YaY

To add insult to injury, things like history documentaries got marked as explicit. Another got marked explicit because it contained the word fuck exactly once.

This is what it looks like for us.

And here is a link leading to information on the law used to justify this crap;

A few notes on current solutions;

-> newpipe is also refusing to play some age restricted videos.

-> protonvpn no longer works

-> nsfwyoutube often does not work

-> it is possible to install an extension to counter it, which can be found in the notes. On mobile this can possibly be done, but I do not know for sure.

-> 9xbuddy can supposedly be used to download age restricted videos.

-> f-roid has also been suggested. I have not yet tested it.

-> someone also just... Edited over the picture of their ID, since the pictures are mostly handled by AI which aren't very smart. If you try this, tell me if you used a funny name and picture!

Most social media is American.

Within the Netherlands, facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram are used the most(with Whatsapp at the top).

None of the social media we have is purely Dutch, and the same goes for many other countries. The internet as a whole is often US-centric(Fun fact though, more than half of all data centers are in the Netherlands.).

Hamburg is built around a river, so there’s many many many canals (the 2400+ bridges put Venice and Amsterdam to shame), as well as a fairly sizeable lake (here the smaller section, innit precious):

This means a shittonne of swans

(stay away from the swans) (seriously don’t go sailing on the lake because they WILL chase you). Obvs swans aren’t made for cold weather (p sure they’re all Australian immigrants actually) so Hamburg has an official job position to take care of the issue.

This dude’s name is Olaf Nieß (trying to spell his name on non-German keyboards must be fun):

This guy’s job title is “Schwanenvater”, aka “swan father”, and his job literally consists of getting swans to safety before the winter chill sets in. How does he do this, you wonder? Easy: he goes up to EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SWAN in the city and sticks them in barges. I’m serious:

Look at this dude and his swans

Swans are like Satan’s personal pet and he paddles around with barges full of them like it’s nbd.

I was a little confused because mute swans (pictured)* are native to Northern Europe and are generally happy with cold weather (they’re quite significant in the folklore of, say, Northern Russia). In fact,my friend Dru posted a lovely video of some of my Swan Friends breaking ice here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxDXURNuDNk

The cob, or daddy swan, is breaking the ice with his chest to make clear water for his family to feed in. Later the ducks (shown standing on the ice) will hop into the cleared water and enjoy the free foraging. 

But then I remembered that wild Mute Swans tend to fuck off from the big rivers when it gets really cold and go somewhere warmer (such as a nice shallow pond) cos swans ain’t fools and they don’t actually like icebreaking. So why wouldn’t they want the swans in Hamburg to fuck off from the big rivers? Why are they putting them into small warm ponds for winter? Wouldn’t the swans just… do that themselves if they got cold enough?? Why do you need to have a guy go out and grab them before they do anything? THIS IS IMPLYING THAT THESE ARE NOT WILD SWANS, BUT MUNICIPAL SWANS. 

 AND APPARENTLY, I researched this 5 minutes ago, APPARENTLY there is a prophecy about these swans that is similar to the prophecy of the Ravens of the Tower of London : “As long as the proud swans draw circles on the Alster, Hamburg will be a free and prosperous Hanseatic City.”  The swans also served the practical purpose of demonstrating that Hamburg was a free and independent city, because previously, only royal Europeans had swans.

So they are not exactly wild swans! The Swanfather cares for the swans year-round - they’re municipal animals - and in the winter he brings the swans to a place where they can “draw circles on the Alster” without fucking off entirely, and show off to everyone that Hamburg is a strong independent city that don’t need no king. 

SO the Ravenmaster of London is a position that exists because if the ravens leave the tower, a prophecy says that England will fall. And the Swanfather of Hamburg exists because if the swans leave the Alster, Hamburg will stop prospering. The Swanfather role has existed since 1674, about the same time as when the Ravenmaster job was set up. I guess there was a lucrative trade in bird-related political prophecies at the time. CLEARLY I HAVE MISSED MY CALLING???

A huge amount of people’s fear/anxiety/outrage about swans and geese is because these large wild animals have the AUDACITY to live near humans, and to interact with humans, but not in a fearful and submissive way. Swans aren’t afraid of humans - why should they be? - and that makes us escalate our own behavior, because we expect animals to be either loving or afraid. So we often do silly things to swans, such as poking our hands at them, provoking them, threatening their young, using incredibly aggressive body language when we see them, approaching them with kayaks (kayaks are Incredibly Rude for swans) and allowing our companion animals to behave threateningly towards them while we giggle.

Then the swan indicates (fairly politely) that we are being rude and need to give them more space… and we complain that swans are disrespectful, mean and scary. Most of swan politeness is about giving them space, not making direct eye contact, and not pointing at them, or flailing your hands around, or waving a paddle at them, or looking directly at their babies, or letting a dog approach them. BUT PEOPLE ARE INCAPABLE OF DOING THAT, so they complain that swans are Satan. 

In reality, they are just large wild animals that are often quite happy to be “nice” to humans, and will recognize ones that are trustworthy.

