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An Electronic Configuration

@intermolecularity

Important to note that ALL trans people are targeted by this ruling. Trans men will be stripped of all chess titles won, which can only be returned to them by “changing the gender back to a woman” (a direct quote from the ICF’s ruling). ALL transgender chess players will be marked as trans in their files.

Not trying to deflect from the blatant and virulent transmisogyny present here. Just giving a bit more info.

Erin Reed did a good breakdown of the ruling here:

does anyone know if i can like block sites from appearing in my google images searches??? i keep getting those awful ai generated things with a hand coming out of a man's neck and just straight up not what i was looking for, because this was in a search for "curly hair in medieval paintings". it happens every time i search for anything vaguely art-reference-like and it's so fucking annoying and it clutters my search results so much. i don't wanna add specific commands to the query every time too, what i need is like a browser extension or something

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cutabello

I made a list of as many ai sites i could find to block with ublacklist, just copy and paste them in ublacklist's options menu

Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

The vast majority of America's debt collection targets $500-2,000 credit card debts. It is a filthy business, operated by lawless firms who hire unskilled workers drawn from the same economic background as their targets, who routinely and grotesquely flout the law, but only when it comes to the people with the least ability to pay.

America has fairly robust laws to protect debtors from sleazy debt-collection practices, notably the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which has been on the books since 1978. The FDCPA puts strict limits on the conduct of debt collectors, and offers real remedies to debtors when they are abused.

But for FDPCA provisions to be honored, they must be understood. The people who collect these debts are almost entirely untrained. The people they collected the debts from are likewise in the dark. The only specialized expertise debt-collection firms concern themselves with are a series of gotcha tricks and semi-automated legal shenanigans that let them take money they don't deserve from people who can't afford to pay it.

There's no better person to explain this dynamic than Patrick McKenzie, a finance and technology expert whose Bits About Money newsletter is absolutely essential reading. No one breaks down the internal operations of the finance sector like McKenzie. His latest edition, "Credit card debt collection," is a fantastic read:

We live in a dystopia....

If the background actors don't come in for work because they exist virtually then the background costume and background hair and make up and their catering and transport and all the other departments that look after them get cut too. These things have knock on effects...

Funny how a mass arrest goes completely under the radar when it's mostly teens, right?

Adding context for those who might scroll past thinking: the hill bomb is not an actual bomb, its a skateboarding event which people, mostly teens in this case, skate from the top of a hilled street in sf.

so our tax dollars are going into arresting kids in public spaces now?

"Why don't kids ever go outside anymore?"

This is why.

just a reminder - do NOT boycott streaming services or not watch new things. the unions have not called for one for a reason. for one, it affects residual payments, which as minimal as those currently are, actors are still getting them during this time, and for two, studios will use lack of viewership as an excuse to cancel shows because you are showing them there is no demand. it deeply affects the industry the writers and actors stand to come back to once the strike is over

Also: going to these places puts pressure and demand on the company. Demand they can't meet without actors and writers. That puts stress on them, and stress is good.

^^^^ive been looking for a rb with this addition because YES. if a customer wants a burger and there is no cook to make it, that puts pressure on the owner to pay the cook what they want so the customer will still give them money. if there is no customer, the owner has no reason for the cook to make burgers

Stop watching IF AND ONLY IF the unions call for a boycott. For the time being since they haven't, streaming the shows actually helps. You're not crossing a picket line to watch because that picket line does not exist unless a boycott is called for.

can we talk about the ups strike can we PLEASE talk about the ups strike

i know since writers and actors are already striking thats gonna take up most of the news space on social media but like. ups has until july 31st to meet the teamster's demands and if not then theyre going on the biggest strike against a single corporation since the early 1900s. the uaw (auto manufacturers union) contract is up this fall, and i believe the alu (amazon labor union) is as well. there's a huge possibility that they might strike as well, depending on how long the ups strike lasts.

im seeing a lot of talk about hollywood going down but i want to see more talk about labor rights and working class solidarity across the board... like A Lot of shit is about to go down

we're about to see a lot more propaganda by more than just hollywood, we're about to see a lot of bullshit political moves on local, state, and federal levels. dont fall for it. workers have power.

A woman whose epilepsy was greatly improved by an experimental brain implant was devastated when, just two years after getting it, she was forced to have it removed due to the company that made it going bankrupt.

Specifically, because she couldn't afford to buy the implant from the company. They basically took her implant back to recoup their losses. This is what happens when you privatize healthcare and health research. The group providing her with this implant should not have been able to go bankrupt in the first place, let alone repossess her implant to pay off their debts.

This is what disabled people mean when we say that cyberpunk horror is just a reality for us. This woman was literally forced to undergo a surgery because she couldn't pay to keep the implant already inside her brain. How long till companies start repossessing pacemakers and transplants?

This is why fat shaming can have tragic consequences.

If this sort of weight-based medical bias happens to any of y'all, politely tell the doctor (during your visit) that you want them to write in your file that they are refusing ordering tests for you because of your current weight. This usually causes them to order the test anyways because they do NOT want a malpractice suit. Remember: You want to make a paper trail to hold them accountable.