• I ended a line of dialogue with a double exclamation point and I'm not changing it

• the second draft of my manuscript had 849 em-dashes in it

• I mentally swap the races of characters in Golden Age sci-fi to make it more interesting for the modern audience (me)

• I make fun of audiobooks, but I actually just can't concentrate on them.

!writecel !bookworms

!maBIPOCs

I like her face. The article has other pics and videos of people being viciously assaulted by King's Guard horses.

Despite many considering them tourist attractions, the King's Guard consist of elite serving soldiers who are tasked with protecting the monarch's life and properties.

The King's Guard are generally not allowed to interact with the public, but may shout if they get too close or present their bayonets if they become aggressive.

!KHive

Personally, I was going to vote for Donald Trump but I'm now backing Kamala 2024

Anybody else in the same boat?

I'm certainly not active everyday or a pillar to the community but I am r-slurred. This makes me qualified to create an account and tell other r-slurs to join in throwing slurs or giving based opinions.

Republicans seemingly not having taken the idea of Biden being replaced seriously is a really huge own-goal. https://t.co/mktbKtMHvR

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 22, 2024

Kamala Harris proposes a regime of "equity" based on a simple principle: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. This should sound familiar.pic.twitter.com/PO6vUSrJ5m

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) July 25, 2024

I'm one of the oldest !zoomers, so I am just barely old enough to remember some oldstrag memes from when I was a kid. When I was 11, the "bitches don't know" meme was huge on 4chan:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bitches-dont-know

https://encyclopediadramatica.gay/Bitches_Don%27t_Know

The original image:

I had completely forgotten about it until last night, when I stumbled across this:

I am formally requesting two Marsey versions of this !oldstrags meme: one where Marsey's shirt says "BITCHES DONT KNOW BOUT MY DRAMA" and another one where Marsey's shirt says "BITCHES DONT KNOW BOUT MY BUSSY". Then submit both of them as sidebar images.

500 Dramacoin for whoever does it.

This was sent to Mutahar, I think over his takedown video citing KF as a source.

Apparently estimate is based on current rate of attrition.

New ping group- !fosstards

If there's one thing I learned from all my years as an NGO delegate to UN specialized agencies, it's that UN treaties are dangerous, liable to capture by unholy alliances of authoritarian states and rapacious global capitalists.

Most of my UN work was on copyright and "paracopyright," and my track record was 2:0; I helped kill a terrible treaty (the WIPO Broadcast Treaty) and helped pass a great one (the Marrakesh Treaty on the rights of people with disabilities to access copyrighted works):

https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/marrakesh/

It's been many years since I had to shave and stuff myself into a suit and tie and go to Geneva, and I don't miss it - and thankfully, I have colleagues who do that work, better than I ever did. Yesterday, I heard from one such EFF colleague, Katitza Rodriguez, about the Cybercrime Treaty, which is about to pass, and which is, to put it mildly, terrifying:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/un-cybercrime-draft-convention-dangerously-expands-state-surveillance-powers

Look, cybercrime is a real thing, from pig butchering to ransomware, and there's real, global harms that can be attributed to it. Cybercrime is transnational, making it hard for cops in any one jurisdiction to handle it. So there's a reason to think about formal international standards for fighting cybercrime.

But that's not what's in the Cybercrime Treaty.

Here's a quick sketch of the significant defects in the Cybercrime Treaty.

The treaty has an extremely loose definition of cybercrime, and that looseness is deliberate. In authoritarian states like China and Russia (whose delegations are the driving force behind this treaty), "cybercrime" has come to mean "anything the government disfavors, if you do it with a computer." "Cybercrime" can mean online criticism of the government, or professions of religious belief, or material supporting LGBTQ rights.

Nations that sign up to the Cybercrime Treaty will be obliged to help other nations fight "cybercrime" - however those nations define it. They'll be required to provide surveillance data - for example, by forcing online services within their borders to cough up their users' private data, or even to pressure employees to install back-doors in their systems for ongoing monitoring.

These obligations to aid in surveillance are mandatory, but much of the Cybercrime Treaty is optional. What's optional? The human rights safeguards. Member states "should" or "may" create standards for legality, necessity, proportionality, non-discrimination, and legitimate purpose. But even if they do, the treaty can oblige them to assist in surveillance orders that originate with other states that decided not to create these standards.

