>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.

I fell down the “old 80′s toy ads on youtube” hole this evening and I want to share with you this rad 1987 look:

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

OP this is EXCELLENT

Now THAT’S a self care resource! If you’ve gotten distracted by capitalism’s appropriation of “self-care” and watering the meaning down to nothing this is a super helpful guide to cut through the bullshit.

daisy in a mainline mario game is all i ever wanted THANK YOUU NINTENDO 🧡🌼

Keychain design

10:16 (Visual Novel)

Created by: catsket

Genre: Fantasy

I've actually been waiting for a while to do a review on one of @catskets's games since they also made a bunch of other games, and now I can! 10:16 is a game made for the #yanjam and it connects a bit to the other universe of Art without Blood (it has a reference for it, I'm pretty sure). Catsket always has a very ephemeral feeling in their games, so they're always fun to play.

Limited options but the vibe of this dress up game immaculate it is so cute♡♡♡

CANON TRANS QUEENS!

New Limited Patreon Tier and preview of upcoming character customization! 💗💖 (character customization is still a wip)

Forgot “knot” means a big wad of cash and nearly had a fit over this Eminem song

please you can't hide this in the tags

Henry’s file.

Picture of Dorian Gray AU where he's a celebrity in the modern day (broadly speaking) and his stans post pics of him looking the same through the years on Twitter and caption them "How you age when you're unproblematic 💖💖💖"

No one but you——无人及你

Drew my oc and Alfred, you can call her Mu Ying【穆影】or K.k

Hey Guess What I'm doing now?

That's right baby! It's summer and after dying of exhaustion and actual medical stuff for a month and a half I'm finally comfortable enough to put up my Commissions Page!

(Please don't mind the interesting graphic design choices for this post lol. This was the last thing keeping me from posting these and I just needed to get it over with and rip the band-aid off. I promise the Carrd looks way better dshjgknfdh)

Link to my Carrd with more information and art examples here

Link to my art tag here ^^

I've only got 4 slots for now so if you're interested hit me up ^^

Hey, let's talk about anons like this, because I know some people haven't been in a position to see the patterns these play out in on broader scale and may indeed not spot the trap.

And it is a trap.

An ask like this has several purposes.

First, it uses social justice language in passive aggressive and manipulative ways to try to coerce a behavior. In this case, the desired behavior is usually for the recipent to participate in community shunning and/or harrassment. The language above is intended to put the recipient on the defensive where, in the haste to disassociate themself from the Bad Thing, they quickly disassociate themself from the bad person, often with no particular fact checking or evidence.

The message is also intended to create a sense of being surveilled and judged by an unknown amount of people with unknown amount of social power and an unknown amount of relevance to your life.

Notice that these asks are usually framed as if they are coming from a follower or potential follower, someone who is addressing you personally and who cares about your opinion and who your blog has an effect on. However this is usually.... very much not the case. If you've ever had the misfortune to watch a gossip campaign from like this from the outside, you will very quickly notice that messages like this get sent in mass batches to dozens and dozens of strangers. (You can often turn these up with a tumblr search, if you look.)

The sender does not know you and probably does not follow you. They have a person they don't like (possibly for their stated reason and possibly not), and they are going through the reblogs of a post from that blog and mass messaging *everyone* with a form letter. They will not see your response and they will probably never even see your blog again.

Which brings us to the second goal of whisper campaigns like this:

Notice that I blacked out the names above? That's because when the recipient answers anonymous asks like this, they provide a platform for the opinion on their blog. An anonymous message like this that gets posted doesn't just spread gossip and apply pressure to the recipient, it is spread to the recipient's entire community.

The *goal* is to get access to your community. The *goal* is to use you as a soapbox.

Is the information accurate? Did anyone check? Does the anon have an ulterior social motive? BIG SHRUG

If you go into the comments on one of these whisper campaigns you will see that *most people never bother to check.*

They assume good faith from a follower, they're off balance defending themselves, and they jump straight to conciliation.

It's a really, really effective form of social manipulation, and really really commonly misused.

This is what bullying on social media can look like especially in left-leaning/social justice minded circles. This is how otherwise caring people get roped into participating in harassment campaigns.

[ ID: There are three images present on this post.

The first is part of a screenshot from an anonymous ask to an unknown tumblr user. The anonymous ask says, "Would it be okay if I followed you? I found your blog through [marked out text]. Sadly, they don't seem to like disabled people very much so if you share the same views I can leave you alone."

The unknown tumblr user replies, "? ? Yeah, you can follow me. Anyone can. You don't have to ah fuck this is a trap."

The second image is a reply presumably on that ask post that says, "What's the trap? I don't get it."

Both these images are at the top of this post. The last image is about halfway down. It is another reply presumably on that other ask post that says, "You are the [second] person today I've seen get this same ask." End ID. ]

conflicting reviews on tumblr.com

My favorite current reddit protest. r/pics is only allowing submissions of John Oliver.

Imitation Black