling part? did this really need 2 weeks of delay?

the next day, the FAQ page for the event is published neopets support site (but not announced via news). still no sign of the actual event starting- seems like that might not be until moday?

as well as multiple grammatical errors, the FAQ had a few… concerning elements. most notably:

only 10 items could be donated per day

points would be awarded based on the rarity of the item, with the maximum rarity being r200-500, worth 15 points each

this meant people's hoarding of junk items for months was... essentially useless

r200-500 items basically means either hidden tower items (rare, expensive items that can only be bought in an account age locked shop with a purchase limit of 1 per day) orrrr….. neocash items. In other words, players could either spend an exorbinate amount of their in-game currency to buy up items to donate, or they could just hand over their credit card and pay to win

people were Not Happy about this

not long after info spread and the outcry started (and a sizeable number of people cancelled their premium membership in protest), the FAQ was quietly updated to remove mention of donating neocash items. that took away to pay to win element at least

however, now there was a new problem. a tombola man problem.

i mentioned already that the highest rarity items are pretty rare and expensive. one of the least expensive of these is an item called the Squeezy Tombola Guy Toy. you can probably see where this is going already

because you can only buy a maximum of one tombola guy per day from the hidden tower, your only option if you want to buy more than that in a day is to go to user shops. however, in light of the event, people had already started buying and hoarding tombola guy toys. equally, others were buying them purely to sell at a profit. this made the perfect storm and caused the price of the tombola guy toy, which was normally 110k NP, to explode up to 500k, 600k, even 700k within just one day

BUT THEN THE FAQ GOT UPDATED AGAIN. surprise, you can now donate 30 items per day! also they just got rid of the highest rarity tier altogether. the maximum you can get for an item is now 8 points, for rarity r102-r179.

this has now made the squeezy tombola guy toys useless. unless you’re a collector they don’t serve any function beyond that of a normal neopets toy (of which there’s thousands of much cheaper options). the price has now plummeted down to BELOW what it originally was and many users now have piles and piles of the dolls sitting in their inventory, mocking them

so what now? well, because no one ever learns, everyone is now flocking to what is now the cheapest high-rarity item eligible for donation. most are going for omelettes, which have a few different options at r102+. these have also inflated by like 400% from before the event, but unlike the squeeze tombola guys, these are only worth a few thousand neopoints, so not as bad a potential loss in comparison

it’s worth noting that while all this is going on in preparation for the recycling event, neopets is also experiencing insane inflation in a lot of other items right now, including those required for people to complete faerie quests. for example, a Griefer, which cost 5000 np just last week, is now worth selling for 1 MILLION

So yeah. 3 days into the event and that’s where we are so far. who knows what tomorrow might bring

#eloise talks #neopets #long post #neotag

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ceeproductions · 7 months

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Beat the Heat Collection

I know it's already Fall lmao. Originally planned for a June release, here is The Beat the Heat Collection consisting of 21 Summer (yet still versatile) inspired pieces. It's Summer somewhere!

General Info:

• 4 Hairs • 4 Tops • 5 Bottoms • 2 Shoes • 4 Accessories • All are Base Game Compatible

• Twitter | Youtube | Instagram | Twitch | TikTok

Cali Waves

My first attempt at strands! 2 Versions (Strands and No Strands) • 24 Swatches • T-E; Masc Frame • NOT hat compatible • All maps, Lods

7.9k | 3.4k poly

Credit: Gradients by @simandy, @aharris00britney, @qwertysims, @marsosims

Chance Braids

Been wanting to make these for a while and this is the result • 24 Swatches • T-E; Masc Frame • Hat compatible • Spec and Normal map, Lods • Bead Accessories found in Left Lip Ring - 25 Swatches

13.6k poly | Beads are 3.5k poly

Credit: Gradients by @simandy, @aharris00britney, @qwertysims, @marsosims and @qicc for the braid mesh

Scarf Hair

• 24 Swatches • T-E; Masc Frame • NOT hat compatible • Spec and Normal maps; Lods • Scarf Overlay found in Left Index Finger - 45 Swatches

2.8k poly

Credit: Gradients by @simandy, @aharris00britney, @qwertysims, @marsosims

Tank Top

a Summer staple!

• 8 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • All maps ; LODs

3k Poly

Credit: @synthsims Ribbed Bod-E Tank

Heavyweight Tee

More tees yipee! 3 versions- Loose, Tucked and Sleeveless

• 15 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • All maps ; LODs

3.6k | 3.5k | 3.5k Poly

Low Rise Fringe Hem Shorts

These shorts put me through the ringer but love the way they turned out!