When that happens, the citizens of the affected states may never find out about it. There are eight articles in the treaty that establish obligations for indefinite secrecy regarding surveillance undertaken on behalf of other signatories. That means that your government may be asked to spy on you and the people you love, they may order employees of tech companies to backdoor your account and devices, and that fact will remain secret forever. Forget challenging these sneak-and-peek orders in court - you won't even know about them:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/un-cybercrime-draft-convention-blank-check-unchecked-surveillance-abuses

Now here's the kicker: while this treaty creates broad powers to fight things governments dislike, simply by branding them "cybercrime," it actually undermines the fight against cybercrime itself. Most cybercrime involves exploiting security defects in devices and services - think of ransomware attacks - and the Cybercrime Treaty endangers the security researchers who point out these defects, creating grave criminal liability for the people we rely on to warn us when the tech vendors we rely upon have put us at risk.

This is the granddaddy of tech free speech fights. Since the paper tape days, researchers who discovered defects in critical systems have been intimidated, threatened, sued and even imprisoned for blowing the whistle. Tech giants insist that they should have a veto over who can publish true facts about the defects in their products, and dress up this demand as concern over security. "If you tell bad guys about the mistakes we made, they will exploit those bugs and harm our users. You should tell us about those bugs, sure, but only we can decide when it's the right time for our users and customers to find out about them."

When it comes to warnings about the defects in their own products, corporations have an irreconcilable conflict of interest. Time and again, we've seen corporations rationalize their way into suppressing or ignoring bug reports. Sometimes, they simply delay the warning until they've concluded a merger or secured a board vote on executive compensation.

Sometimes, they decide that a bug is really a feature - like when Facebook decided not to do anything about the fact that anyone could enumerate the full membership of any Facebook group (including, for example, members of a support group for people with cancer). This group enumeration bug was actually a part of the company's advertising targeting system, so they decided to let it stand, rather than re-engineer their surveillance advertising business.

The idea that users are safer when bugs are kept secret is called "security through obscurity" and no one believes in it - except corporate executives. As Bruce Schneier says, "Anyone can design a system that is so secure that they themselves can't break it. That doesn't mean it's secure - it just means that it's secure against people stupider than the system's designer":

The history of massive, brutal cybersecurity breaches is an unbroken string of heartbreakingly naive confidence in security through obscurity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

But despite this, the idea that some bugs should be kept secret and allowed to fester has powerful champions: a public-private partnership of corporate execs, government spy agencies and cyber-arms dealers. Agencies like the NSA and CIA have huge teams toiling away to discover defects in widely used products. These defects put the populations of their home countries in grave danger, but rather than reporting them, the spy agencies hoard these defects.

The spy agencies have an official doctrine defending this reckless practice: they call it "NOBUS," which stands for "No One But Us." As in: "No one but us is smart enough to find these bugs, so we can keep them secret and use them attack our adversaries, without worrying about those adversaries using them to attack the people we are sworn to protect."

NOBUS is empirically wrong. In the 2010s, we saw a string of leaked NSA and CIA cyberweapons. One of these, "Eternalblue" was incorporated into off-the-shelf ransomware, leading to the ransomware epidemic that rages even today. You can thank the NSA's decision to hoard - rather than disclose and patch - the Eternalblue exploit for the ransoming of cities like Baltimore, hospitals up and down the country, and an oil pipeline:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EternalBlue

The leak of these cyberweapons didn't just provide raw material for the world's cybercriminals, it also provided data for researchers. A study of CIA and NSA NOBUS defects found that there was a one-in-five chance of a bug that had been hoarded by a spy agency being independently discovered by a criminal, weaponized, and released into the wild.

Not every government has the wherewithal to staff its own defect-mining operation, but that's where the private sector steps in. Cyber-arms dealers like the NSO Group find or buy security defects in widely used products and services and turn them into products - military-grade cyberweapons that are used to attack human rights groups, opposition figures, and journ*lists:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/24/breaking-the-news/#kingdom

A good Cybercrime Treaty would recognize the perverse incentives that create the coalition to keep us from knowing which products we can trust and which ones we should avoid. It would shut down companies like the NSO Group, ban spy agencies from hoarding defects, and establish an absolute defense for security researchers who reveal true facts about defects.

Instead, the Cybercrime Treaty creates new obligations on signatories to help other countries' cops and courts silence and punish security researchers who make these true disclosures, ensuring that spies and criminals will know which products aren't safe to use, but we won't (until it's too late):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/if-not-amended-states-must-reject-flawed-draft-un-cybercrime-convention

A Cybercrime Treaty is a good idea, and even this Cybercrime Treaty could be salvaged. The member-states have it in their power to accept proposed revisions that would protect human rights and security researchers, narrow the definition of "cybercrime," and mandate transparency. They could establish member states' powers to refuse illegitimate requests from other countries:

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/media-briefing-eff-partners-warn-un-member-states-are-poised-approve-dangerou

——

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

OP posts a photo of a wet letter that has been left halfway out of their letterbox titled "One Job" "Couldn't manage that one more little push to get it out of the rain? Thanks for the soggy postal service."

