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You love to see it. (Not the destruction of trees, obvs, but shitheads meeting their oncoming comeuppance at the hands of trees.)

[Update] I have good news and Bad News:

Good News: StreetLA has issued a citation. A violation has been detected and they have to pay a fine.

Bad News: The fine is a total of 250$
Yes you've read it right. It's 250$. No there are no zeroes missing, no there is no 250 per tree. It's 250$ flat.

It will be handled as a first-time offence therefore the fine is only 250$. If they were to repeat that, they will have to pay a total of 1000$.

The city law for this offence limits the amount of penalties the city can issue.

If the trees will not recover, the offender has to plant two new trees.

That is all.

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Link: https://twitter.com/lacontroller/status/1682531591359467520

250 lousy dollars.....

In 1960, SAG and WGA struck to force management to adapt to the new technology of television. Without that strike and the agreement it birthed, residual use payments would not exist.

My parents stole nearly all of my salary from my entire childhood. My Star Trek residuals were all I had, and they kept me afloat for two decades while I rebuilt my life. I have healthcare and a pension because of my union. The AMPTP billionaires want to take all that security away so they can give CEOs even more grotesque wealth at the expense of the people who make our industry run.

To give some sense of what is at stake: There are actors who star in massively successful, profitable, critically acclaimed shows that are all on streaming services. You see them all the time. They are famous, A-list celebrities. Nearly all of those actors don't earn enough to qualify for health insurance, because the studios forced them to accept a buyout for all their residuals (decade of reuse, at the least) that is less than I earned for one week on TNG. And I was the lowest paid cast member in 1988. They want to do this while studio profits and CEO compensation are at historic highs.

I mean, if not now, when? And I haven't even touched on AI and working conditions.

We must fight for the future of our industry in the face of changing technology, the same way our elders did in 1960. So today, my Spacemom and I went to the place where it started for us, way back when, to do just that.

I see all your support. It means so much. Thank you.

Only 13 percent of video games are readily playable and accessible. No other form of media is as endangered as video games. There is no legal path to preserve or archive video games. You can go to libraries and archives for books years out of print. You can rent a movie or download a pdf. There is no legal equivalent for video games. Games companies do not double as archival organisations and they never will. They have never been about preserving. They are about selling. Which is not inherently evil compared to anyone else but they along with the law are directly preventing archivers and preservationists from doing their job and allowing this entire medium to be experienced in the future.

Think of some of the most influential video games of all time. How many of them can you play right now. Without piracy. How many of these could your not very technology literate friend play. How do you think this is affecting not only the wider industry now but also people in the future. And for completely arbitrary meaningless reasons.

as my own direct immediate list of game grievances i hate that stardew valley expects you to side against a wheelchair user who is upset that he was moved without his consent. i hate that the mass effect trilogy gives you visible scarring as a direct result of choosing mean dialogue and heals it if you're nice. i hate that the vampire the masquerade ttrpg has a monstrous player class that can appear as horrible vampiric monsters or as visibly disabled people and both of these appearances are mechanically the same. i hate that dark souls games have a difficulty level implemented in a way that cannot be adjusted for disability. i hate that i can play as a mermaid or a werewolf or a horse in the sims games but can't use a wheelchair. i hate that the ace attorney games have so much flashing and not all of the games can disable it. i hate that disability is constantly something that happens to teach a lesson, i hate that disability is something that happens as a punishment, i hate that disability is either compensated perfectly with no drawbacks or something that is endlessly sought to be cured. i hate that no character customization will ever include the mobility aids i use, that the player avatars that represent me will never look like me. i am so goddamn annoyed and so goddamn tired.

