#Virtual Phone Number App
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Please read my dni in my bio before interacting
I made a computer games to play when regressed so here's phone games to play when regressed!
Phone games to play when regressed!
All of these games are free unless stated otherwise and I will give content warnings if needed! If I miss anything and you think I should include it then feel free to tell me!
🌸= personal favourites
Monster girl maker 1 and 2
Description- it's a cute dress up game where you design monster girls, it's really really cute!
CW- I think it's got some medically stuff and general stuff that may be scary
My little pony pocket ponies
Description- it's a game where you get through enemies using the mlp characters it's quite tricky so I recommend this more for anyone who regresses to older ages but it's still really fun!
CW- none :3
🌸My little pony colour by magic
Description- it's a colour by number game where you colour in scenes and decorate a friendship museum!
CW- none :3
🌸My little pony magic princess
Description- you rebuild equestria and complete quests as well as little in game competitions!
CW- none :3
🌸My little pony celebration
Description- you celebrate loads of different parties hosted by the my little pony characters!
CW- none :3
Toca world
Description- pretty much like a doll house but on your phone, make characters, make them a house and explore the world etc, there are also dlc's you can pay for which add stuff like new locations etc
CW- none :3
Toca hair salon 3
Description- this is a paid game where you cut and style different people's hair!
CW- cartoon scissors, hair cutting equipment etc
🌸Hello kitty around the world
Description- you travel to different countries as hello kitty, learn facts about them and where they are in world! you also earn traditional outfits and food to dress hello kitty and feed her!
CW- none! :3
Hello kitty educational games
Description- play a variety of different games to earn outfits and furniture for hello kitty!
CW- none! :3
🌸Hello kitty fashion star
Description- dress up girls in sanrio clothes!
CW- none! :3
Hello kitty cafe
Description- own a cafe! And play as sanrio characters! This games a bit tricky so I recommend it for older kids! Aswell as that there used to be in app purchases to make it easier but they do not work anymore so keep that in mind!
CW- none! :3
Hello kitty goodnight
Description- you play little mini games to get the hello kitty family to sleep!
CW- none! :3
🌸Littlest pet shop your world
Description- play loads and loads of littlest pet shop mini games and if you have the lps with the rubbery heads you can even scan them into the game!
CW- none! (I haven't played every mini game but it seems fine)
Cats and soup
Description- this is a clicky game where you unlock cats for them to make soup
CW- drawings of cartoony knives (to cut veggies)
Bunnybuns
Description- you play as a bunny making food for customers based on hints they give you
CW- none (I don't remember if they use kitchen equipment but I think they don't, not certain though!)
My talking Angela 2
Description- look after a cat called angela, play mini games etc
CW- none! :3
🌸Virtual families 3
Description- I grew up play virtual families 2!this is the same premise we're you look after a family on your phone!
CW- none! :3
Tsuki odyssey
Description- similar to tsuki adventure but now you're in a new location, you can fish, buy things, decorate your house and see what tsuki gets up to
CW- I think burglary is mentioned at the start
Cats are cute
Description- expand a town of cats, pet them, feed them and play with them!
CW- none! :3
Adorable home
Description- play as a couple and adopt loads and loads of cats, look after them and decorate and expand your house!
CW- none! :3
Any papa's game
Description- cook food for customers! All the papa's games are paid for but they're only £1-£3! My personal recommendation is papa's pancakeria!
CW- some of the games have knives in them
🌸Pokemon playhouse
Description- you collect pokemon and play cute mini games with them! This is a good game for little kids who like pokemon!
CW- none! :3
Pokemon smile
Description- brush your teeth to catch pokemon!
CW- none! :3
Pokemon go
Description- walk around outside and catch pokemon! Definitely recommend doing this when it's less cold hehe
CW- none! :3
Pokemon cafe
Description- a match three gand where you make food and drinks fir pokemon customers!
CW- cartoony knife+kitchen equipment maybe
🌸Egg!
Description- raise eggs until they hatch into cute creatures! I loved this game when I was little
CW- none! :3
🌸My school-learning game
Description- be a teacher in a school and teach characters basic maths and English (it has a few different language options depending on where you're from) you can unlock things but you have to pay for them but what is free is fun
CW- none! :3
Colouring games
Description- colour in pictures!
CW- none! :3
🌸Jungle floof
Description- raise jungle animals and play mini games!
CW- none! :3
🌸Applaydu
Description- a kinder egg toy game! Loads of different activities to do and you can unlock characters by scanning your kinder toys!
