yeahlikethebird reblogged
yeahlikethebird reblogged
t-poserat
If you can, please donate to the Internet archive, links in the description. The loss of the archive would be devastating for dozens of reasons.
I know the Library of Alexandria comment sounds like an exaggeration. It absolutely is not. As of May 7, 2022, the Internet Archive holds over 35 million books and texts, 7.9 million movies, videos and TV shows, 842 thousand software programs, 14 million audio files, 4 million images, 2.4 million TV clips, 237 thousand concerts, and over 682 billion web pages in the Wayback Machine. It’s been operating since 1996, the loss of knowledge would be impossible to ever completely come back from.
The lawsuit from Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley Sons, and Penguin Random House alleges there have been significant revenue losses because of their controlled digital lending program. For context, most libraries in the US also use CDL to distribute books to their patrons wherever they are but those programs are run through for profit companies and the libraries are often paying a very high fee to so their patrons can have access to digital books. The Internet Archive’s program is completely free but they have a policy of not digitizing and lending anything less than 5 years old.
The lawsuit goes on to note that authors often own larger shares of their revenue of digital vs. print copies of their books. So the publishing companies, seeing that they’re underpaying their authors, are essentially blaming a library for being free instead of bumping up what authors earn on print copies. The Internet Archive’s 5 year policy is designed to protect authors anyway as that’s when books typically make the most money.
Hey by the way The Internet Archive is also one of the most cited places on Wikipedia. If it goes down a good chunk of Wikipedia will go back to “citation needed” or citations will lead to dead links.
yeahlikethebird reblogged
Gotta say, it’s terrifying to think that getting one day off is something to celebrate, but congratulations to all the strikers for all the work they’ve put in the get this.
yeahlikethebird reblogged
roswell-greyson
What really fucks me up about a 40 hour work week and I’ve tried to explain to people over and over is that like of you do the math you have maybe 3 hours every day to just like. Rest and be with your family. And that’s kind of it
Like the average adult needs about 8 hours of sleep every night, so that cuts your 24 hours to 16 right off the bat.
You’re working for 8 hours, so 8 left.
But you actually work 8 to 5 at most offices, not 9 to 5, and that lunch is basically just long enough to retrieve food and eat. 7.
It took you 20 minutes to shower this morning, 10 to get dressed, and 45 to make a bowl of oatmeal and eat it. We’ll say 15 to get your stuff together and out to your car. 5 and a half.
You get home and have to cook dinner, 30 minutes min for that, probably more like an hour, so somewhere between 5 and 4.5 hrs left. And then you’ve got to eat it, 30 minutes if you’re being healthy about it.
So at best you’ve MAYBE got 4/4.5 hours left every week day and that’s assuming you ran exactly zero errands, didn’t stop by the gym after work, didn’t have to stay late, have a wicked fast transition time between tasks AND a commute of like 5 minutes by car. If you have to go to the store after a quick run at the gym, pick your kids up from soccer across town, and you factor in a 30 minute commute both ways, you’ve got enough free time for like one episode of show Monday through Friday. And weekends have got to be for cleaning the house and going to visit your mom for a few hours.
When do you write, or paint, or read or sew or go on hikes? When do you go on spur of the moment adventures with your wife and try to perfect your grandma’s soda bread? What happens when it rains on Saturday after being sunny all the rest of the week so you can’t go to the zoo that day and you don’t have enough money for the museum? Why are we all just content to postpone our whole lives, put off “happy” and “healthy” for a miniscule amount of extra value we’re producing for someone else?
And it’s also a thing that fascinates me about hustle culture like. When do y'all rest? When do sleep and food happen? How do you make 3 different jobs work without dying?
Idk idk like I said I’m real fucked up about it. It amazes me that more office workers aren’t great big socialists because we have this miserable job where we’re monitored constantly and just have to sit. Still. And maintain focus on ONE THING for EIGHT HOURS in a BORING GRAY ROOM with exactly two short breaks at designated times and I just?? How does that not suck for literally everyone else?? You said yourself, Angie, you’re useless after 3 pm so just?? Organize with me and negotiate for shorter days??? Like you’re literally already only producing 6 hours of value, you don’t need to be sitting there for longer than that.
My office just had our hours cut for the month because the company has less business. So far we've had *super* heavy workloads and because people aren't being told to stay longer than they're scheduled there haven't been enough people to manage it. On the one hand I want to stay and help, on the other I've gotten in trouble for staying late in the past because they're allergic to paying overtime, so I'm not doing that without being asked. Besides, malicious compliance is exactly how this business operates so I see no reason that should stop with me. If they want workers to value their company they should value their workers.
#fr i barely make more than minimum wage and they expect speed and zero errors#i work in finance#the level of accuracy they expect is valid for yhe work but they don't treat us well#like no handing out expired bulk snack bags is not the same as a bonus#and a slightly better location is not the same as a raise#capitalism#work#tag rant
yeahlikethebird reblogged
Honestly, in my work as a therapist, I’m seeing this A Lot, and tbh I still don’t have a satisfactory approach to it. A heavy dose of Existentialist “create your own Purpose” tempered with “when the plane’s going down, put your own oxygen mask on first”, but… yeah, there is no ethical way to work on individual emotional distress without acknowledging the systemic socioeconomic, geopolitical fuckery going on at the moment, and the sheer grief that comes with it.
