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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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Google reneged on the monopolistic bargain

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and TOMORROW in SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

A funny thing happened on the way to the enshittocene: Google – which astonished the world when it reinvented search, blowing Altavista and Yahoo out of the water with a search tool that seemed magic – suddenly turned into a pile of shit.

Google's search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94766

But often these scams are perpetrated by petty grifters who are making a couple bucks at this. These aren't hyper-resourced, sophisticated attackers. They're the SEO equivalent of script kiddies, and they're running circles around Google:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Google search is empirically worsening. The SEO industry spends every hour that god sends trying to figure out how to sleaze their way to the top of the search results, and even if Google defeats 99% of these attempts, the 1% that squeak through end up dominating the results page for any consequential query:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

Google insists that this isn't true, and if it is true, it's not their fault because the bad guys out there are so numerous, dedicated and inventive that Google can't help but be overwhelmed by them:

https://searchengineland.com/is-google-search-getting-worse-389658

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Google has long maintained that its scale is the only thing that keeps us safe from the scammers and spammers who would otherwise overwhelm any lesser-resourced defender. That's why it was so imperative that they pursue such aggressive growth, buying up hundreds of companies and integrating their products with search so that every mobile device, every ad, every video, every website, had one of Google's tendrils in it.

This is the argument that Google's defenders have put forward in their messaging on the long-overdue antitrust case against Google, where we learned that Google is spending $26b/year to make sure you never try another search engine:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-27/google-paid-26-3-billion-to-be-default-search-engine-in-2021

Google, we were told, had achieved such intense scale that the normal laws of commercial and technological physics no longer applied. Take security: it's an iron law that "there is no security in obscurity." A system that is only secure when its adversaries don't understand how it works is not a secure system. As Bruce Schneier says, "anyone can design a security system that they themselves can't break. That doesn't mean it works – just that it works for people stupider than them."

And yet, Google operates one of the world's most consequential security system – The Algorithm (TM) – in total secrecy. We're not allowed to know how Google's ranking system works, what its criteria are, or even when it changes: "If we told you that, the spammers would win."

Well, they kept it a secret, and the spammers won anyway.

A viral post by Housefresh – who review air purifiers – describes how Google's algorithmic failures, which send the worst sites to the top of the heap, have made it impossible for high-quality review sites to compete:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

You've doubtless encountered these bad review sites. Search for "Best ______ 2024" and the results are a series of near-identical lists, strewn with Amazon affiliate links. Google has endlessly tinkered with its guidelines and algorithmic weights for review sites, and none of it has made a difference. For example, when Google instituted a policy that reviewers should "discuss the benefits and drawbacks of something, based on your own original research," sites that had previously regurgitated the same lists of the same top ten Amazon bestsellers "peppered their pages with references to a ‘rigorous testing process,’ their ‘lab team,’ subject matter experts ‘they collaborated with,’ and complicated methodologies that seem impressive at a cursory look."

But these grandiose claims – like the 67 air purifiers supposedly tested in Better Homes and Gardens's Des Moines lab – result in zero in-depth reviews and no published data. Moreover, these claims to rigorous testing materialized within a few days of Google changing its search ranking and said that high rankings would be reserved for sites that did testing.

Most damning of all is how the Better Homes and Gardens top air purifiers perform in comparison to the – extensively documented – tests performed by Housefresh: "plagued by high-priced and underperforming units, Amazon bestsellers with dubious origins (that also underperform), and even subpar devices from companies that market their products with phrases like ‘the Tesla of air purifiers.’"

One of the top ranked items on BH&G comes from Molekule, a company that filed for bankruptcy after being sued for false advertising. The model BH&G chose was ranked "the worst air purifier tested" by Wirecutter and "not living up to the hype" by Consumer Reports. Either BH&G's rigorous testing process is a fiction that they infused their site with in response to a Google policy change, or BH&G absolutely sucks at rigorous testing.

BH&G's competitors commit the same sins – literally, the exact same sins. Real Simple's reviews list the same photographer and the photos seem to have been taken in the same place. They also list the same person as their "expert." Real Simple has the same corporate parent as BH&G: Dotdash Meredith. As Housefresh shows, there's a lot of Dotdash Meredith review photos that seem to have been taken in the same place, by the same person.

But the competitors of these magazines are no better. Buzzfeed lists 22 air purifiers, including that crapgadget from Molekule. Their "methodology" is to include screenshots of Amazon reviews.

A lot of the top ranked sites for air purifiers are once-great magazines that have been bought and enshittified by private equity giants, like Popular Science, which began as a magazine in 1872 and became a shambling zombie in 2023, after its PE owners North Equity LLC decided its googlejuice was worth more than its integrity and turned it into a metastatic chumbox of shitty affiliate-link SEO-bait. As Housefresh points out, the marketing team that runs PopSci makes a lot of hay out of the 150 years of trust that went into the magazine, but the actual reviews are thin anaecdotes, unbacked by even the pretense of empiricism (oh, and they loooove Molekule).

Some of the biggest, most powerful, most trusted publications in the world have a side-hustle in quietly producing SEO-friendly "10 Best ___________ of 2024" lists: Rolling Stone, Forbes, US News and Report, CNN, New York Magazine, CNN, CNET, Tom's Guide, and more.

Google literally has one job: to detect this kind of thing and crush it. The deal we made with Google was, "You monopolize search and use your monopoly rents to ensure that we never, ever try another search engine. In return, you will somehow distinguish between low-effort, useless nonsense and good information. You promised us that if you got to be the unelected, permanent overlord of all information access, you would 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'"

They broke the deal.

Companies like CNET used to do real, rigorous product reviews. As Housefresh points out, CNET once bought an entire smart home and used it to test products. Then Red Ventures bought CNET and bet that they could sell the house, switch to vibes-based reviewing, and that Google wouldn't even notice. They were right.

https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/welcome-to-the-cnet-smart-home/

Google downranks sites that spend money and time on reviews like Housefresh and GearLab, and crams botshittened content mills like BH&G into our eyeballs instead.

In 1558, Thomas Gresham coined (ahem) Gresham's Law: "Bad money drives out good." When counterfeit money circulates in the economy, anyone who gets a dodgy coin spends it as quickly as they can, because the longer you hold it, the greater the likelihood that someone will detect the fraud and the coin will become worthless. Run this system long enough and all the money in circulation is funny money.

An internet run by Google has its own Gresham's Law: bad sites drive out good. It's not just that BH&G can "test" products at a fraction of the cost of Housefresh – through the simple expedient of doing inadequate tests or no tests at all – so they can put a lot more content up that Housefresh. But that alone wouldn't let them drive Housefresh off the front page of Google's search results. For that, BH&G has to mobilize some of their savings from the no test/bad test lab to do real rigorous science: science in defeating Google's security-through-obscurity system, which lets them command the front page despite publishing worse-than-useless nonsense.

Google has lost the spam wars. In response to the plague of botshit clogging Google search results, the company has invested in…making more botshit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Last year, Google did a $70b stock buyback. They also laid off 12,000 staffers (whose salaries could have been funded for 27 years by that stock buyback). They just laid off thousands more employees.

That wasn't the deal. The deal was that Google would get a monopoly, and they would spend their monopoly rents to be so good that you could just click "I'm feeling lucky" and be teleported to the very best response to your query. A company that can't figure out the difference between a scam like Better Homes and Gardens and a rigorous review site like Housefresh should be pouring every spare dime it brings in into fixing this problem. Not buying default search status on every platform so that we never try another search engine: they should be fixing their shit.

When Google admits that it's losing the war to these kack-handed spam-farmers, that's frustrating. When they light $26b/year on fire making sure you don't ever get to try anything else, that's very frustrating. When they vaporize seventy billion dollars on financial engineering and shoot one in ten engineers, that's outrageous.

Google's scale has transcended the laws of business physics: they can sell an ever-degrading product and command an ever-greater share of our economy, even as their incompetence dooms any decent, honest venture to obscurity while providing fertile ground – and endless temptation – for scammers.

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/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

#pluralistic #monopoly #seo #dark seo #google #search #enshittification #platform decay #product reviews #spam #antitrust #trustbusting

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katsukikitten · 6 months

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Landing on your back with a sickening crunch makes the rage in you burn brighter. Bringing your knees to your chest to slam your feet straight into his sternum.

With any luck you'll break it.

But you doubt it, he wasn't tied in the number one spot for no reason and he was no stranger to hand to hand despite his quirk.

Still he staggers backward enough for you to get to your feet, sharp black tipped claws poised to slash although you must be careful. His reach is larger than yours and you've had to break your wrist to get out of his grip before. Your previous encounter shines brightly in jagged ruby scabs on his forearms decorating his other more detrimental scars.

"Hah? What's wrong?" His lips turning up into a smirk as he lunges and you jump back again, "Scared I'll get ya?"

"Nah, just don't wanna fork over another fortune to get my shit fixed again." Throwing a kick that he ducks to dodge, grabbing onto your ankle to pin under his armpit, his other hand coming to clamp down just below your knees. Palm burning your skin through your dark skin tight suit, you can tell he's tempted to apply more pressure to snap your leg at an odd angle.

The papers were right, he'd be a much better villain.

"They make ya go to therapy? Ya know for your anger management? Bet ya get in trouble for hero brutality all the time." He hears this type of shit all the time in the media, the most it gets out of him now is an eye roll but when you say it it's like your claws are scraping at his bones. He bares his teeth and the time it takes him to think of a retort that you're able to twist your body with precision.

Letting your steel toed boot slam right into his handsome jaw. He doesn't stagger, it's annoying how much he can take but his grip loosens when you add.

"They have to, right? Otherwise the people wouldn't have let you tie with Deku huh?"

Freeing yourself expertly just out of his reach again as you dodge a swipe of his glowing hot palm.

"Ya fuckin talk too much."

"Ya didn't say that the last time you pinned me under you." You giggle and his throat burns red, swallows thickly as he lunges, wrapping you in his large arms. Pressing your chest against his b

"That was from a quirk. I ain't into you like that." He growls, nose to nose and all it does is make you smile.

"Oh?" A purr of your voice, leaning to whisper into his ear, haughty as you recall what he said to you that night, "So when you said 'fuuuuck sweetheart yer made for me' ya didn't mean it?"

It puts him into the moment instantly, him gripping onto your hips as he bounces you on his cock in doggy in the dingy alley behind a bar, you looking back at him with pretty tears in your eyes moaning out his name. His real name.

"Right, Katsuki." You can feel his heart rate increasing, feel his grip adjust in a different manner, "That's why you keep looking for me? Keep calling me?"

Leaning back as he lets up enough your arms are free, nails going to his undercut as you recalled he liked, scratching gently as you watch this hero melt in your touch.

"I thought you hated liars, baby."

"Stop." He bites, arms moving down to fall on your natural waist, one palm coming back up to squeeze your rib cage in warning.

"Stop what?"

"Stop using your quirk, yer slutty ass sex pollen shit." His eyes flicker to your lips, to the dark color he knows will smear against his mouth or the base of his cock like he's seen it before.

"That's the thing, Katsuki." You lean up lips inches from his and you'd be stupid to ignore the magnetism between the two of you, "I'm not using a quirk at all. You want me."

Suddenly your claws are sharp at his back, too sharp as you dig them deep using it as leverage to get fully out of his grip. Scaling the wall as another hero's foot steps can be heard barreling down the maze of alleyways you lead Dynamight down in a poor attempt to lose him.