• 14 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • All maps ; LODs

1.1k Poly

Credit: @liliilisims Half pants | @ridgeport classic jeans | @xldkx for always being willing to help out. without them, this would not be possible

7' Denim Shorts

more bottoms with exposed boxers!

• 16 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • All maps ; LODs

1k Poly

Mid-Rise Pleated Trousers

2 versions cause we love options here- Baggy and Fitted

• 11 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • All maps ; LODs

1.3k | 1.7k Poly

Credit: @captainstreasure Drake trousers

Parachute Pants

My attempt at some parachute pants and I think they came out ok!

• 17 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • All maps ; LODs

2.6k Poly

Credit: @liliilisims Keely Skirt

Crew Socks

a conversion and slight edit

• 70 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • Spec and Normal maps ; LODs

448 Poly

Credit: @liliilisims Gillian Socks

Birkenstock Arizona EVA

I love creating items I own in real life. 2 versions- Socks and No socks

• 25 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • Spec and Normal maps; LODs • Sock Overlay Found in Socks - 25 Swatches

13.8k | 9.9k Poly

Credit: @dallasgirl79 Birkenstocks | @magic-bot Feet V7 and Socks

Scarf Accessory

a hat version of the scarf to be used on other hairs. Will most likely be clipping depending on the hair, meant to be paired with short cuts

• 45 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • All maps; LODs • Found in Hats

1.1k Poly

Fitted with Headphones

ya'll. My all-time favorite piece. Yes, the hat and headphones come together and function as a hat so you can wear it with any hair that has hat chops!!!

• 15 Swatches • Masc Frame ; T-E • Spec and Normal maps; LODs

2.5k Poly

Credit: @joliebean Joliepods

As always, let me know if you run into any issues and I'll do my best to fix it

Download: Patreon (Free!) | ALT (Google Drive) | SFS

#ts4 custom content #ts4 cc #ts4 download #ts4cc #the sims 4 custom hair #ts4 cas #custom content #CeeP #CeeProductions #ts4 male cc

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verstarppen · 6 months

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hear me out….. okay reader is famous and meeting fans,, a fan is wearing a top with like charles or max or whoever’s face on it and reader spots it and is like “…who is that😮‍💨” and the fans tell her and shes like “please show me their instagram” and then she follows whoever the guy you choose on ig,,, but one of the fans was recording the whole interaction qnd the video goes viral as well as a screenshot of readers ig following their account <3333 you can ignore i just thought this would be a good giggle type fic and your fics are my fav for giggling <33333

summary; your comic book signing takes a turn when a fan walks in wearing a t-shirt with a poorly photoshopped "charles lechair" or wheover that is

pairing; charles leclerc x fem! comic book artist! reader [ no faceclaim ]

a/n; this is for my charlie girlies i see your comments ladies and they make me smile im lurking and im stalking when you least expect it; all art used in this is by my lord and saviour dan mora if i could eat his artsyle i would

liked by charles_leclerc and 430,010 others

ynlantern thank you everyone who stopped by for a print or a sticker @ comic_con ! and if you haven't, i'm here for the next 2 days

view all 100,333 comments

orangleclerc HE'S IN THE LIKES Y'ALL

kirbyvettel can someone pls explain what's going on orangleclerc I'll DM you the video baconforza HEY I WANT TO KNOW TOO lionkingseb ffs please someone explain

egggrosjean I've never cared about anything superhero related but this whole situation made me look into your work, and I have to say it's amazing!!! Keep up the good work

roboclaren HE FOLLOWED HER BACK LMAO

liked by charles_leclerc, maxverstappen1, ynlantern and 5,331,254 others

pierregasly He's great with kids and dogs

view all 1,699,314 comments

monte_carlos_55 STOP EMBARASSING HIM

verstoppen "My crush is coming act cool" My friends:

charles_leclerc What did I say

pierregasly I'm doing free promotion charles_leclerc You're talking a lot of shit for someone within bitch slap distance pierregasly Delete this, you're ruining my marketing strategy

scuderiaferrari It's true! He's actually a driver, strategist and team principal!

