Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

this is the vibe i bring to the party actually

It's so frustrating seeing hunters fight against predator reintroduction because "hunters with rifles can kill more deer than wolves/lynx can"

Even if that's true, predators like wolves do so much more than just killing deer. Their mere presence completely changes the behaviour of deer. Instead of hanging around one area and overgrazing it, deer herds have to stay constantly on the move to try and avoid wolf packs. This spreads their grazing over much wider areas and significantly reduces the amount of damage they can do.

Hunters also only target adult deer, often going for the big trophy bucks. Predators like wolves and lynx don't just hunt adult deer but also kill a lot of fawns, as well as does. This has a much bigger impact on controlling deer populations than killing adult bucks. Predators also tend to target the old, sick and weak, which helps keep deer herds healthy. The remains of wolf kills also provide an important food source for scavengers, and when the bodies rot it nourishes the soil and massively benefits the whole ecosystem.

Humans can certainly play a role in deer control, but they'll never be as effective as native wild predators.

also worth noting that hunting is becoming less and less accessible for people as it requires a not insignificant time commitment and some people just can't make room for it in their lives as a hobby any more

so many people are just totally ignorant about predators and their importance in the ecosystem, even those that SHOULD know better

It's so frustrating seeing hunters fight against predator reintroduction because "hunters with rifles can kill more deer than wolves/lynx can"

Even if that's true, predators like wolves do so much more than just killing deer. Their mere presence completely changes the behaviour of deer. Instead of hanging around one area and overgrazing it, deer herds have to stay constantly on the move to try and avoid wolf packs. This spreads their grazing over much wider areas and significantly reduces the amount of damage they can do.

Hunters also only target adult deer, often going for the big trophy bucks. Predators like wolves and lynx don't just hunt adult deer but also kill a lot of fawns, as well as does. This has a much bigger impact on controlling deer populations than killing adult bucks. Predators also tend to target the old, sick and weak, which helps keep deer herds healthy. The remains of wolf kills also provide an important food source for scavengers, and when the bodies rot it nourishes the soil and massively benefits the whole ecosystem.

Humans can certainly play a role in deer control, but they'll never be as effective as native wild predators.

also worth noting that hunting is becoming less and less accessible for people as it requires a not insignificant time commitment and some people just can't make room for it in their lives as a hobby any more

so many people are just totally ignorant about predators and their importance in the ecosystem, even those that SHOULD know better

i stopped giving a shit about "legit" purchases of digital products after i spent $80 on the entire Dark Horse collection of Trigun/Trigun Maximum ebook mangas, learning that I only got access to reading them through a proprietary website ereader function, couldn't download them, and couldn't get a refund, and then literally only a year later, getting an e-mail stating that Dark Horse was shutting down that part of their company and I wouldn't even be able to read them anymore. Fuck that

Pirate shit. Don't feel bad for it. It's not "your fault" that artists, independent or otherwise, can't make a living. You downloading an album or ebook for free isn't the cause of the problem. The cause is capitalism, plain and simple, and pirating is a lucky loophole that will companies are still trying to stomp out.

As someone who has seen both movies, (iron lung three times) here's a few things i see ppl get wrong/ misunderstand:

How it works in my head

Finally. Some good fucking food.

don't ever look up what your childhood friends are up to now!!!!!!!!!! like girl you're a nuclear safety engineer. i put on matching socks today. we played tag a thousand years ago.

Yeah

Y'all if you're American please email your politicians and senators against the parents decide act. I'm fucking begging because we're reaching a tipping point.

Quick and easy link to both find your congressmen/women and giving you a quick and easy way to copy / paste the message into it. You want to oppose. It's an act that will demand that all major OS makers integrate a direct forced age verification control into all OS.

I received a comment on this that I figured would be very helpful- it's a template for communicating with your representatives. Be sure to use it for reference

Dear Representative [Name],

I am writing to express my strong opposition to H.R. 8250 (The "Parents Decide Act"). As your constituent and a concerned citizen, I believe this bill introduces unprecedented risks to digital privacy and security.

Specifically, I am alarmed by:

SEC. 2(a)(1)(B): Requiring age verification to even use an operating system creates a mandatory "hardware lockout" that ends anonymous computing and forces users to hand over sensitive identification data to major corporations just to power on their devices.

SEC. 2(a)(3): Mandating that OS providers create a system for all app developers to access verification data is a massive security vulnerability. This effectively creates a centralized API of user identities accessible to thousands of third-party developers, many of whom may lack adequate data protection.