CW- none! :3
🌸Duo abc
Description- learn the alphabet and basic words (only English), disclaimer? Maybe? not the same as duolingo, this app is made for children
CW- none! :3
Extras! (games I found while making this list)
Plants vs Zombies 1, 2 and 3
Description- fight zombies by setting up plants with different abilities! I recommend this for older kids, I had pvz 1 and 2 when I was younger and I was very bad at it haha
CW- zombies, ungorey violence (no blood etc)
Sundae picnic
Description- make ice cream for cats and dogs! (please don't actually give cats or dogs ice cream)
CW- none! :3
Pokemon sleep
Description- collect pokemon by sleeping (sometimes the app doesn't record your sleep properly but usually it's ok, still fun either way)
CW- none! :3
Khan kids
Description- I haven't played it yet but it looks like it has little mini games for younger kids on it!
CW- idk :c
#agere#age dreaming#age regression#age regressor#sfw agere#agere blog#sfw littlespace#sfw smolspace#agere activities#agere games#snailsagere
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✌🏻 That was so hot… but don’t you dare do that again… ✌🏻
✎ Pairing: Chan x fem!reader
✎ Genre: Smut
✎ Summary: Channie’s Room is live, but you’re bored in the bedroom. Good thing he’s already looking at his phone.
✎ CW: Established relationship, sexting, nudes, vibrator use, swearing, teensy bit of dirty talk, unprotected sex
✎ Word count: 1,373
❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥
“Everybody put your hands up, Stray Kids sing it loud loud loud…”
As usual, Fam plays at the beginning of Channie’s Room. The webcam is pointed at an empty chair, and he appears as the song comes to an end.
“안녕하세요!” Chan sings, greeting the fans watching his stream. “Helllloooooo!”
The chat is full of the usual comments and questions:
ur so hot!
what are you working on? excited for the next album 💕
marry me!
when are you coming to Brazil?
But then there’s yours:
check your texts, babe 🎡☄️🛋️🎒
It’s the odd combination of emojis you agreed to use if you wanted him to know that one anonymous fan was actually you.
He’s reading through the comments, humming between replies. The chat moves so quickly, you’re prepared to send your comment multiple times before finally catching his eye. But then his finger stops scrolling and thumbs at the bottom of the screen to close the app. Bingo.
The “delivered” under your photo changes to “read,” and you can see his expression change ever so slightly. He clears his throat and tries to keep his cool, but blood rushes to his head, spreading from his ears to his cheeks to his throat. Practically every inch of visible skin is now a deep pink.
“Uh, Stay are being so nice today, you’re making me blush,” he says kind of convincingly. But you know better.
While he set up for the stream, you freshened up and donned your new lingerie. You considered being sweet and waiting until he came back to the bedroom to surprise him, but honestly, this is way more fun.
You took a bunch of selfies: one angled down, one angled up, one straight on your tits, another right on your ass. Lots of options, but you decided on the full body shot from above — your lower lip pinched between teeth at the top of the screen, fingers pulling at the bra strap in the middle, and your long, smooth legs crossed in front of the tiniest pair of underwear at the bottom.
He’s having trouble focusing on the chat now, and who could blame him? You look amazing, and there’s just a wall and some wiring between your bodies right now. Two dozen steps, and he could be on top of you, inside of you.
Chan readjusts his body in the chair, undoubtedly making more room in his jeans for his stiffening cock. He fidgets uncomfortably and tries his best to maintain some semblance of normalcy.
Whoosh
Off goes the second image — this one focused on your chest. But the straps are pulled down and one hard nipple sits just above the edge of the bra’s cup, pinched between two fingers.
This photo goes unseen for a little longer than the first, and you’ll let him open it in his own time. He’s seemingly back in his groove on camera, reading fan-suggested pickup lines and discussing whether a tomato is actually a vegetable or a fruit. You know he won’t be able to resist forever, though.
And of course, you’re right — you know him too well. A shaky inhale from virtual Chan encourages you to check your phone, and, yep, he saw the second one. The blush is back and this time, it’s accompanied by a tiny smirk and narrowed eyes. He cheekily stares at his phone’s screen for just a second too long, prompting commenters to ask if something’s wrong.
“Oh, naur, all good here!” he reassures. “I’m gonna play some songs for you guys and I’m just picking the first one!”
Ok, liar. Fib your way through this one.
Whoosh
Photo number 3 is simple, but speaks volumes. A long, thick vibrator sits atop your bare thigh. It’s a new toy, and he’ll know that. He’ll also know you’ll use it if he takes too long, and the thought of him sitting there listening to music on a livestream while his girlfriend fucks herself in the next room over will drive him crazy.
