Hanging with Pinwheels

My office computer has automatically updated and the damn company sent out an e-mail telling us about *wonderful new* copilot now installed and UNREMOVABLE. STUPID USELESS PIECE OF SHIT TECH POPPING UP ON EVERY PROGRAM. CAN'T GET RID OF IT.

PISSING ME OFF.

Shock humour only works because there's a high risk of failure. The idea is that you are saying something socially shocking - something that your audience knows is "wrong" to say. It winds your audience's emotions up tight, like a spring, so that they have to 'release' into a response.

You're hoping that response will be laughter, to break the tension. Often it is. The "I cannot believe you just said that" reaction. A famous internet example is "I also choose this guy's dead wife".

Jousting at the festival to impress your lady love!!!

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

Civics class wouldn't help most people in this case because the AG will not take on all these cases and most people cannot afford an attorney in this instance or more importantly, the hit to their credit.

Were they going to get into a lawsuit over my $400 bill? No obviously not. But they printed up a letter on fancy letterhead to say to stop and it worked. They followed up with me the next day to be sure, and so ask how much money they had saved me.

They use dinky cases like mine to track habitual misbehavior of large scale companies to build cases they could actually go to court over.

And because people are shocked- I never spoke to the AG of my state directly. He operates mainly by overseeing a whole crew of people. And this is what those people do.

This didn’t happen because I’m special because of my tiny therapy practice.

This happened because this is what the AG office is for.

“The problem is systemic” doesn’t mean “and there’s nothing you can do”.

Then you've been trained well by "The System".

Yes, that System you say can't be fought? Where did you get that idea, huh? Who taught you that "small" acts of illegality don't matter? Who made you think that there's no point in fighting back because it will all come to nothing?

Might it be the same entities that benefit if you believe all that?

Gonna pause and let you ponder.

Never. Ever. EVER.

EVER.

Let companies or corporations or hospitals or organizations or any business big or small get away with screwing you over without a fight. Maybe you personally don't win every fight, but you lose 100% of the time you don't try. You'll win more often than you think you will. I know cuz I've done it.

So have others. Attorneys General offices bring lawsuits against businesses all the time. They do so because citizens contacted them to say "someone is doing a crime" and the crime doers did not stop when told and got into way more trouble than if they'd just stopped. FAFO. The Find Out can't happen if you don't even bother to report the Fucking Around.

On that note, as OP said, please know your rights! And, in a situation where you don't but suspect something is hinky, ask! The people of the internet can help! So can librarians! So can many others. Find out what is and is not okay for them to do. If it's not okay, report them! See something, say something.

Don't let the System win by default.

If you believe The System™️ is only for Them™️ and not you, it will only ever be so.

And there are so many articles and videos and discussions. Like, the scientific community is buzzing about this.

So much research will have to be redone because the data was absolutely compromised, off by orders of magnitude, by using standard lab gloves.

The world is probably not horrifically contaminated by microplastics. Sterile laboratories, however, are contaminated by latex and nitrile gloves.

Sources beyond dude just trust me, for the skeptics.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/scientists-lab-gloves-may-be-causing-an-overestimation-of-microplastics-411138

Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics - Phys.org (it’s a pdf)

I've come to make an announcement…

I've been keeping a secret from you, but in my defence I did say if the thing happened I wouldn't tell you guys until it was properly concrete certain so we didn't get our hopes up. You may remember me saying multiple times that I've been doing a lot of adulting lately, a lot of phone calls and emails... So there's been one big reason for all of that. Back in February, I made yet another offer on yet another property... and for the first time in years... it didn't get rejected. It got accepted. And last week contracts were exchanged and I paid the deposit. I have a date of completion for May 22nd, the day after my birthday, and hopefully will be moving in very soon after that date. So... yeah. You guys got me a house. Well, I did all the phone calls and stress, but I wouldn't have had the funds to do this without all of you guys. Whether you've supported me on my highest Patreon tier for years, or whether you've watched some of my videos on Youtube and given me some ad revenue, every penny has lead to this and I am so grateful.

I graduated university in 2019 with an illustration degree, not mentally well and then straight into lockdown when no one was hiring. And even now, it's hard to find a job, harder to find a job in my field that doesn't want to replace me with gen AI, and harder-er after gaining multiple physical health problems and figuring out I'm autistic. I'm not sure I could easily work a 'normal' job. In December 2022 I said okay, last chance, my art shop isn't making me enough to live and move out, and I'm desperate to move out away from my parents, so I'm going to try this audio roleplay thing I've been scared to do for years. I'll try it for one year. And if by the end I'm still not making much money I'll have to try and get a 'normal' job. And a year later I wasn't making enough to move, but I was making much more than I had before, and you guys have continued to multiply and stick around enough for me to have a consistent income that's high enough to have gotten a mortgage and allowed me to save up enough for the deposit. So thank you so much.

I said I wouldn't announce if I had a home lined up until I had the keys in hand... But I didn't want to wait any longer. And I want to be transparent with you guys and for you to know where money that's donated will be going. And it won't be going towards the deposit, I didn't want anyone thinking that, since that's already been paid by myself. This donothon is to help raise money for furniture and repairs needed doing to the house. Our house. For me and Julia. I got us a house. AAAA. And I want to be clear we will be okay without donations, this isn't any sort of emergency, it'll just be a bit easier on us to have a little bit extra in our savings. And I just wanted to plan a hopefully fun event to celebrate finally moving out and also it's my birthday on May 21st and my 4th stream anniversary. So everything's all coming together.

I don't like being stuck in wait mode, and I wanted to do this before packing up, so sorry for the short notice but the donothon will be starting this Friday, 10am BST/2am PDT. We'll start with 6 hours on the timer and it'll be uncapped. I hope the goals, which stream chat helped with, sound fun! I've got giveaways planned, and for the first time we've got individual incentives such as £10 getting you a roll of the D20 rewards and £60 for essentially a pin-up art commission of my OCs.