This is what happened when a fanfic site is profit driven. Wattpad sucks 😞

The email from Wattpad is so condescending imagine pressuring writers to update and work while they are doing it for free and fun. Also the discovery? Algorithm? Of Wattpad looks like a stressful popularity contest 😑

Hey I just wanna quickly say that you only get these if someone reports the story. I've barely updated on Wattpad in the past two years and haven't gotten any of these, mostly because I don't even have an audience over there who has the potential or drive to report my fics. So, corporate greed is bad, yes, but it's also readers being buttheads

Hmm, that's interesting! You know what happens if someone reports a story for being incomplete on AO3? Jack shit, because not churning out content for your fun little hobby is not a reportable offense on AO3! And that's because, unlike Wattpad, AO3 isn't profiting off of your work, either directly or indirectly, and so when readers are buttheads, the AO3 abuse mods ignore them, instead of sending out weird automated messages harassing writers for daring to have a wip.

• spotalike creates a playlist based on a song
• magicplaylist  creates a playlist based on a song
  
• dubolt  creates a playlist based on an artist
• boilthefrog creates a playlist between any two artists 
• predominant suggests you albums based on cover art color   
• music-map  suggests similar artists
• gnoosic  suggests similar artists and songs

if you wanna read more about a portion of this

ok I got into an argument with someone in my media class yesterday so I’m just gonna say it:

No video game should cost $70.

I’m sure the new Zelda game will be great, but no video game should cost $70. “But if you adjust for inflation, this is actually less than what the Wii games were,” cool. No video game should cost $70.

We no longer live in a world where a kid could save up their allowance for a couple months and then be able to buy a video game. Just buying one has somehow turned into such a grandiose adventure it takes all of the fun out of getting a new game.

The only possible benefit might be that, with games being so expensive, people might be more likely to pick up an indie game because those companies can’t afford to sell those games for a lot.

This is becoming normal. I used to be able to buy four ds games for $70. What the hell.

And you know damn well that Nintendo can afford it.

Cozy Horror is such a fascinating term. I honestly 100% understand the desire for cozy wholesome stuff. Where my beloved mutuals might snark at the Wholesome Direct, I know in my heart that sometimes you need the video game equivalent of a hot chocolate.

But. Cozy Horror.
A Cozy version of the genre that is meant to unsettle you.

Horror isn't necessarily only jumpscares and gore and violence - but it is those things because they're effective ways to unsettle and unnerve, the real core of what horror is (in my opinion).

"Cozy Horror". Man. It's just a total "what the fuck are you even talking about" sequence of words. Which is impressive, given its brevity!

I wouldn't necessarily define Cozy Horror as analogous with hot chocolate by a fire.

YMMV on interpretations of these movies, but for me, Midsommar is Cozy Horror because it's about the importance of being seen and truly cared for, and how the absence of it drives you to desperate lengths. The VVitch is about recognizing that you're trapped in a cage of repression and tradition, and realizing that you can enjoy the pleasures of life without being punished. Suspiria (2018) is about a bunch of gleeful witches making sexy torture art in a purely female space.

to me, Cozy Horror is about a story you can fully relax into, knowing that its themes resonate with you, and that it will make you feel seen, understood, and respected. add the body horror, consistently excellent cinematography, and goth aesthetic, and you've got my favorite genre.

Sometimes it's just cozy to know that other people have the same anxieties and fears as you.

Okay, for one thing, those examples are all just horror movies. It's the same trick as "elevated horror" - deciding you've invented a new subgenre which is full of the good stuff, unlike the regular type which is bad.

Secondly, Midsommar is a movie about a white supremacist cult manipulating a woman into falling in line with their beliefs, until we get the "happy ending" where, yay! She's a member of the white supremacist Swedish cult!

If your takeaway from that movie is "wow... women need to feel truly seen in this horrible patriarchal world. I'm so glad this movie truly sees and respects me as a woman", then I'm really sorry but you might have missed the entire point.

Like, the cult uses this feminist angle because that's kinda generally what cults do! They identify something that people need, and then convince them that they're the only ones that can provide it.

If you're listing Midsommar as a movie that makes you feel seen and respected, you've actually fallen for the same trick, oh my god!