ynlantern isn't half of that your job? scuderiaferrari @ charles_leclerc Nevermind, we don't like her. charles_leclerc 😐

liked by charles_leclerc, pierregasly, carlossainz55 and 1,200,100 others

ynlantern i heard he solved world hunger or something

view all 800,121 comments

vertiddieenjoyer WAR IS OVER

ceruleanwilliams historians in 2294 trying to figure out what charles leclerc actually did and what the internet said he did to get him a date: 😰

pierregasly No need to thank me

honeyvettel the real main character

arthur_leclerc You did it. You crazy son of a bitch you did it.

charles_leclerc No swearing under her posts, please arthur_leclerc Yes, mom.

liked by ynlantern, carlossainz55, maxverstappen1 and 2,474,551 others

charles_leclerc Round 2 :)

view all 505,041 comments

scuderiaferrari That was fast

carlossainz55 Unlike our pitstops scuderiaferrari You're getting distracted charles_leclerc Wish I could get distracted out of SF-23

pic credits: instagram and pinterest

blog taglist: @coffeehurricanes @iifloweringnightsii @jsjcue @lanando4 @fastcarsandshit @christianpulisic10 @allygatcr (it's been a week and im already crying screaming throwing up without f1 help me)

#charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc #charles leclerc imagine #f1 #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 instagram au #f1 smau #f1 social media au #instagram au #social media au

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lokiinmediasideblog · 3 months

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If you care about activism and DON'T WANT TO USE YOUR GOVERNMENT ID TO ACCESS THE INTERNET please contact your representatives.

THEY WILL BLOCK CRITICISM OF ISNOTREAL, SEX ED, LGBTQIA+ TOPICS, CRITICAL RACE THEORY, HISTORY, NSFW CONTENT, ETC.

FOR REPUBLICAN REPS:

FOR DEMOCRAT REPS:

Image captions credit to @fr0ggs

[image id 1: black text on a white background reading:

"My name is (blank underlines) and I'm one of your constitutents. I'm calling to urge you to vote NO on KOSA - the Kids Online Safety Act. The bill's sponsors claim it will protect kids by placing a duty of care on online platforms to prevent anything that could be harmful, but who decides what's harmful and what's free speech?

(next line) The power to decide has been ceded to the FTC. FTC leadership is made by presidential appointment. Current president Lina Khan, a Biden appointee, will have one agenda, but what happens when the someone even farther left than Joe Biden is in the Oval Office?

(next line) Imagine a President Gavin Newsom or Letitia James: Do you trust their appointee not to abuse this enforcement power to scrub information about your children's second amendment rights from the internet?

(next line) KOSA claims to protect kids, but it's poorly designed and will absolutely, without question, (underlined) harm (end underline) children, adults, and anyone who values free speech online. Vote No on KOSA." /end id.]

[image id 2: black text on a white background reading:

"My name is and I'm one of your constituents. I'm calling to urge you to vote NO on KOSA - the Kids Online Safety Act. The bill's sponsors claim it will protect kids by placing a duty of care on online platforms to prevent anything that could be harmful.

(next line) The power to decide what's harmful has been ceded to the FTC. FTC leadership is made by presidential appointment. Current president Lina Khan may proceed fairly, but what happens when the next Donald Trump is in the Oval Office? What if it's Trump himself? Do you trust a Trump appointee not to abuse this enforcement power?

(next line) KOSA claims to protect kids, but it's poorly designed and, given time, it will absolutely and without question, (underlined) harm (end underline) LGBTQ children, adults, and anyone who needs information on reproductive health or abortion.

(next line) KOSA author, Senator Marsha Blackburn, said she introduced KOSA in part - and I quote - "to protect minor children from the transgender in our society." The Heritage Foundation proudly said they'll apply pressure through KOSA to block information about abortion, reproductive health, & LGBTQ issues.

(next line) Vote NO on KOSA."

#KOSA #please reblog even if not in the usa #i heard the uk is also trying to enact this kind of laws too so check those out

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ave661 · 3 months

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Post about art-theft, AI and tracing of my render:

Unfortunately, one of my renders I made a year ago, was traced, copied, edited by AI by "brothers in arms" store and now sold as a merch aimed towards CoD fandom. They are currently sending this out to various cosplayers asking them to promote it.

As someone who is affected by this, I have to speak up about it.

(post about it on twt & insta)

I found out about it by accident when I saw promoted post on my insta feed. When I started talking about it in my stories, this store sent me a private message saying they had been working on this design for weeks and had never heard of me so they definitely didn't steal anything, and offered me free stuff. When I disagreed with them and sent them files comparing our works, they stopped replying to me, so I continued talking about it again on my insta. Only when my followers started leaving comments under their post saying this is wrong, they decided to continue discussion on the next day.

