Liberwolf

Anthony Stewart Head

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

>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.

Grace, haltingly on the keyboard Rocky built for him: Wassup bitches. Fucking jazzed to—

When you have just finished reading (listening to) the Murderbot Diaries and are dying to share your thoughts with other fans, you will probably look for some communities. There are multiple communities on multiple platforms.

Tumblr

As of now, there are five Tumblr communities that can be searched with the keyword "Murderbot". The two larger communities "The Murderbot Diaries" (1K+ members) and "Murderbot Diaries - Book Only" (200+ members) have probably been around a little longer than others. The Book-Only community, as the name indicates only allow posting things based on the book series, whereas "The Murderbot Diaries" has lots of post based on the TV show, too.

Many people simply post and interact outside of the Tumblr communities, that is, they just post to their own blog. You can search posts with tags, such as "#book title", "#murderbot", "murderbot diaries", and "#tmbd".

You can also use portmanteau ship name for looking for blogs, art, etc for a specific combination of characters you like. But there are multiple portmanteau and their interpretations that exist and quite often it can open a can of worms if you are not careful. You might use one while meaning something a little different and end up getting blocked by some people. Getting blocked can hurt, but it is a way for lots of people of curating their experience and usually not personal. My observation is that portmanteau is used for (mostly) romantic relationships, and not platonic ones whether they are QPR or not. (I say 'mostly' as some people use portmanteau name for non-romantic, which makes it confusing.)

Facebook

There are several Murderbot/Martha Wells related fangroups on Facebook, both private and public. I only had had a glimpse, so I cannot give much information. But from what I gathered, people post things using their regular account with their real name visible. Perhaps not for those who want to keep their fandom activity anonymous.

Reddit

There are both one for the book series (https://www.reddit.com/r/murderbot/) and TV show (https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderbotOnAppleTV/).

The book subreddit seems a relatively small, low-drama community focused on sharing thoughts on the books, characters, the authors, and event reports.

The TV show subreddit was created for fans from the tv show who are not familiar with/interested in the book series, but also to keep the original subreddit free of too much tv-show discussion.

The tone is generally mild in both.

You are not going to pass a skillcheck against a rip current once it has you.

Waves will not bow to your physical prowess no matter how impressive.

Shock does not care that you used to be on your school swim team.

If you hit your head, being good at swimming isn't going to turn you face-up while you're unconscious.

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila