Advertising Peaked At The Discovery Channel “Boom De Yada” Commercials

When I was little, I could sit for hours looking out the window. It could be because of a certain kind of music, or because it was dusk, or a certain slant of the light. There was a sensation in my chest, a churning. I couldn't put words to it then. But it was a knowledge that there was something out there. That there was a hole in the world. And a longing to go there. I still have that longing, but it doesn't overwhelm me like it used to. Until now. There's something about the light here that makes the longing bloom.

– Karin Tidbeck, from “Some Letters for Ove Lindström,” Jagannath: Stories (Cheeky Frawg Books, 2012)

From a queer elder…

Being queer isn’t supposed to be palatable to non-queers.

We don’t tick little squares on a checklist of “queer enough”, we obliterate the checklist.

We defy societal norms that say our bodies, families or relationships have to look a certain way.

Queer is the insult we took away from oppressors. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.

The people who hate us will hate us regardless of how palatable we make ourselves.

Stop licking fascist boots by policing queers who are queer in different ways than you.

Oh, someone is bi/pan trans lesbian with he/him pronouns? So what! They’re welcome on the rainbow. Their identity doesn’t have to make sense to you, it has to make sense to them.

Our identities don’t make sense to non-queers. They see us as unnatural and disgusting, so why are you turning around and crapping that same garbage out at your own community??

Once you drive the visible queers underground, the same people who hate us all will target you next. Nobody will defend you because you drove away everybody who would have.

Enough already!

— sincerely, an old queer.

My tiny mind blown

ghostlight gravekeep ghoulboss

We actually have been trying to sell your info but it's all shit and no one wants it

They spent money so I can make y'all look at their frog. That's a great frog. 👍

I'm spending money to make you look at my frog. 👍🏽

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

>Lemmings problem now solved.

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

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

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

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

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

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

$70 plus the respect of your buds

heres thing about buying video game from loud anti-trans mouthpiece. you CAN do that if you want, technically speaking, but other buds CAN ALSO THEN point out you are not being their ally. the real price of your game is: $70 plus the respect of your buds. thats your call to carry

i wouldnt do it. if you WANT my advice, id say you shouldnt either. we all share this timeline and it is not job of trans people and allies to shield you from the the pain you cause them. nobody else is here to protect you from the consequences of your choices. thats the price.