This bill does not protect children; it creates a centralized surveillance infrastructure at the OS level. I urge you to protect the privacy of your constituents and vote NO on H.R. 8250.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

[Your Zip Code]

This is a hell that us down under in Australia are already living in, and it’s not even effective at what it claims to do in protecting children.

Given that, in the wake of this mandatory identification policy, my country seems to be moving to hand over its citizens biometric data, like fingerprints, Face ID files, and identification documents, over to the USA and to ICE to maintain the visa free travel (ESTA) we have, I strongly urge any US resident to send these emails, or make calls.

But if you can’t do that, the most powerful thing you can do is spread the word. Tell your friends, family, coworkers, anyone who can help.

My reach will likely be small, and so I don’t know if this will mean very much in the grand scheme of things, but I cannot stand to see this tracking happen to another population as it did to mine.

And if you think it won’t affect you, it will. All anonymity goes out the window when your accounts can be linked via your personal ID

I wish you all luck in preventing this act from going through.

I called my representative and left a voice message!

Here’s the 5calls script to make it easy! https://5calls.org/issue/age-verification-internet-privacy/

Ive seen the idea of swapping the scenarios theyre in, so instead i swapped their vibes. Simon having the best time in that blood ocean, making friends with mutant fish that can speak telepathically, while Grace is fighting for his life against an alien rock that generates hazardous atmosphere.

idk if anyone else has done this and given a name to it. i googled what the opposite of a 'bloody mary' drink is and it came up with a 'bloody caesar'. i dont know about that one chief. Iron hail? please tell me someone else has thought this through

im gonna get back to my jnd comic now, so close to skyheed finally showing up thank god, i just needed to make this last thing

Hot (ha) take but I think everyone needs to stop with 'oh heat in Britain is extra bad bcos we don't have the infrastructure' and 'oh it's the humidity'. We could upgrade all our infrastructure and 100% of people in Britain could be having a lovely time in the sun and the apocalyptic climate change induced heat waves would still be a problem.

If someone's response to 'this country is having 30c heat waves, which is extremely hot relative to the usual climate in the region' is 'umm but 30c is barely even hot' they have a tiny child's understanding of how the world works.

I said this last year but saying that people are freaking out about 'normal summer weather' is climate change denial 👍

SERIOUS: NEW BOT SCAM ALERT

heya!

this right here?

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT REAL.

the "@staff" is just the bio text.

tumblr staff will not contact you through anything other than email or their official accounts, which will all have this badge:

DO NOT ENGAGE WITH THIS OR SIMILAR ACCOUNTS AND ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CLICK ANY LINKS FROM IT.

report and block. i'd also appreciate it if you shared this post, bc that blog was JUST created and was already tagging a LOT of people, and i know not everyone has the scam-sensing instinct, even if this might seem obvious to some.

@staff @tumblr @support

Personally I hate AI because it uses slave labor, is killing the planet and is making people stupid, but that's just me. The soulless art aspect is just one little piece of my grander disdain.

wait how does AI use slave labor? Do you mean the human works that are stolen and not credited or compensated? Because technically under capitalism everything is exploited but there are varying degrees

Aside from the scraping, AI tech companies, including openAI/chatGPT, have outsourced training their models to countries in the global south, specifically Kenya in openAI's case. These workers are working in sweatshop conditions for less than 2 bucks USD per hour. I'm on mobile, but if you search 'openAI Kenya slave labor' and related keywords, you can find multiple articles about it.

so apparently the dsm 6 is being structured around bio-pathologizing mental illness specifically in the direction of biomarkers…if u aren’t concerned about this maybe you should be…

…so they’re now trying to search for “biomarkers”- which are essentially genes, or circumstances of conception/birth/what have you, that can “increase the risk” of mental illnesses. how is this any different from people wondering if there’s a “gay gene?” or autism speaks trying to find a genetic or reproductive “cure for autism?”

it’s not. this is barely disguised eugenics that they have ACKNOWLEDGED may (will) do more to harm than good for people with abnormal mental states. what else could the end result of finding a “mental illness gene” be than a reason to further marginalize those who are already marginalized, already branded as more likely to be (or even inherently) “mentally ill” and eventually discourage them to reproduce, either by coercion or force?

it’s more obvious than ever now. everyone should be anti psych

Psychiatry as an institution functions to obfuscate the causes of mental and emotional disturbance (economic exploitation, abuse, lack of access to resources, etc) by describing mental illness as an individual pathology that needs to be recognized and treated by science.