Between the barbenheimer shit and the grimace shake tiktok trend (e.g., social media users creating organic viral marketing for these products), I don’t think most people hate corporations nearly enough

This kind of thing where people promote products for free is a corporate wet dream btw. Word-of-mouth (and the memes have the same impact as traditional word-of-mouth) is more convincing to consumers than actual ads, and the corporation doesn’t have to pay for it. Everyone making Barbie memes and shit is doing Warner Bros’s job for them!!!

so you're not wrong and people on this site are very familiar with the idea of memes as free advertising. but all that said, genuinely, what are we supposed to do about this? you could be like me and rarely participate in whatever's cool, but most people don't want to do that, because they want to use that cool new thing as an opportunity to connect with others. people have compared the trend of seeing the barbie movie in costume to a high school spirit week, which i thought looked terribly regressive on the surface, but it goes back to the opportunity for connection. "post"-covid we're starved for it.

like i said before, im familiar with this topic and your logic checks out. i look at mostly anything i see online through the lens of "how could someone have hidden an ad here without me noticing?" because that level of vigilance is necessary if you consider yourself someone who cares about countering misinformation. i just never know where to go next when i see posts like these. sit in the guilt while my friends who aren't thinking this deeply go out and have fun?

"The magic system isn't explained properly" bro as if anyone these days understands how a computer works

Contrary to the claim of free-market ideology, supply is not a response to demand. Capitalist firms usually create the demand for their products by various marketing techniques, advertising tricks, and planned obsolescence. Advertising plays an essential role in the production of consumerist demand by inventing false “needs” and stimulating the formation of compulsive consumption habits, totally violating the conditions for maintaining planetary ecological equilibrium. The criterion by which an authentic need is to be distinguished from an artificial one is whether it can be expected to persist without the benefit of advertising. How long would the consumption of Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola go on if the persistent advertising campaigns for those products were terminated? Such examples could be indefinitely multiplied.

Advertising is an incredibly wasteful, ecologically destructive industry that intrudes on our everyday lives pretty much constantly. We’re absolutely fucked if we can’t even question one of the most distinctly obnoxious and useless facets of the ecocidal economic system we live in. Like this isn’t even something that powers our day-to-day existence like the energy sector (literally killing us but also keeping our AC/heat, transportation, etc running)—advertising just pollutes, wastes, and annoys, yet it’s been assimilated into many peoples’ sense of self and their ability to “enjoy things”

“Of course,” pessimists will reply, “but individuals are motivated by an infinity of desires and aspirations, and it is these that will have to be controlled and repressed.” Well, the hope for a paradigmatic change in civilization is indeed based on a wager, as propounded by Karl Marx, that in a society freed from capitalism “being” will be valued over “having.” Personal fulfillment will be achieved through cultural, athletic, erotic, political, artistic, and playful activities, rather than through the unlimited accumulation of property and products—the sort of accumulation induced by the fetishistic consumption inherent in the capitalist system, by the dominant ideology, and by advertising and having nothing to do with some “eternal human nature.”

As capitalism, especially in its current neoliberal and globalized form, seeks to commodify the world, to transform everything existing—earth, water, air, living creatures, the human body, human relationships, love, religion—into commodities, so advertising aims to sell those commodities by forcing living individuals to serve the commercial necessities of capital. Both capitalism as a whole and advertising as a key mechanism of its rule involve the fetishization of consumption, the reduction of all values to cash, the unlimited accumulation of goods and of capital, and the mercantile culture of the “consumer society.” The sorts of rationality involved in the advertising system and the capitalist system are intimately linked, and both are intrinsically perverse.

Advertising pollutes the mental landscape, just like it does the urban and rural landscapes; it stuffs the skull like it stuffs the mailbox. It holds sway over press, cinema, television, radio. Nothing escapes its decomposing influence: in our time we see that sports, religion, culture, journalism, literature, and politics are ruled by advertising. All are pervaded by advertising’s attitude, its style, its methods, its mode of argument. Meanwhile, we are always and uninterruptedly harassed by advertising: without stop, without truce, unrelentingly and never taking a vacation, advertising persecutes us, pursues us, attacks us in city and countryside, in the street and at home, from morning to evening, from Monday to Sunday, from January to December, from the cradle to the grave.

Ecosocialism, Michael Löwy