2. They mentioned that they could have been inspired by some pictures they found on the internet and showed me their "first sketch" of design… which was made by AI.

3. During the conversation, they mentioned that their artist could have based his work on a picture he found on the Internet, but he defended himself by saying that they might not have known it was mine. But even if they didn't know about me, even if they found some fanart on the Internet - it doesn't mean you can copy something detail by detail and sell it as your own. What is most important here, their offer to solve the problem was to give me credits in their design. IF they worked hard on it, why would they want to give me credits? My offer was to remove it.

4. Why do I mention that it could have been done by AI? because many lines are unfinished and a lot of details don't make sense.

5. Below is a comparison of my render that I published on March 18, 2023 with their first sketch they showed me, which apparently they drew themselves:

I am saying this so that the CoD community, which is very large, will be aware of this, because there are many people who have already bought it and after my insta story, they felt bad and said they want return it because they don't want to support art theft.

It's not just about me anymore - it could have happened to anyone who creates fanart and share it on the Internet just for fun. One day someone may use it for their own profit without us being aware of it. It doesn't matter if it's a 3D render or a drawing. All artists in this (or any other) fandom do not deserve to experience such thing, and we need to speak out about it to prevent it from happening in the future.

Reposting fanart is, as this example shows, dangerous and hurtful, so please respect artists and don’t do this. Especially on pinterest.

Their only proposal and offer to give me credits for the work they traced is something I will never agree to.

#that being said do not repost my renders on pinterest #because you see what it does #it doesn't “help me with popularity” as one reposter explained to me once #but it gives me more work and stress #.....so now whenever I have free time I will report every reposted render I find on pinterest

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genderqueerdykes · 3 months

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as someone who has been chronically homeless for 9 years due to severe disability, the way housing is managed in america is just a joke. it's all about the profits for the landlord, nothing else matters. credit checks are a gate to keep out poor people. deposits are a gate to keep out poor people. you wanna apply for a low-income housing program? you HAVE to have a "severe" disability diagnosis and proof that you're too disabled to afford or apply for "normal" housing. this is a gate to keep out poor people.

people in positions to help house homeless people don't care because they're housed. there's no sense of urgency. they don't have to think about what it's like to go without a roof over their head. they get paid tens of dollars an hour to sit there and scoff at all of the "lazy poor and disabled people who should just get jobs and stop whining and expecting to have things handed to them." they get paid to ignore emails and take 2 hour long lunches to forget about how hard and scary the world really is.

how the FUCK are you supposed to work when you don't have a place to sleep at night, shower, or eat? come the fuck on. use your goddamn brain. this system is built off of abuse, lying and torture. nobody earns an "honest" day's pay, none of this is "honest" work. it's all built off of the backs of lying and stealing from someone who needs it more. jobs aren't given to the person who's the most qualified- they're given to the person who lied the most to make themselves sound good during the interview. jobs are given to people who are good at interviews, NOT people who are GOOD at what they do.

i don't know how to tell you that when the average person isn't making enough to eat, fuel their car or pay for their phone, they also can't afford the roof over their head. disabled people and low-income people are struggling even worse with this. i don't know how to tell people that you should care about this.

we are literally all the same species. we are all humans. you cannot look down on disabled, poor and addicted people because we're "scum" and "less than human". we're not. that's a lie you're being fed by capitalism to feel better about yourself so you'll keep blindly working. wake up. this is not how humans behave. you're being brainwashed. everyone needs a stable home. EVERYONE. especially if you want them to contribute to your stupid money machine.

capitalism makes no fucking sense. give people homes or get the fuck out of our way, because we're about to just start taking them. this is unsustainable. this is unliveable. this system doesn't fucking work. a system that leaves its people to starve and die while apartments, homes, condos, and hotel rooms stay empty and collect dust doesn't work. none of this shit works. fuck this fascist system. none of us are free.

#homelessness #housing #human rights #punk #trans punx #trans punks #queer punks #cripplepunk #cripple punk #crip punk #cpunk #our writing #about us #anticapitalism #antiwork #anti capitalism #anti work

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wereallydobevibing · 19 days

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Too Young | John Price x Reader

I used to post my stories on tiktok under the username @codlover but I figured since tiktok might get banned I should delete that account and post it here. Here’s one of the stories.

Feel free to use my work as a prompt/inspiration. Better yet, feel free to write your ideal part 2 just MAKE SURE YOU CREDIT AND TAG ME.