"Find me again." Your giggle echoes around the space only to echo around his head until he catches a glimpse of a dark body suit slinking around in the shadows again.

#katsuki x reader #Bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #kitten writes 🖤🐈‍⬛#kitten writes Bakugou

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thegirlwhowatchedeverything · 9 months

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The conversation about the death of Sydney's mom in 2x9 is so unhinged. At first we're made to think Carmy's responding the way 99.9% of people would to hearing about someone's dead loved one - "I'm sorry" - but no, before his mind arrives at that automatic human response, his first thought is to apologize for not knowing this deeply personal fact about his girlfriend business partner: I'm sorry...I feel like I should have known that. The writers know what they we doing. Especially in the context of the next part of the conversation. Syd immediately shuts down what she thinks is the token apology she's been on the receiving end of for 20+ years. I honestly don't think she even hears what he says after "I'm sorry". It's only after she shuts him down for what she thinks is the token apology that Carmy actually gives said token apology. For whhyyy did they write I feel like I should have known that. I mean we know why but let's do a quick Claire comparison. After creepily getting Carmy's number from Fak, this exchange happens in 2x3:

Claire: Okay can you just, can you just not make this weird? (the cognitive dissonance of this statement, Claire, babe...) Like I just need a favor. My cousin bailed on me.

Carmy: What, Big Denny?

Claire: No, Mac. Denny's dead.

Carmy: Oh. Damn, Denny.

Claire: Yeah, totally sucks, but I have to move all this shit for my mom who is not dead. She's absolutely thriving...(rest of convo is irrelevant to my point)

There was no narrative need to emphasize the fact that Claire's mom is alive (and thriving!) other than to directly contrast Sydney. You can't even say oh it's a throwback to the dark humor of S1 with the two "I'm not dead, my brother's dead" conversations Carmy has with the health inspector lady (1x2) and Mr. Szorski at Cicero's catering gig (1x4) because those scenes are dark and sad and funny because we know and care about Carmy and Mikey whereas we do not know or care about Big Denny or Claire's mom. Carmy and Mikey are the absolute driving forces of the show, especially in S1 whereas we never see or hear about those two other characters. But, interestingly, Carmy clearly knew Big Denny and didn't even respond with the (as established) token "I'm sorry." Whereas he looks absolutely anguished over Sydney's mom, a woman he's never met and knows absolutely nothing about. But he plays it like he's finding out about the death of his mother in law because he feels like he should have known. And yes, granted in this context dead mom > dead cousin on the emotional scale but still. Carmy's two reactions are so starkly opposite.

It's just so pointed to have Carmy react to the deaths of his girlfriend's and girl-who-is-a friend's relatives, no? We knew the reveal of Sydney's mom was coming because it's narratively relevant, it's such a formative part of Sydney (hence why it hits Carmy like a gut punch). But to unnecessarily bring up Claire's mom for what other reason than contrast with Sydney, right?

Okay, to bring it back to the scene in question - this man is able to pull the biggest smile and laugh from Syd all season by matching her energy and making a deadpan joke about her deceased mom. But it's fine because he doesn't think he's funny (1x8). He doesn't need to bring pleasure or amusement to others (2x10). I can't.

#the bear fx #the bear #the bear hulu #chefskiss #sydcarmy #carmy x sydney #sydney x carmy #syd x carmen #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto #sydney adamu #ayo edebiri #jeremy allen white #cinematic parallels #parallels

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respectthepetty · 6 days

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I recently entered asian qls, and I've been hearing a lot about gmmtv in thai bl. what's the deal with that? do they make good bls or something?

What's the deal with GMMTV?

I (and a few other people) have given GMMTV the nickname of Disney BL because

It has the budget

It has stylish shows

Most are plot-by-numbers (meaning formula style plots that are predictable)

And it's all about branding

Good and bad are subjective, so does GMMTV make "good" BLs is not a question that can be answered, especially by me, but GMMTV does make BLs. A lot of BLs.

In 2022 and 2023, half of its shows were BLs. And a few others were BL-lite (Midnight Museum and Home School, I'm looking at you). Out of the 16 shows announced in GMMTV 2024 Part 1 (Part 2 is coming tomorrow), 10 of those shows were BLs/GLs/QLs. Over half of their shows are focused on queer relationships. [Photos from Boys Love Hub]

So regardless if I think they are good or not, the company is doing some heavy lifting in regards to queer representation since all of their shows have 1) a queer character, 2) a queer director, or 3) a queer producer.

As much shit as I want to give GMMTV, and DO, the company makes being queer palatable for mass distribution, and that's mainly because of its branding and reach since all shows, at one point, were free on YouTube for most countries.

Take right now for example, BrightWin fans are up in arms because Bright has a girlfriend. BrightWin haven't had a series since 2021's 2gether movie. THREE YEARS AND PEOPLE STILL SHIP 'EM! *eye roll* And that's because GMMTV doesn't just make BLs. It makes a brand of each and every one of its actors. If an actor is put into a pair, there will be a mascot, fanclubs, fan meets, tours, light sticks, y todo.

Someone wrote a good post, which I cannot find now, about the idolifacation of GMMTV actors, and it's accurate. These aren't only actors. They must sing. They must dance. They must host Live House. They must participate in Safe House. They must have a vlog and do live streams every week. They must go on GMMTV's little outing events and have a spin-off show where they travel around with their paired partner and eat food or drink some cocktail or do something because Lord forbid these people do nothing.

And this isn't just a GMMTV thing, but only GMMTV does it on this scale, so what's the deal with GMMTV is that it is a company doing company stuff.

I'm sure others can chime in and give more in-depth points, but I'm exhausted even thinking about it!

#gmmtv #what's its deal?#that it'll make every deal is its deal

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mastermindmiko · 7 months

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Parties

Pairing: Sirius Black + reader

Word count: 1296 (I think I'm really loving these short and fluffy one shots)

Summary: You and Sirius fool around (not sexually) at a pureblood party

Warnings: light and funny hits and smacks, and nothing else I believe but lmk if you notice anything I didn't

Hey! If you think this didn't completely suck, feel free to check out my masterlist.

