in between stations

for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.

And in September of this year google is rolling out an update that will nonconsensually block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with Google, signed their contract, paid up, and handed over government ID. Y'all shit's getting worse and worse. If you need to get a new phone avoid these big names. Make sure it ain't in bed with these giants like Google or Apple of you can. More info on this here:

UK legislation: Online Safety Act 2023

Brazil legislation: Digital Statute For Children And Adolescents

Apple App Store Age Verification

These are not tumblr specific policies. Tumblr is implementing age verification in response to legislative moves that were made months ago.

Tumblr is a failing social media site that has escaped death multiple times already; they do not have the social cachet to defy state regulatory agencies. We know they won't say no to Apple, either--the porn ban on tumblr was in response to Apple's crackdown on explicit content.

If you did not know this was happening, you were behind the curve. That is fine. You're caught up now. The next step is to link up with people in your country who are working to preserve privacy, to roll back these laws where they exist, and to prevent their passage where they do not. In the US the organization you want is Stop KOSA--in the EU you can start with Fight Chat Control.

The author cites an estimate from the Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared that 2,900 children "disappeared during the war", with 2,700 bodies thought to be trapped under the rubble and the remaining 200 simply missing. Such statistics are in keeping with the modus operandi of the Israeli military, which, according to the official fatality count, has killed more than 72,500 Palestinians in Gaza since the launch of the genocide in 2023, with thousands more still missing and presumed dead under the rubble. United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese warned back in September that the true death toll might already have been more in the vicinity of 680,000.

so, somewhere between 3 and 30% of the population

Speaking of disappearances, an Al Jazeera Arabic investigation revealed in February that at least 2,842 Palestinians had "evaporated" in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war - a phenomenon Gaza's civil defence teams attribute to Israel's use of US-manufactured thermal and thermobaric weapons, which effectively "vaporise" human bodies. The gruesome tally was quickly eclipsed by the deranged US-Israeli war on Iran and wider regional catastrophe, which has monopolised the news for the past two months. But the topic remains as sinisterly relevant as ever. In remarks to Al Jazeera at the time, civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal outlined the process for determining the number of vaporised victims at homes targeted by Israeli strikes: "If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we treat the remaining two as 'evaporated' only after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces - blood spray on walls or small fragments like scalps." ... Israel is guilty of the traditional variety of enforced disappearance, as well. Last August, UN experts denounced reports that starving Palestinian civilians - including a child - were being forcibly disappeared from aid distribution sites run by the notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

the worst console in our history is now playable with a subscription and a paid peripheral btw

please dont think about the fact that we still have legal slaves because of our demonic IP defending practices put people in so much debt that they will not pay it off to us in their lifetime

excellent question

Gary Bowser, an old disabled man, was released from prison in 2023 following a 14 month stay after Nintendo imprisoned him for working with a third party company that made modification chips for consoles, during which Nintendo filed a civil suit against him, with the court deciding he owed $14m to Nintendo in damages. He will be paying it off monthly for the rest of his life.

here is how he describes being arrested:

surprised at how many people are mad at me for bringing this up, and going out of their way to justify or dismiss Nintendo's violent state-backed abduction-at-gunpoint of a 50 year old man over some fuckin ROMs. i thought we were all already, like, on-the-level about how insane that is.

"god forbid we enjoy something for once" in response to criticism of Nintendo forcing someone into a lifelong debt after over a year in prison is crazy, when what youre so desperate to enjoy unbothered is a re-rerelease of a 17 year old game and a subscription service to play a console whose entire legacy is how terrible it was.

If someone says something that you know to be wrong, say something. Push back on it. Iran didn't start this war. They haven't been at war with the US for forty seven years. The US didn't have to support Israel's strikes with this kind of escalation (we haven't in the past, in fact Trump hasn't in the past). The Iranian people are not looking to the US as liberators. The Strait of Hormuz was always going to be used tactically in this way, it is absurd to suggest that the Iran would open it because it is the single best method of leverage they have to resist annihilation from a superpower. Bombing civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Saying that an entire culture will be destroyed is genocidal.

There is no moral reason for the US to do this, the reasons that the US is doing this are oil and to destabilize the region. Hubris, cruelty, and a vile old man who wants to give himself a hero's legacy play a part as well.

You should be saying out loud to the people around you "This war is unjust, unnecessary, and cruel, and every reason our leaders are giving us to tell us why we're doing it is a lie."

There is no justification for bombing water and power infrastructure for ninety million people; that will kill thousands of civilians and is a war crime.

Iran was bombed while they were negotiating with the countries that bombed them; they were willing to make the agreements requested by the US and Israel before they were bombed.

The Strait was open in February. If the US and Israel hadn't attacked Iran there would have been no reason for Iran to close it.