The users in /r/AustraliaPost think OP is a sook who needs to trim his jasmine bush

—

Trim the shit around and in front of your letterbox. If you don't give a shit about your mail box don't expect the postie to give a shit about your mail.

If you think that grass is bad and actually stops the postie doing his job then going outside must give you a aneurysm

(OP) This is exactly the opinion that embodies the problem. The postie is PAID to give a shit. So I expect them to give a shit since I'm indirectly funding the service they're providing. Maybe posties need a card they can drop into people's letterboxes if they're difficult to access to educate rather than putting so much effort into externalizing on Reddit.

Auspost loses money on every letter. And auspost costs the taxpayer nothing.

(OP) Ok, so not indirectly funding as tax payer, I'll admit I learned something there. Instead, directly funded by my annual PO Box fee. Now I expect even more. And just losing money on each letter isn't in and of itself a problem - plenty of businesses have loss leading products.

Gratuitous whine. Your letterbox is problematic, especially if your postie has the motorcycle. Imagine being a motorcycle postie on a rainy day. You have to balance the bike so it doesn't slip, injuring yourself, and damaging the bike and property. You have to work quickly to minimise how soggy the letter gets from bag to letterbox. You have to try to get it in the box that is wet (well, who could've guessed??), without further rain damage to the envelope. Then you roll up to the mess that is this letterbox. What a crap day. Would it hurt to do some more gardening, for goodness' sake?

(OP) I've watched posties deliver mail before. They don't have to lean over and balance in any way - the letterbox is easily reachable sitting upright on the bike. I'll snip the one little bit of jasmine that's almost up to the level of the mail slot but don't see how that is really that much of a problem.

i have a large letter box with a very wide slot, big enough to take a magazine. Set at height recommended by AP with nothing near it so postie has clear safe ride up to it. Guess what? In the decades of having that letter box i have never had wet mail or mail left hanging out the slot. Consider this, the postie has to deal with hundreds of letter boxes everyday in all manner of weather and many letter boxes are less than ideal. Up to you how easy or difficult you make it for them.

Ok, no need to brag about your wide slotted, perfect height mailbox

If it's raining do you think the postie wants to make contact with a wet plant. I certainly don't.

If coming in to contact with a wet plant is enough to cause you to have a meltdown, that's just pathetic. Harden tf up lmfao

Who said meltdown. It's just someone not putting the mail in all the way to avoid getting wet due to an overgrown plant. The person having a meltdown is OP is complaining here that their mail is wet. They should harden the frick up.

Cheap nasty letter box. Not even designed to take letters. Yours truly an ex postie. Like to see an A4 letter go in there😄

(OP) I still fail to see how the inability to put an A4 letter in there impacts upon this instance. That's not an A4 letter. It is entirely big enough for the letter in the photo. But hey, we already seem to have established that any non adherence to the magical criteria nobody knows about absolves posties of that extra second and couple of centimeters of effort. 👍

It's rare that someone's whining makes AusPost look like the Gold guys but here we are. Trim the shit around it - get a bigger mailbox - deal with the fact that shit gets wet when it rains - do better shit with your time than stopping to take a photo and having a self righteous wank on reddit when there is the slightest inconvenience.

Until you've delivered 100s of 1000s of pieces of mail into countless bullshit mailboxes, you don't understand just how much having an extra unnecessary reach for a mailbox that's too low or too high, is a tetanus trap, installed back-to-front, has foliage in the way, is set back an unnecessary distance from the footpath or has mud in front, really pisses off your postie. And then you could have a perfectly decent looking box that just won't accept mail and spits it out when you chuck it in, bouncing off something in the slot. I wish that all shitty mailbox owners would do a week's worth of postie shifts just so they can see how shitty their boxes are. This box of yours could be anywhere from a -1/10 to a 5/10 depending on possible issues from the rant above. It's also on the smaller size of being useful. In other words, your mailbox is barely mediocre at best, and actively shit at worst. As a (presumed) homeowner, YOU only have one job: to make your mailbox accessible, well-maintained, and approriately dimensioned. And you are not doing your job.

Not doing his job? He owns/rents his property. He has no 'job' to do except the one he expects of himself with his own home. The postie has a job and they didn't do it properly - and yet that's on him? You don't hear hospitality staff saying "ah well normally most of my customers are right handed, so I won't be pouring your wine from the other side, sorry." 😅 what is this thread

Maybe they couldn't reach it over the shit show around your letter box 🤷‍♂️

(OP) The distance from the end of the rail to the front of the letterbox is less than the length of my forearm and there's nothing at ground level to obstruct further. Do posties have unusually short arms?