🎒🎡 wow i’m so bored……. ☄️🛋️
Another comment to push him to check his texts. You may get some less-than-nice replies from Stay for this one, but that’s fine. This is for him, not them.
…but there’s no reaction. You’re not sure if he didn’t see it or is simply ignoring it, but he’s vibing to Le Sserafim’s Antifragile like he isn’t thinking about your tits. Too bad you don’t give up that easily.
💕 you look so good today, 🛋️🎒 차니 🎡☄️
Still nothing. Fine, you’ll just start without him.
Your slender fingers pull the lacy underwear to the side to check how wet you are. Teasing your boyfriend like this always revs you up, so you’re not shocked to discover that two fingers slide in with more than enough room to spare. Time for photo number 4.
This one crosses the line from suggestive to straight-up filthy. Half of the vibrator is visibly slick from your arousal, and the other half is buried deep inside your cunt.
Whoosh
You were so distracted with your little photoshoot that you didn’t notice he replied two minutes ago.
you’re so bad
The last photo shows up as “read” almost immediately, and you glance at your laptop to see his reaction. He’s slumped into the corner of the chair, nervously giggling at his phone. So much for keeping his cool.
He’s stopped paying attention to the chat almost entirely, but you don’t even know if he’s noticed. You tend to have that effect on him. One more text while you know he’s still looking.
get your ass in here 🫦
He bites his lip just a little too seductively for YouTube, then he’s saying his goodbyes with unmistakable urgency.
“Bye Stay!!! Big hug? Big hug!” he coos, leaning in and closing his arms around the camera.
Even the hug is shorter than usual.
“See you next time, byyeee,” he chirps, throwing up that signature peace sign with a wink before disappearing from view.
Seconds later, he’s at the door with the same eagerness you saw on screen. But this time, you can also see the outline of his huge, hard cock in his jeans, complete with a small wet spot of pre-cum where the tip pushes against the denim.
“Hey, handsome,” you hum. “Need something?”
“You know what I need, you fucking tease.”
He’s on top of you before you can blink, groping at your tits and sucking at your neck.
“That stupid thing is nothing compared to me, and you know that,” he says, pushing the shiny new sex toy off the bed.
He unzips his pants and unsheathes his cock, giving it a few solid pumps before sliding those panties he saw earlier to the side and driving himself inside you.
“Oh fuck,” Chan breathes. “God, fu-”
Your lips engulf his, ending his moaning and mumbling. His mouth is citrusy, and it’s making your tongue tingle.
There’s really no rhyme or reason for any movement or grasp. You’re going at each other just like you did when you were nothing more than horny teenagers exploring something — and someone — new. Fingers and nails drag on skin and rake through hair, and you’re not sure how much longer you can last.
“Channie, I’m gonna…” you moan, breaking the sloppy kiss. “Are you…”
“Yeah, baby,” he pants. “Come.”
Manicured nails dig into his shoulder blades and you finish with force, crying out his name over and over. God, you hope he actually ended the livestream.
Then he’s coming too, emptying his balls deep inside you. His thrusts weaken, but the small movements are still enough to push some liquid down your legs and onto the comforter. Something to worry about later.
He collapses on top of you, lacking the strength and will to even pull out. His deep breaths tickle your neck, and you’re still seeing stars on the ceiling. Warm, wet fingers caress your damp collarbones, then he speaks.
“Baby, that was so hot… but don’t you dare do that again. I will fucking block you.”
“Agreed, and deal. I’ll only do it when you’re live on TikTok.”
He can’t tell if you’re serious, and if he’s bothered by the idea, he doesn’t show it. As he said, it was hot. And he was 100% right.
#My only thoughts during his lives#bang chan imagines#bang chan oneshot#bang chan scenarios#bangchan x you#stray kids imagines#stray kids x you#bang chan x reader#bangchan x reader#bang chan hard thoughts#bang chan smut#bangchan hard hours#chan smut#chan imagines#channies room#stray kids smut#skz scenarios#skz smut#channie smut
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🌊Digital Detox + Egyptians lucid dreaming method 🌊
Idk what to put on the title of this post so I wrote digital detox and I have copy pasted the main lines.
In the ancient Egypt the Egyptians use to have lucid dreaming alot and it was extremely easy for for them not just Egyptians but it was also mention ancient Indian scriptures.
You’re probably wondering ‘what’s the secret’?
The real problem is often NOT your technique.
It’s actually another issue that no amount of techniques, articles, reality checks, supplements or uncomfortable masks is going to fix.
It’s your ‘inner game’.