I feel like I keep having this convo with my therapist and it’s really frustrating
In a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the ride-hail company reports that it seeks, as part of its growth strategy, not just to get people out of private cars but to get them off public buses and trains.
Those public services would be replaced by Uber Buses, now being tested in Cairo.
That stunning revelation is deep in a 300-page document called an S1, which the SEC requires for any company planning an initial public offering.
Uber admits in the document that it might never make a profit; that it continues to lose billions by underpricing its product (rides) to gain customer loyalty and market share; and that its entire business model could collapse if regulators or the courts decide that its drivers are employees, not private contractors.
softmasc-anarchy
The rich would strip you for parts if they could.
Source: 48hills.org
yeahlikethebird reblogged
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) confronted a CEO Thursday for pricing a drug designed to reduce the risk of HIV transmission at $8 in Australia but over $1,500 in the U.S.
“You’re the CEO of Gilead. Is it true that Gilead made $3 billion in profits from Truvada in 2018?” Ocasio-Cortez asked Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day.
“$3 billion in revenue,” he clarified.
The current list price is $2,000 a month in the United States, correct?“ she asked, referring to Truvada.
“It’s $1,780 in the United States,” O'Day responded.
“Why is it $8 in Australia?” Ocasio-Cortez countered.
“Truvada still has patent protection in the United States and in the rest of the world it is generic,” O'Day explained, adding, “It will be generically available in the United States as of September 2020.”
“I think it’s important here that we notice that we the public, we the people, developed this drug. We paid for this drug, we lead and developed all the patents to create Prep and then that patent has been privatized despite the fact that the patent is owned by the public, who refused to enforce it,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“There’s no reason this should be $2,000 a month. People are dying because of it and there’s no enforceable reason for it.”
polysixx
Pop
Off
Bitch
yeahlikethebird reblogged
“If capitalism were simply a way to meet material needs, it would make no sense that people work harder now that less labor is required for production. But capitalism isn’t just a way to meet material needs; it’s a social system based in alienated relationships. As long as the economy distributes access to resources according to wealth, advances in manufacturing technology will simply force workers to seek other livelihoods. The machine no longer needs us, but it still needs us to keep working.”
— work (via becoming-vverevvolf)
yeahlikethebird reblogged
Loving the fresh smell of dystopia first in the morning
Oh Boy, Do I Love The Freedom Of Private Healthcare
mothfurry
hell world hell world hell world
yeahlikethebird reblogged
also while i’m on this, capitalism was the true villain of van gogh’s story bc his self-worth was so tied up in how well his paintings were selling and whether or not he was a financial burden on theo, who loved him unconditionally and if capitalism weren’t a factor in his life maybe he could’ve found some peace of mind but as is the case there and always nothing sensitive and vibrant and worthwhile can thrive under capitalism
yeahlikethebird reblogged
quinndolyns-deactivated20220403
Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers.
…
After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys — yes, all men — from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology.
They had come with questions of their own.They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”
rich people are fucking terrifying
quinndolyns
The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.
eat the rich before they eat the rest of us
It never occurs to them to simply fractionally improve the lives of the poorest people. Never occurs to them to live more sustainably. These men could still live in fabulous luxury while also making our planet a paradise for all but their obsession with having the most means they’re blind to that and instead they come up with ridiculously complex contingency plans for when people are finally too hungry and too desperate to be shit on any more.
“Be nice” never occurs to them. Shock collars for their own personal slave army does.
I couldn’t find the picture of the guillotine this time sorry guys just pretend it’s there
mostlyhydratrash
Dear rich people, you sound like literal Star Trek villains wtf is wrong with you stop it
I work as cleaner in a hotel. It’s a very nice hotel, owned by a multi-millionaire old man who lives on the 8th floor. We could use a lot of things to improve the comfort of the hotel, fix things that are broken, etc. But what does the owner invest in instead? Forcefully changing all the locks under the paranoid assumption that the staff might steal things (things like cleaning supplies, toilet paper and tissues), even though there hasn’t been any thievery.
“YET” thinks the rich old man atop his tower.
He’s not very well liked. Perhaps also because he gets drunk and messes with our work, trying to teach us how to use the elevators, screaming at us, or deciding he doesn’t want female staff to clean the men’s changing room and waiting in the sauna for them to come, only to get out of naked and scream at them. So now it’s up the only two employees who qualify as male to clean that room everyday. What a terrorist.
yeahlikethebird reblogged
One last hot take and then I’ll shut up: the reason adhd is framed first and foremost as a learning disability when it is in fact more apt to call it an emotional processing disorder is bc our society is only concerned w the ways neurological disorders impede a person’s ability to “function” aka get a job and contribute positively to capitalist society. How adhd affects interpersonal behaviors and emotional health is only relevant insofar as it relates to a person’s level of societal functioning PERIOD. There is no interest in improving our actual livelihoods
This is why girls are often not diagnosed w adhd until they are much older, bc they are forced to develop certain social awareness and self-surveillance capacities at an extremely young age and thus don’t perform “poorly” in the areas usually looked at to signify the disorder. But that doesn’t mean girls don’t take that distress out thru other avenues, just that the many alternative iterations of the disorder are ignored by professionals bc they don’t matter as far as society is concerned, as long as a girl is performing “well enough”