Mine does this too. And AustPost harps on about us having locks on our mailboxes. Not much point having a lock if our soggy mail can be pulled out from the front slot.

If you put a lock on your mailbox your lucky to get anything... Aussie post hates locks on mail boxes.

People getting the tiniest and cheapest letterbox in the market then complaining their mail is ruined 🤷🏽‍♂️.

What a weird weird take. The posting could've made a minuscule amount more effort to do their actual job and push the mail all the way in and then it wouldn't be ruined. When I see people like you defending things like this work on the internet, I feel so much better about myself. Because no matter how badly I think of myself, I can never be as much of a jerk as someone like you

Your comments show that your attitude matches the state of your letterbox. Imagine getting on your high horse when you have that sitting in front of your property...

Frick me there are worse things than wet paper. If we as a society continue to be so entitled about a wet letter we are fricked.

(OP) So where do we draw the line as to where society becomes fricked? Before or after we accept a less than professional outcome from a paid service?

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1e96weh/couldnt_manage_to_keep_you_shrubbery_adequately/

Which one of you was this?

More bites from other subreddits:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/1ebenu0/twitter_leak/

https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1ebfl07/is_it_tech_newsworthy_that_the_twitter_api_has_a/

https://old.reddit.com/r/saltierthankrayt/comments/1ebctbx/twitter_leak_reveals_far_right_accounts_are/

https://old.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1ebfbn2/twitter_api_leaks_showing_predominantly_right/

https://old.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1ebgumo/elon_musk_allegedly_whitelists_and_even_gives/

TLDR:- Mr Beast knew Kris was a p-dophile and covered it up

• Mr beast videos are all faked for scripted outcomes

• most contestants are employees or friends/family or large youtubers

• Mr beast ran multiple live streams where he claimed random shirts bought during the stream would receive prizes (basically counting as an illegal lottery targeting kids)

• Mr Beast's "autographed" merch has been caught being autographed by his team members forging signatures on video

• Mr Beast always acts like in his videos his fans and monetary supporters will be able to win random rewards and he is always loosing money with his generous giveaways basically training kids to consume in hopes of winning a tesla

Ive alays thought mr 661 was a bad influence on kids. I dont think this kind of mind rot editing, money obsessed content is healthy especially in how he lies about real it is when its blatantly faker then any traditional game show which has actual regulations on it. My big red flag came a while back when he claimed he actually made very little money on videos since he was always rolling over profits into new videos which seemed like such a massive lie like yeah dude you totally arent rich and are giving all the money to your fans its not like you own a whole butt town.

My ultimate psychoanaylsis is that like most kids content Mr mark of the beast tries to act very childish and that his bussiness is run by kids (hehe our accoutning nerds are telling me to stop making such crazy challanges since we loose all our profits) its how like Marvel comics used to operate in 60s where Stan lee would act like the whole thing was this crazy spontaneous bullpin of wackiness with merch deals so good his finance people tried to kill him! The difference is unlike a lot of other kid facing preformers who know how to act like a "big kid" and appeal to children Mr Breast has no charsima so the only way he can keep a child's attention span is via lots and lots of money.

So weird to see Rollo's actual positions when he's hiding behind an alt. @unplugfitX https://t.co/qgp2iiWOPJ https://t.co/4S68nPwAJJ pic.twitter.com/C7ydUC0PDb

— notsoErudite (@notsoErudite) July 22, 2024

The unfathomably based hot takes that Destiny made about the Trump shooting has been the gift that keeps on giving.

Rollo Tomassi got into an argument on Twitter after someone called him insane for saying that the Trump shooter was inspired by Destiny, and he got so mad he accidently replied with his alt account:

And then like an idiot he confirmed it's his alt by deleting the tweet.

Rollo blocked the guy after asking if that's his alt.

Imgur archive of Rollo's and the alt's Tweets.

Not a good look.

The best way to cure racism is good s*x, unironically.

Rollo is now threatening to sue Destiny because his alt got discovered.

https://twitter.com/RationalMale/status/1815382677274677284

Ok for real there's a good chance it's not his alt but dang would it be funny if it was

This isn’t what it is.

Jeez, I take a little plane trip and miss the weird stuff! https://t.co/IdLNuxtxi1

— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) July 24, 2024

https://twitter.com/FabianNicieza/status/1816259222285201454

!metashit @MAGAshill