Given where these hardships cluster most intensely, it is extremely useful to white supremacy and eugenics to have a "scientific" method of proving that pathology is more common among "degenerate" populations.

The DSM's various incarnations have corresponded to shifts in which part of this process have been considered more or less important to prioritize - the latest restructuring to focus on biomarkers is just a recalibration to better suit the needs of the imperial-capitalist white supremacist project.

"Why do you buy books when the library is right there?"

Because publishing houses will not continue printing paper books if libraries are their only customers.

Also, I like being able to read at my leisure and generally have books at hand.

#public libraries are good because they let people access books they might never otherwise read#private book ownership is good because it's Yours#physical books are good because they last a long time and again it's Yours#ebooks are good because you can fit a whole library into the physical space of a single book and they're cheaper to produce#audiobooks are good because they're accessible to people with eyesight or visual reading issues and leave your hands free#in conclusion: all books are good and people should enjoy them however and whenever they can#(lest it be misunderstood I agree with you completely OP I just also really like books in general and it got away from me)

YES. all books. every kind

We tried to warn you about the "adult content" bans. Now Kickstarter is starting that shit

"It must have serious value!"

Staight up sounds like obscenity law/Miller Test-type crap.

"Fetishized imagery intended to arouse" well it's a good thing oppressed and vulnerable communities are never fetishized.

Just got a new Roomba.

The last one (acquired sometime in 2012) finally died, so it was time for a replacement. The new model 105 is the cheapest one they make but by golly it's an upgrade in every conceivable way.

However.

The startup/unpacking procedure has changed. Where, before, you just charged the thing for 8 hours then turned it on... now you gotta configure it:

Etcetera. Upon unboxing it I was >this< close to returning it, because nowhere was it stated on the web store that the app was REQUIRED to utilize the small floor cleaning robot.

But then I had an idea.

I set New Roomba down and pressed the Power button, without installing any apps or connecting it to wifi. And you know what?

IT STARTED CLEANING

It bumbled around the house mapping everything itself and did a marvelous job, without my having to do any of the recommended crap in the Quick Startup instructions. And without configuring its wifi there's no way it's sending data to iRobot's servers. Yayy.

In 2025 some things do just work right out of the box.

Can confirm my wireless enabled air filter does not require any Internet connection to work exactly like its non wireless predecessor. I tried connecting it once and it did not work as well as it did when I disabled the wireless connection. It was flashing a small "can't connect" light so I put tape over that light and it still all works fine.

My stove, dishwasher, and washing machine all have apps. "Install the app!" the manuals all say. "Get access to fancy cycles and features!" they all say.

I have installed exactly none of these apps, and have connected exactly zero of these appliances to the wifi.

They all work fine.

Like seriously 99% of my dishwasher cycles are "auto" and the remaining 1% are "express", neither of which I need an app for. Allegedly the app can tell me when the dishwasher needs more rinse aid but so does the little red light on the display. Which is handier than the app because the rinse aid lives in the cabinet next to the dishwasher and so when I see the little light I fill the rinse aid and am done, instead of an alert on my phone stressing me out everywhere and impinging on my brain.

The washer? 95% of what I was is cold water on the colors cycle. The rest is towels in hot water or delicates in cold water. Sometimes I get fancy and delay the towels an hour so it's not competing with the dishwasher or the shower for hot water. None of that needs the app. Allegedly the app can tell me when the washer is done but so can a timer I set to the wash time handily displayed when I start the washer, and that doesn't send any data to the manufacturer.

Honestly I don't even know what the stove app does because I can do fancy things like "turn the oven on in 3 hours" without it.

Yes, it is incredibly shitty that these all have apps now and that some features are app-only and that we are all pushed to give up more and more of our control and privacy in order to feed the gaping maw of corporate "profit". HOWEVER. Sometimes you can still just not.

And if you HAVE installed the app and connected the thing to the wifi, you can change your mind in most cases. Change your wifi password and uninstall the app. Sometimes for big appliances you can find instructions on how to physically remove the wifi module. If it literally won't turn on without a wifi connection, you can almost always make a separate network for it on your router that you then block from internet access.

[Image ID: Tweet from verified user Redhead Ranting (TM) (@/ redheadRanting) reading: You know what I miss? Turning on something and having it just work. No registering on another device. No signing into an account. No downloading an app. Just plug it in and it does the thing it's supposed to do. /End ID]

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four