"On a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that one of the dads is going to get drunk and go off the hook?"

"Is there a number above ten that I can use?"

"No."

"Then ten, like you even have to ask." I reply with a grin at the absurd question. Every time there's a party one of the dads get drunk and off the hook, last time it was Avery Sr. His wife had to pull him off the table. I ask, "The question isn't if, it's who."

"Avery." Sirius replies looking at the man, smiling, no doubt picturing his red face wife trying to pull him down the table where he's swinging his tie on. I scoff, "Two times in a row? No way. I think Mrs. Avery has him drinking apple juice tonight."

"Well then who do you think it is?" Sirius asks, and I hum. I look around the room, looking for the older men. Mulciber has been drinking a lot tonight, but he's talking to Malfoy which means business so no way it's him. Then I hit the jackpot. I grin and say, "Your father."

"My father? No way, he's never gone crazy ever." Sirius scoffs and leans back in his chair. I lean closer to his side and start to explain as I fix my eyes to Mr. Black. I explain, "He's gone flushed, and he's not talking anymore which means that he knows that he's going to slur on his words, and he's already taken off his jacket."

"I think you're an idiot and that it's going to be Nott." Sirius says, and I punch him in the arm for calling me and idiot, then shake my head. I tut, "I don't think so-" I say in a sing-songy voice, then continue, "He holds his alcohol well."

"No, he doesn't. A few years ago, he was made a mess." Sirius says, but I still don't agree. I grab my drink from the table, and take a tiny sip before saying, "That was because he had signed the divorce papers from his first wife that morning, other wise he never would have drank so much."

"I still think he's a better guess than my father." Sirius says, rolling his eyes. He hates talking about his father, and he is absolutely right, he's a horrible man. I fold my arms and then suggest, "Alright, what do you want to bet on- and not money, merlin knows we both have enough of that already."

Sirius hums in thought, as he thinks of ideas. One of the perks of being in a pureblood family is the insane amount of money carried from one generation to another, one of the faults, the tedious parties, Sirius makes them better though. He clicks his fingers and I can almost see a light bulb go off in his head. He starts, "A kiss-"

"I already give you those-"

"And a date where I control everything." Sirius grins, and I groan, and cover my face with my hands. I groan, "But you're going to pick a shit place, like madam puddifoot's or something other absurd café."

"If you're scared that you'll lose, I can change it." Sirius taunts, and I look back at Mr. Black and he's already loosening his tie. I grin then hold out my hand to him. I say, "You're on."

Sirius takes my hand, shakes it one time with a firm grip, then hauls me close to him to give me a kiss on the cheek. I yelp, and then put my hand on his thigh to stabilize me enough to go back to sitting properly in my seat. I smack his thigh. Merlin knows what my mother would've done if she saw that.

"And if I win, I want full control over your hair for a month." I say, and watch that smirk of his fade away instantly. He grabs his hair, desperately and shakes his head. He says, "No way, that's same value as one date."

"If you're scared that you'll lose, I can change it." I say in a deeper voice, imitating him and saying his exact words. He gives me a glare, but folds his arms and pouts in his seat. I chuckle at his reaction.

The music is quiet, it's only the voices of chatter that really fill up the room. I look all around the room and notice that Regulus is with one of his friends chatting about something, I recognize the friend as Evan Rosier. Sirius taps my shoulder to interrupt my train of thought.

"Wanna get out of here?" He asks, and he already knows my answer because I soon as I say yes, he's already got my hand in his hand. He stands up, and we look around each of us making sure that none of our family members can see us.

Sirius leads me out of the room and into a corridor. This is Nott Sr.'s house, we knew only bits of it. We get out of the room, and Sirius presses me against on of the walls. He kisses me feverishly and I return it with a smile. His hands caress my waist and they go up and down and up and down, driving me insane.

"so this is why you wanted to get out." I tease, and he goes back to kissing me in seconds. I can't say I'm really complaining though. He breaths out in between kisses, "Can't blame me for wanting to spend time with you."

We part for some much needed air and Sirius looks around. He sees the closest door and he goes towards it, pulling me with him. He says, "Now, what could this be? A bedroom maybe?"

He opens the door and we're meet with the clatter of pots and pains and tiny house elves moving around everywhere, trying to get dinner ready. Sirius sighs in disappointment, and he turns to leave, but I break free of his grip when I see..."Scones!"

I trail towards them and grab a few off of one of the plates that the house elves were carrying. I shoved one in my mouth, and it tasted good. Sirius grabbed one from my hands and started eating it himself. I frowned at him and his reply was poking a tongue out at me.

I finish my scone and maybe two more, then I go to sit on one of the chairs. Sirius pouts when he notices there's no chairs. He grabs me, and lifts me up. I start screaming, "Sirius Orion Black, you better put me down right now. You babbling, bumbling, baboon-"

"You're the only good thing my parents have ever done for me, and quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me." Sirius says in one breath to shut me up. He always does this, randomly he just spills out bursts of emotion. He feels them at random times, but Sirius has never been good at expressing emotions, so I appreciate them when they come.

He sits down and puts me on his lap. I smile at his words and lean in to press a soft kiss to his lips. Sirius parts abruptly, "Did you just call me a baboon?"

"Oh no, we need some remedies, quickly!" One of the house elves, enter quickly into the room, and the rest of them bustle quickly trying to find a remedy for whomever just got severely drunk out there. Another house elf shouts, "Who was it this time?"

"Mr. Black."

"Yes!" I shout in triumph and get off of Sirius' lap to preform a victory dance. I clap and dance around, and I point at him and grin, "Get ready to have your hair green!"