Specifically, your subconscious motivation and reward circuits, and ‘dopamine cycle’.
Travel in your mind for a second, to ancient Egypt.
There were no smart phones, internet connections, computer animated action movies or virtual reality headsets.
Your brain back then would have produced a healthy amount of dopamine as a reward for pretty basic things like eating, working, exploring, and taking some time to relax or meditate
Now our average attention spans are literally less than 7 SECONDS.
It’s probably a lot lower than that, and It’s declining every single year with the rise of new, highly addictive and stimulating social media apps and platforms.
When was the last time you meditated for over 90 minutes?
Have you ever?
I’m not saying you have to do that to lucid dream, but this sort of practice was very common 5000 years ago. In fact, it was weird NOT to do that.
And herein lies the main problem.
Your brain is ‘fried’ with an overly stimulated dopamine pathway.
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that stimulates the feeling of WANTING to keep doing something.
It’s the reason you keep scrolling through Instagram, or keep refreshing your Facebook feed to see if there are any new comments or notifications.
But it’s also the SUBCONSCIOUS reason you aren’t able to lucid dream easily.
In the last decade especially, there have been billions of dollars spent by big tech to essentially ‘addict you’ to their platforms.
Why?
Money.
The more time and energy you spend on platforms like that, the more money they make. So the task has been given to artificial intelligence.
The AIs often just get trained and told a few basic things:
1: Get people to spend more time on the platform
2: Get people to keep coming BACK to the platform as often as possible
The ‘AI’ pays almost NO attention to what that would do to your mental health, attention span, motivation, emotions, or really anything else.
Much LESS attention is paid to the effect it has on your ability to focus, or do things like, say, lucid dream.
Now, the ‘dopamine cycle’ is one part of the problem, but it’s actually pretty easy to fix.
There are several little pieces to what I call the ‘modern brain puzzle’.
Things that just weren’t a problem 5000 years ago.
You can see some of this playing out in children today.
On average, children or people under the age of 15, find it MUCH easier to lucid dream than adults do. It’s because at that age, their dopamine system has not been damaged too much.
This is of course changing now, as more and more children are having access to smartphones, but it’s an interesting point.
In fact not only does the dopamine problem affect your ability to lucid dream, it also affects your ability to WANT to lucid dream (consciously and subconsciously).
Specifically I’m talking about your motivation and focus.
And you guessed it, there’s your number one cause of problems when trying to meditate, practice techniques like the WILD, or recall your dreams.
After reading this paragraph or stanza whatever,I noticed something,as a kid I had lucid dreams alot with just putting intentions.
My first lucid dream was at around 7-8 years old,and I was sinking when I realised I was dream and I tried controlling my dream and even succeeded,and I was probably there for about 10 minutes playing with underwater creatures and mermaids.
And till 7 grade I use to have alot of lucid dreams but after that I was allowed to use phone and so I was always invested in phone like all the time. By the way lucid dream was pretty normal for me and I pretty much forgot about it and never really paid attention to lucid dreaming. And then I rarely had any lucid dreams, probably 4 times ever since 8 grade and I've noticed every time I lucid dream it's always whenever I don't use any social media.
In 9 grade my phone was taken again because my mother noticed my social media addiction. And after few months I again start to lucid dream for fun easily and effortlessly but during COVID I was again allowed to have my phone and then a new laptop so now my life was revolving around social media again and for the past few year I only lucid dream whenever I don't get to use my phone more then 2 days.
Idk bout y'all but I wasn't allowed to use phones or laptop till 8th grade so the only thing I knew was TV which I only watched after coming home so like my mind was most of the te bored because I didn't had anything to keep it entertain which made it easy for me to observe around looking for things to do.
So how can you reverse the ‘dopamine problem’ and several of the other issues modern life has created?
By the way:
This is NOT about destroying your phone and going back to live in a cave.
There are actually several powerful habits you can install, that will let you KEEP using your phone, laptop etc, but without these harmful effects.
Here’s the simple solution to more lucid dreams:
1. Reverse engineer your life and remove distractions, manipulation, ‘dopamine hijacking’ and harmful blue light exposure from your daily routine (along with some other ‘problem patterns’)
2. Get inside your subconscious brain and rewire yourself to WANT to practice lucid dreaming, and to effortlessly do reality checks at the right time, without even trying
3. Learn powerful ‘all day awareness’ and ‘lucid living’ techniques that give your brain superpowers in the fight
4. On top of THAT foundation, learn the most effective techniques and concepts, use our tools to stay motivated, and experience lucid mastery within 14 days.