WARNINGS: Age Gap

“Welcome home, Captain.”

As he falls back in his seat, his gaze lifts to meet yours - his little muse behind a marble counter, his favorite bartender at his favorite bar.

“That’s John to you, sweetheart,” He says, and he watches with satisfaction as you wordlessly pour out his usual drink without even having to ask what he was having.

You were a young girl, early twenties, working towards your bachelors at the nearest university, but before that, you’d gone to trade school. You were a hard worker; doing hair in the morning, attending classes in the noon, closing the bar at night, studying any minute that was free.

I’ll breathe when I have everything I want, you told him one night, when he noticed how your shoulders seemed to be heavy with the weight of your profusion of responsibilities. He wished he could help you carry some of them, or at least blow some air into those lungs that seemed to collapse whenever finals came around.

John admired you – sweet, smart, and focused. He would’ve liked to have you on his Taskforce if that’d been that path that you chose, but, for the sake of flirting, perhaps bartending was the better option.

He’ll miss you when you graduate and go off to start a new chapter in your life.

You set the drink down on the counter, pushing it forwards and leaning your weight on your elbows. It was a slow night, but you figured now that John Price was here to pay you his company, time would tick faster than you wanted it to.

The first hour and a half of his visit is a basic conversation – how was deployment, how does it feel to be home, how long before his next call in? He talks a little about his team – you’ve heard about “Soap” and “Ghost” and “Gaz” many times before, Price only ever allows you to know them by their callsigns, though, for privacy's sake, and only tells you very minor details. But after one or two glasses, Price allows himself to be free of his professional nature. His 141 men know

“How come you never bring your boys around here, Captain?”

“John,” You’re leaning so closely, he’s able to flick your nose as he corrects you. Not too hard, but very much playful. “And if I brought my boys around here, they’d never leave. Soap might steal my favorite girl.”

“Your favorite girl is too busy to be stolen, John,” You remind him, and you don’t say I’m too busy trying to give myself to you.

Closing time comes all too quickly, as you figured it would. On a Monday night, there are generally very few customers, and you’re able to start your side work at exactly eleven o’clock. John sticks around as you clean up and count the register, offering his company. Being that he was such a regular, he even knows where to find the broom and shortens your to-do list by sweeping the floor.

This is your favorite part, when you lock up the door and begin your walk home with Captain John Price at your side, allowing you to hook your arm through his. Like a gentleman, he’s always happy to walk you home.

“No boyfriend, yet, [Y/N]?” He says, lighting a cigar, “No one to tell me off for walking so close to their girl?”

You giggle, “No boyfriend. If I did, though, I don’t think you’d be one to be worried about it. Unless it was that guy you mentioned earlier – Soap? Maybe you could introduce us?”

“He’s too much fun, I think,” John sniggered.

“Are you saying I’m too serious?”

“Serious enough, fun enough. Soap is too much fun.”

“Aww,” You feign a pout, “You don’t want me to like him, do you?”

As you finally approach your apartment door, John lightly shoves you toward it. He pulls the cigar away from his lips, leaning against the wall with a smirk.

“You can have that one if you want, love,” he says, “Don’t come bothering me when you’re with him, though. Can’t have both.”

“No, I couldn’t,” You agree, you gesture to your apartment, “You won’t let me let you in.”

He hums, watching you unlock and push open the door. You lift your eyes to gaze up at him through your lashes, a small smile pulling at the corners of your lips.

“Come have a glass with me, John, I can bartend for you here, too.”

The back of his hand reached out, stroking the subtle skin of your cheek. He would love to come inside and know the structure of your home, and the decorations that would be a complimentary extension of your personality. When it came to you, he was Pandora and you were his box.

You were a beautiful girl, and the thought of having your company outside of your work hours was enticing. He wanted to know you like the back of his own hand, he wanted to see what was inside this box, but John knew better than to cross this line – that line being your doorway.

Oh, how he wished he was at least ten years younger.

“You know I can only go so far with you, love,” He says, taking another draw from his cigar. “Your doormat is the limit.”

It’s not the first time you heard that, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. As mentioned earlier, you were an ambitious girl; you were often berated in your early childhood by your mother for trying to get away with the same stuff over and over and over again until you finally learned the secret to getting away with your innocent little crimes successfully.

As you said once before, you’ll breathe when you have everything you ever wanted.

Blaze

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#john price x reader #john price #simon riley #kyle garrick #john mactavish #soap #ghost #x reader #call of duty #cod #modern warfare

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