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.

last summer my friend who is an amazingly talented artist and i were in this super tall building, and she’s in a wheelchair and i’m pushing her around the room. it’s an art exhibit and some of her art was chosen to be showcased there and so it’s all fine and dandy until suddenly an alarm starts going off

a FIRE ALARM

everyone starts running for the stairs and my friend just looks at me with this forlorn look on her face

“i can’t go down the stairs”

but i’m a stubborn bitch “i’ll carry you”

“what about my chair? it’s too expensive for me to be able to get another one if i can’t get this one back”

“i’ll carry that too”

and i did. we went to the stairs (by then most people from our floor were gone) and i lifted her up in a fireman’s carry over my shoulder and then lifted her chair up and used the ridiculous amount of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins to make it down approximately 20 half-flights of stairs until we met some people exiting lower floors, one of which who kindly took the chair. I changed positions so i was holding my friend bridal-style which was, somehow, easier and the person who took her wheelchair (with her permission to handle it of course) accompanied me to the ground floor and then out the doors

basically there is no real protocol for people who can’t use the stairs in an emergency. it’s up to the people with them, if anyone, to help them or the person to somehow make it down the stairs alone, unassisted

thank fuck that it was just a faulty alarm system, because if i was unable to carry her down those stairs and the building was on fucking fire???? then i don’t know what would have happened to her, but i don’t think it would have been very good.

the fire marshal hemmed and hawed for a while and then said to take the elevator- you’re supposed to leave it free for the fire department to use and they want able-bodied people out fast not waiting for elevators. if the fire alarm has just gone off the building probably hasn’t suffered enough structural damage to make using the elevator dangerous, and modern elevator wells are heavily reinforced. many large and high-trafficked buildings on my campus have fire rated elevators that link in with the fire alarm system so they won’t let you off on a floor with a possible fire. 

if the elevator isn’t working, wait in the stairwell and call the fire department to let them know where you are. modern stairwells are also heavily reinforced- it might not be pleasant but modern building code usually requires fire-resistant stairwell doors in office and big residential buildings, also to help firefighters get in and out safely. older buildings’ stairwells may or may not be retrofitted with fire-resistant doors but a stairwell is generally the safest place to wait if you can’t get out. 

Understand that once you enter the elevator, you could POTENTIALLY be taking your life into your hands there.

It is NOT LIKELY, to be perfectly honest. It’s only in a pretty catastrophic scenario - think the Twin Towers, USA, on September 11th - that the elevators will be compromised and out of service. But there is a NOT ZERO PERCENT CHANCE and you need to understand that and accept it.

As for leaving the elevators free for the firefighters, okay, here’s the deal. Unless your nearest fire station is literally right next door? Your first on scene fire truck is NOT likely to be there on scene and needing that elevator before you get to the ground. It takes us TIME to find the address, gear up, and drive to the building. Then we need to hoof it into where the elevators even ARE, so YOU HAVE TIME to use the elevator to get down to the ground floor... BUT ONLY IF THERE’S NOT A RUSH ON THE ELEVATOR! And THAT is WHY we don’t tell people this shit. That’s WHY we tell people to NEVER USE THE ELEVATOR... because every self-entitled asshole will use it because they don’t feel like walking, and then put YOU in danger by delaying the elevator’s arrival to you.

IF, however, the elevator IS compromised, or you just can’t get it to come for you, or whatever, and you either don’t have anyone with you who has the adrenaline fueled BALLS to be able to toss you over their shoulder and hoof it down the stairs with you - because, let’s face it, that is RARE AS FUCK, then HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:

You call 911 and tell the call taker that you are in the building that has a fire alarm going off, and you are not able to evacuate because of a physical disability, and you tell them what floor you are on, and EXACTLY what stairwell you are waiting at. And the very FIRST thing that the firefighters are going to do once they arrive, if it is, indeed, a REAL emergency, and not a false alarm, is come get your ass and bring you down. Whether that means carrying you down the stairs, or whether that means locking out the elevators so that no one else can override them and coming to get you themselves, they WILL come get you FIRST THING if it is a real event. And if it is a false alarm? You will probably be the first person who is not involved with the building to know, because the call-taker is going to stay on the line with you until you are under someone’s care and out of danger, or until the scene has been sorted out as real or false, and you are out of danger that way.

These are pretty standard operations in the fire service throughout the United States. There may be some minor variations based on specific municipalities, but, for the most part, this is pretty typical: LIFE BEFORE PROPERTY. So, as long as SOMEONE knows where you are - hence why you call 911 - Firefighters will come get you. You are NOT alone, and you have NOT been abandoned. I PROMISE. It’s like, our whole reason for doing the shit we do: to save lives and to break shit. Sometimes, we get lucky enough to do both at the same time.

High rise fires suck ass, and I always hated them. But the very FIRST thing I asked anytime we got one was if we had “any entrapments” - which is what we call anyone who could not self-evacuate for ANY reason. We ain’t leaving you behind. And yes, your friend who doesn’t have the stamina to carry you down can stay with you, too. Because I would never ask that of someone, honestly.