"No!"

an: maybe I am starting this marauders era for me, I'm really enjoying it too. I think I should keep writing about them for a while + Reggie of course

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olderthannetfic · 6 months

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Do you think that more het-oriented fanfic-writing spaces are more gender-balanced? Or maybe only some of them, with significant enclaves of mostly-men and mostly-women?

If we're asking about fic writers in aggregate, every study of het-heavy FFN and Wattpad reveals a shitton of women. There are no dude-heavy fic spaces on that scale, het-filled or otherwise.

People like to argue about this, but we're talking the difference between spaces with literal millions of accounts and spaces with maybe a hundred thousand.

If we're asking about individual smaller spaces where fic writers hang out, then yes, there are some that are mostly men at least as far as we know, and those spaces tend to have a fair amount of het.

I suspect but cannot prove that something like Edward/Bella fandom at its height was significantly less queer than your standard m/m fandom on AO3, but it probably wasn't significantly less female.

Just based on numbers, I'd expect more dudes to write fic about Ladies Hot than Dudes Hot.

A more significant trend is that men tend to be trained that they should be paid for their labor and tend to have more hope, sometimes justified, of going mainstream with their hobby efforts. That doesn't mean every dude does it with every hobby, but it does have a dampening effect on the kind of gift economy culture we saw on LJ or whatever.

IME, even guys who are doing things for the good of the community are often expecting more direct respect and less of the amorphous social ties that are the currency of many fic fandoms. They might also be more directly solving a tangible problem or doing something that will get them an advantage in their job even if it isn't directly paid. (Compare dudes doing open source coding to dudes writing fanfic, for example. And yes, yes, notallmen, but we're talking big picture here.)

Combine gendered patterns in fiction consumption overall, some gendered social patterns, and social forces against giving shit away for free, and the patterns we see with fic qua fic are perfectly predictable.

The patterns for barely-renamed expies in "original" stories that could one day be monetized, now...

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txttletale · 4 months

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"it doesn't use significantly more electricity than any other tool hosted online"

have you not even looked up what kind of resource consumption that the AI data centers gorge on? holy shit seriously?

yeah, i could have phrased that a lot better. AI training is a pretty huge electricity investment! but when people see the big scary numbers involved it tends to be without any sense of context or scale for how much electricity other stuff uses. what i mean is that comparing it to other industries and uses of computing power i haven't seen any data (other than purely speculative data about ballooning AI electricity costs over the next decade) that would make AI the user of a significantly higher percentage of global electricity production than, like, gaming. & unlike crypto, where those ballooning electricity costs were a necessity of the technology itself, there's nothing to stop AI from becoming more efficient.

#ask

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scientia-rex · 7 months

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How Much Does Water Weigh?

It's not a trick question. One liter of water weighs one kilogram--the science is set up that way.

How much is a kilogram? Approximately 2.2lbs.

How much of you is water? Approximately 60%, though this varies by organ type.

If you're about 70 kilos, or about 154 pounds, that means you have around 42 liters of water in you--about 92 pounds.

You cannot function with less water than your body needs. Many people, when they think they're losing or gaining "weight," think they're talking about fat when they're actually talking about water. The underlying structure of your body doesn't change that fast. You didn't "sweat out" fat. You dehydrated yourself, and since water weighs quite a bit, that made the number of the scale smaller. Your body is the same, except it works worse when it's dehydrated.

It is normal to see shifts in weight over the course of a day, because your hydration status changes. You wake up and you've been using up water without replacing it, so you're lighter. You have a salty breakfast? The salt gets pulled into your bloodstream by the digestive process and then, thanks to osmosis, more water goes into your bloodstream. Your weight goes up. Fluctuations of multiple pounds are not a sign that your diet is succeeding or failing--it's a sign of the salt content of what you're eating and whether you're drinking enough water.

Diuretics are frequently abused to increase short-term weight loss. Again, the only weight this can take off you is fluid. Diuretic abuse can lead to life-threatening complications, like kidney failure; kidneys need to see fluid constantly to filter your bloodstream, and if they don't get it, imagine a wetlands where you choke off the water supply and silt chokes the channels. It's bad. Kidneys are very bad at healing. Damage can be permanent. You can also give yourself a condition called hyponatremia, which is not at a chemical level a lack of salt, as the name might suggest, but an excess of water--your body dumps so much urine that it takes salt with it and now you don't have enough to go around how much water is still in you. Guess what you need salt for? Neurotransmission. If you go hard on diuretics, you can fuck up neuronal transmission so much that you need to be in the ICU and/or die.

Recognize when "weight loss" bullshit is actually a diuretic, because those motherfuckers do not care if you are seriously injured or die as long as they get their profit off whatever "purge" tea they've just sold you.

(Things that make you shit yourself "thin"? Same deal. By the time food makes it through your intestines, you've reabsorbed all the nutrition you're gonna, even if you're shitting lava thanks to a laxative tea--but what you're shitting out is a lot of water, so yeah, your scale tells you you're thinner.)

#the attending dr. kristophine #eating disorder cw

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leviathan-supersystem · 4 months

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you know, in the abstract, i think there can, and have, been decent arguments for deontological morality. i don't quite find myself convinced by those arguments personally, but some of those arguments are actually decently well-constructed and coherent. Kant gets a lot of shit, but like, "I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law,” while a pretty flawed and incomplete concept, isn't terrible. like i can see the logic of it, and a community where that was the guiding principle everyone was attempting to follow would probably function at least somewhat adequately.

but like, in practice, outside of the context of philosophy wank, when i encounter deontological moral arguments in the wild, it's always the most mindless thought-terminating shit imaginable. like this:

and to be clear this is extremely standard for libertarians, a vast number of them hold as their core deontological moral belief that it is never under any circumstances acceptable to have taxes, and while they may sometimes make arguments that hinge on the supposed utilitarian benefits of a libertarian ethos, this is mostly a show put on for outsiders. the bulk of libertarians and similar (ancaps, objectivists, etc) believe as this guy does that even in situations where following the libertarian ethos would lead to certain disaster, we are nonetheless bound to do so anyways. Because.

similarly from antiworksters- the whole thing hinges on the core deontological rule of "it is always bad to incentivize labor in any way whatsoever" and when you point out that if this were to be implimented on any kind of large scale, it would make it more likely that disabled people who require labor to care for them would be left to die in the absence of incentives to ensure that the labor to care for them is performed, instead of acting like a reasonable person and going "oh jeez! that's a massive oversight in our ethical framework, we should revise our framework to better account for that, perhaps jettison the 'never incentivize labor' rule since it's apparently deeply flawed" instead they either dodge the question or go "it doesn't matter if paraplegic people end up being left to die as a result of antiwork principles being implemented, the "never incentivize labor" rule can never be broken! Because."

and it's like. why not. like you guys realize you made these rules up. if following this moral code ends up bringing disaster or leaving disabled people to die you can just. not do that. no one is forcing you to follow this poorly thought out ethical code. quite the opposite in fact, since both anarcho-capitalism and anti-work anarchism are fringe ideologies at odds with how the vast majority of contemporary societies function.

and in both cases it's so obvious that the ideologies in question fundamentally hinge on a knee-jerk emotional reaction of not wanting to work/pay taxes, and then just deciding that actually, the very universe itself agrees with you that you should never ever have to work or pay taxes, and therefore the world should have to bend to your- sorry i mean the universe's will, even if society crumbles to dust as a result. fundamentally juvenile.

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nicoleanell · 9 months

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Another smart post going around reminded me of this thing that's been in my drafts, so you gonna hear some SURPRISE RENFIELD 2023 DEEP THOUGHTS FROM ME. <3

Going back to this post which still does occasional numbers,

I feel some ways about how Robert Montague Renfield is overflowing with empathy for other people despite his own circumstances being a million times more dire. He adopts calling the group's abusers "monsters" despite intimiately knowing an actual genuine monster and arguably being one himself.

Like he could've EASILY taken a look around that support group and been like "boo hoo call me when your literal intestines are coming out of your body", but instead of ever looking down on them or treating it as a competition over who has suffered most, he meets them at the place where they're hurting and absorbs it and connects to his hurt. He recognizes it as part of the same continuum, even when the details don't line up or measure evenly, it's Real and an experience he can imagine or relate to. Which is a good thing for support and/or therapy in a group setting.

Later on he lightly calls Rebecca out for her anger issues, but then after she rants about the source of that anger, his response is an utterly sincere "that sounds painful." INTESTINES. OUT OF HIS BODY. MAYBE 48 HOURS + 1 BAD HAIRCUT AGO. HE HAS JUST SHOWERED OFF THE BLOOD OF THE ONLY FRIENDS AND ALLIES HE HAD. But he winces in sympathy over her corruption and dead dad stuff.

And yes, I also feel a way about how that's a part of his nature that's been either exploited or fully trained into him by Dracula, because we ALSO see that in their interactions - "you deserve better", "I know being undead is a painful existence." Like… the fact he constantly leads off with empathy and validation of other people's feelings and that's the way he diffuses Rebecca's anger in that moment is not NOT linked to his codependency issues and the ways he's been abused. Of course everyone else's pain is not less valid than his, it's more valid actually!! He is more than happy to shut up about his needs and his trauma and declare someone else as the priority and Life's Main Character. The way he's still apologizing compulsively and transferring his submissiveness and fawn behavior to somebody else is very much a thing other people have pointed out, jokingly and sincerely.

But in spite of that, I still think it's ultimately a sign of his kindness and genuine compassion for others. And it doesn't have to be a one-way street.

Rebecca is (pretty understandably!) not as sympathetic to him in that scene as he's being with her, because she's still very freaked out and thought he was an ENTIRELY different type of weirdo than the weirdo he's turned out to be. But. Less than an hour later she is listening with an open mind while he tells her the most bluntly holding-myself-accountable, not-self-pitying version of his story and her takeaway is not only "you're not a bad person", it's specifically: I've done shit that I regret too, and being mean to my sister is on an almost LAUGHABLY smaller scale than anything you just said to me, but the point is I recognized your feelings on a basic humanity level somewhere in there and related to that. Again not a competition, and not about their experiences being perfectly in proportion with each other! It's good.

#renfield #renfield 2023 #robert montague renfield

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jacobthedinogeek · 4 days

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This shit just came up on my dash and I can't even begin to calmly unpack it. So let's just run through it.

"Isr&el has taken extensive measures to minimize civilian casualties"

Hahahahahahahaha

*inhales*

Hahahahahahahaha

Oh that's funny, real good sense of humor.

Wait, you were being serious? After the abundance of videos of soldiers cheering on Palestinian deaths? After hearing Isr&eli leaders literally say they want to kill everyone in Palestine? After all the times they refused a hostage exchange and a ceasefire? If you genuinely believe this, you are too stupid to exist, how the fuck are you even breathing?

"Only approximately 30,000 Palestinians have been killed"

What does it say about you when you're using 30,000 deaths as a positive example? That's 30,000 dead people, doesn't matter if there are higher numbers, even suggesting that this is a positive is proof enough that you are a deplorable human being, but the fact that 1400 dead isr&lis was being paraded around as the biggest tragedy on earth shows your hypocrisy to its fullest.

And even if this whole thing was correct in terms of death numbers, it doesn't mean we can't compare it to the holocaust. The behaviors of the oppressors are similar, the attempt to dehumanize the oppressed are similar, the mass graves, the torture of prisoners, the large scale starvation are all similar enough to compare.

This is a genocide, full stop. If you say anything different, you're either an idiot, a monster, or an idiotic monster.

#free palestine #palestine #gaza #free gaza #gaza strip #from the river to the sea palestine will be free

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melonteee · 3 months

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sometimes in your vid essays when you briefly diverge into the topic of powerscaling and such I find it hilarious in regards to One Piece specifically because that series is so allergic to that kind of discussion. like as someone who's well-versed in regards to How Powerscaling Works, OP straight up does not give numbers the way other series do and if you go to any powerscaling type wiki/website their OP pages are in fact just born from a million assumptions. One Piece will have a dude say "Im Big Dick McGee" and do one insanely cool thing that has everyone freaking out and powerscalers will be pulling their hair out because *they can't quantify that shit* and have to make a million assumptions as to how strong OP characters really are.

And i feel like Oda has the same mindset because he introduced the doriki system as an actual Power Scale System in water seven and then threw it the hell away mid arc with no reference to it ever again and YET because it's the single point of actual in-series power measuring youll find forums today still using it to make 15 more follow-up assumptions for characters in the current canon. no one can handle the silly goofines of this whole thing and thats not even counting how OP powerlevel discussions become lore discussions too bc how are they going to account for everyone being superhuman due to their planet being far more massive and thus having stronger gravity.

its so hilarious no other shonen could ever resist not introducing a consistent powerscaling system for 2+ decades

EXACTLY DFGHJKDF this is why I've been SAYING you can call One Piece a battle shonen all you want, because there ARE battles in it, but Oda so CLEARLY puts narrative over ANY sort of power system. Every time someone asks Oda any battle relevant question, he always answers with some bullshit JHKFGD like "how far can Luffy stretch?? oh about 20 gum gums" LIKE HHHH he so clearly DOESN'T care to stick to any strict power system. I mean the most recent huge fight was a TOM AND JERRY inspired fight for god's sake, Gear 5 throws any and all power scaling conversations out the window for all we know Gear 5 can do fucking ANYTHING.

I've literally seen One Piece guys and Dragonball guys fighting about whether Gear 5 could beat Goku, and it's like, mother fucker for all we know Gear 5 could just bugs bunny a kamehameha back at him JDFHGKD like we literally do not know the scale of Gear 5. Hell we don't know the scale of MOST characters in One Piece. I was SO confused as to why the term 'admiral level' was a thing cause we've barely seen the admirals...do anything?? Like yeah Akainu can turn into magma and whatever, but what else??? Why is this term even a thing if we haven't even seen the scale of what any of these guys can do JKFGDFGD I will admit I have a much more plot/narrative driven head but I truly cannot understand how One Piece power scalers get any of their arguments or data hhhhhh

#ask #melonask

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headspace-hotel · 1 year

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Personally as someone who experiences much more daily suffering than the average person I am deeply uncomfortable with the mere idea of "eliminating suffering" because it treats "positive" experiences like love and joy and happiness as more meaningful. In my experience this is done pretty much exclusively to the detriment of people like me.

Because by acting like suffering inherently decreases the value of someone's life you are implying that lives like mine aren't worth living. And maybe it's just me but I take offense to that! Sure my life isn't perfect and there are a lot of things I wish I didnt have to deal with but this life is mine and I'll be damned if I let other people tell me it's not good enough!

Humans weren't designed to exclusively experience pleasant things. Suffering is part of being alive! And I would not trade that for anything!

Ultimately its a facet of toxic positivity, and it makes me very very nervous. Because the people who are suffering the most always seem to be the ones thrown to the wayside for fancy little hypothetical "innovations" like this. Getting rid of suffering is quite likely impossible but that doesn't mean the people backing the idea won't just put on some horse blinders and pretend they don't see the people who would prove it didn't work.

I was about 12 years old the first time somebody told me I was too depressed to be around and it was catastrophic for my mental health. I just don't think that applying that on a worldwide scale is exactly revolutionary ya know?

The ultimate manifestation of this idea is in anti-natalism (people who think it's actively bad and wrong to have children) and people who believe in this idea are often actively pro-eugenics and just...anti-human.

"eliminate suffering" inevitably ends up at calling for extinction of all life, or at least extinction of human life, and there are people out there who think we should go extinct!...and I think we need to be firmer about calling this extremist and harmful, instead of treating it as a philosophical position to be considered seriously

like, even if voluntary human extinction just involved humans choosing not to reproduce, it's still going to fuck you up to go around looking at other humans and believing that it's bad that they're alive. yes, "existence is bad" I guess is one of the basic possible options to come to when asking questions about life and meaning, and I see how people start feeling like there is a "pro-natalist agenda" or some shit because it's something we don't really talk about.

but...believing that a universal genocide would be a good thing isn't that different from believing a genocide of one specific group would be a good thing.

And "no one should reproduce" is not really any better than "everyone should reproduce," because both violate the basic principle that other people reproducing is none of your damn business.

I am generally really uncomfortable with how so many environmentalism and climate change mitigation proposals focus on human population growth as a main cause of climate change.

There's no real evidential basis for the numbers that get cited as the ideal population for Earth, like supposedly 2-4 billion is the max the Earth can support if everyone lives a "comfortable middle class lifestyle"—What The Fuck Does That Mean? Where does it come from? Is it something we actually need or want? The vast majority of humans on Earth aren't living a "middle class lifestyle."

I want to see breakdowns of complex simulations explaining how much biomass the Earth can actually support, instead of arbitrary bullshit like that.

But from everything I've read, producing enough food for the world population is not even remotely a problem. Capitalism is the problem. Huge companies controlling the food supply and keeping the countries that produce food in poverty is the problem. Technological solutions are important but they will not fix the current problems, just like Eli Whitney's cotton gin didn't eliminate slavery.

Everyone assumes that the system is working as efficiently as it possibly can to meet the material needs of people, and that is so terribly wrong.

Anyway much of that was off topic but yeah, I'm not a fan of this line of thought and where it leads

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armoredsuperheavy · 8 months

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MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: An Insufferably Queer Film Review

I rewatched MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1987) for the first time since it came out last night and WOW I have some thots about this thing. We enjoyed roasting the living shit out of it but there's a few gold nuggets in there despite the brutal budget cuts that impacted the plot and what not.

Contains plenty of spoilers.

God bless Wardrobe

OK so … the film doesn't bother to set up any real motivations for the characters, and He-Man (an incredible looking Dolph Lundgren rrrowrrrr) has almost no dialogue which is such a fucking waste. But this complete lack of narrative framework means we can apply OUR OWN explanations to events.

From the very beginning Skeletor has this obsession with He-Man, which will simmer and then culminate in a final showdown. But before we get to that hot mess, we have to wade through the middle of the film.

He gets as much screen time as He-Man.

Meet the utterly repulsive dwarf scientist Gwildor played by Billy Barty, a rinse-and-repeat of his performance as an utterly repulsive magic troll in Legend (1986). This dwarf is the film's Jar Jar. His face is like a deep dish pizza after an acid attack. His real mouth is visible behind the immobile thick prosthetics and it makes for some truly disturbing close-up dialogue shots. Please, pan away from Pizza the Hutt and give us another shot of Lundgren's pecs please I am begging you, DP

We find ourselves in Gwildor's hobbit hole, and he's a magical inventor. So he has this cylindrical object, it's not clear whether it's a weapon or a teleporter but I'm calling it the Butt-Reamer 9000. Inexplicably, there are two of these things and Skeletor has the other one, and wants to collect both of them. So Skeletor has an excuse to go hunting He-Man as he's hunting his missing McGuffin, er I mean sex toy.

Features rotating ticklers, a big improvement over the Butt Reamer 8000.

The thing about the Butt-Reamer 9000 is its magical power to make even this promising setup devolve into a grind as it whisks the Eternians into the magical, enchanting world of a 1987 New Jersey parking lot. WHO WROTE THIS?

The entire middle of the movie is pretty much hot garbage and involves police detectives, arson, vandalism, high school prom, and other dumb bullshit. Aside from the distractingly naked He-Man, the good guys are an utter bore and include some Eternians, some regular Earth humans and their quotidian concerns which really brings down the fun of the movie. (No, baby Courtney Cox, I don't care about your imminent breakup with your mediocre boyfriend!)

The film owes a second mortgage to Star Wars and steals a lot of ideas from it, from bad guys in shiny black stormtrooper helmets, to heroes shooting blue lasers, baddies shooting red.

Let's turn from this depressing state of affairs and focus back on our cherished villain blorbos.

(L-R: Karg, Evil-Lyn our goddess, and Blade.)

Evil-Lyn is beautiful, evil, a cold bitch queen. Gurl you can do so much better than sticking with this loser Skeletor.

Dump! Him! He's gay anyway!

Skeletor is a shit lazy boss of Greyskull and makes Evil-Lyn run the goddamn place in general. He literally shoots the messenger at one point. Great for morale, there, Skel buddy.

Look closer. Fierce!

There's a number of budget rate henchmen on the job, including Karg, who used a whole can of aqua net this morning and is running around in a white fur capelet with a massive bouffant. He is just doing his best okay, really it's hard to look fabulous around these other bitches.

Blade definitely deserved more screen time

Also, Blade, who had a slutty costume of silvery scale maille or something, and was a bit like a sci-fi bondage Riff Raff / space Judas Priest. Best side character costume.

So, there we have it, the queer coded villain roster of the film.

This homemade collage is for sure taped inside Skeletor's locker at school

Note the gigantic brown eye.

Finally, thank Satan, we return to Castle Greyskull, though it's more like beige-and-brown-skull. But aside from the questionable use of faux marble finishes, this is a quality villain lair with hard points installed directly in the floor of the living room, convenient death pits, and an excellent throne setup that I'm pretty sure they recycled for The Fifth Element.

He-Man is captured alive and brought before Skeletor. Blade does the honors with a 15 foot glowing red bullwhip to He-Man's naked and oiled back, much to the delight of dyed-in-the-wool sadist Evil-Lyn.

Movie is getting good now. Was the side quest to Jersey really necessary?

Skeletor, though, watches this action from the throne and has a lot of interesting responses. We had to conclude that Skeletor is a big old bottom but won't admit it. As a dom he is utterly ineffective. He's trying to make He-man kneel and all this shit but He-Man is not submissive at all. Skeletor is … lol. He really just wants to smell He-Man's dick.

The depths (heh) of his bottom nature will become apparent shortly. But first, a costume change.

Skeletor's glow up --- i'm every woman.

Honey we know you're just trying to impress He-man.

Werk tho.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Hole

The gigantic sky-sphincter directly behind the throne has slid open wide… "Begin! The Goatse Ritual! Join me, He-Man, as I become LORD OF THE GAPE" But He-Man's phallic symbol shines bright in defiance. In the end, Skeletor is vanquished symbolically by his own nature and instead of his hole swallowing He-Man, a gaping hole swallows Skeletor instead.

They don't really explain what happened to Evil-Lyn after He-Man's inevitable victory in final man to man combat but she was too smart to get caught sleeping in there and must have survived. What a hot evil competent BABE. After the events of the film end, I vote that Evil-Lyn seduces Teela (the good guy solder lady) and has a hot toxic lesbian affair with her.

Evil-Lyn serves cunt in hell 4 evar

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Want some more?

Nice fanart

Another breakdown on Buzzfeed if you enjoyed mine this is even more gay headcanon

The movie is free on Tubi if you want to subject yourself to it.

ArmoredSuperHeavy, 19 Aug 2023

#motu #he man #skeletor #evil lyn #movies #movie review #80s movies #camp #queer coded villains

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