Let’s dive a little bit deeper:
First, you have to ‘reverse engineer’ the problem.
This can be complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing, but we’ve laid everything out step by step for you.
If dopamine addiction is part of the problem, we have to break that addiction first.
Then comes your mindset, and your motivation pathways.
You need to actually feel GOOD when you practice these things. I see so many people saying they’re struggling to remember to do reality checks, or they just don’t want to wake up at ‘weird times’ to practice.
Don’t worry, you won’t have to.
It will feel good, and you’ll ENJOY practicing these things.
Next, your subconscious mind. It’s SO important to fix your internal beliefs about lucid dreaming, because the chances are you have ‘internal blocks’ about becoming lucid.
They’re easy to pick up, but a bit harder to ‘unlearn’. The system shows you how to ‘unlearn’ them, and install new, powerful and self affirming beliefs into your mind. This gives your brain lots more motivation to keep trying.
Now, one of the most common things I hear people say is that they can’t REMEMBER to keep doing reality checks. It’s linked to the dopamine problem we mentioned earlier, but it’s also connected to a few other psychological principles that we’ll get onto.
We’ll give you a new framework to ENJOY reality checks, remember them without any annoying reminders, and actually get them to SHOW UP in your dreams, 9 out of 10 times.
And then finally, we’ll build the most effective techniques, methods and concepts on top of that new, strong foundation. Of course, I’m simplifying this here, but that’s the outline.
Here are some videos that may help.
youtube
youtube
If you want to know more about it or get the steps to lucid dream you can buy the book or go through a long step to get it for free but the procedure is very long and probably only for Iphone user.
You find some good articles ways to do the 'reverse dopamine' thingy.(I donot trust my research on this topic cuz I got confuse)
You may use Adambja's tape to reprogram your subconscious and this hacking the matrix tape the comments under the video was so good and I found this tape on someone's success story. You can use this two tapes to reprogram your subconscious and of course psych-k.
This is pretty much all you need digital detox,observing your surroundings and subconscious reprogramming to change your belief or assumptions.
And this will make you even more motivated that you are working on your goals as many of us have the access of devices it's hard for us to keep up with all this method and it's not like we are always busy if we are we wouldn't be scrolling through Tumblr and Pinterest all the time. If you read the the copy pasted part you'll see what I mean.
Edit: I forgot to mention it 🥲 if we follow do this we CAN HAVE lucid dream everyday.
Egyptians lucid dreaming tea
This will be quick,so I went to my aunt's place with my mother and my aunt's ran out of tea powder/leaves so she used her daughter's blue lotus tea and after getting home I took a nap and I HAD A FOKING LUCID DREAM,so basically I didn't knew that it was the tea until I was doing some research on LD and found out that in ancient Egypt they use Blue Lotus tea and I found some review about it on YouTube and people had very vivid dreams aswell. This tea basically put you in REM which y'all probably know about.
But I don't like tea😐,so if anyone have interest you can try I honestly want to but my hate for tea is on top on the list of top 5 things I hate,you can find them online people even use Blue Lotus in vape😐not encourageling y'all to smoke but if anyone does you can.
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Writing Resources
Here is a list of writing resources I’ve found useful, in no particular order:
Words, Descriptions, Writing Help
Power Thesaurus: The BEST resource for “tip of the tongue” syndrome
OneLook Reverse Dictionary
Writerology: This site is trying to sell you stuff. But there are also a ton of great articles in their free blog
Descriptionary: Help describing emotions and other things
Grammarly: Don’t take it too seriously and remember you’re the final arbiter of your own writing voice, but it can help you see things you won’t on your own
Hemingway: Similarly to Grammarly, will help with clarity and cadence, as long as you don’t take its suggestions as marching orders. Available online or as a downloadable desktop app.
Worldbuilding
Vulgar: Conlanging tool. Free and paid versions, the free is still very useful, but I have the paid version and have definitely gotten my money’s worth from it (but I like conlanging). Learning curve is a little steep.
Inkarnate: Mapmaking tool. Again, free and paid versions are both solid.
A World-Building Checklist: VERY comprehensive
Fantasy Globe: Create a virtual globe of your fantasy world
Name Generators
Fantasy Name Generators: The gold standard
Donjon Generators: Generators for names (including from your own list of names), as well as a lot of other things, like maps, calendars, inns, towns, even whole worlds.
Fake Name Generator: Generates demographic info, fake addresses and phone numbers, height/weight, etc. along with names
Not Another Tavern Generator: Generates bars complete with bartenders and general atmosphere, primarily for fantasy settings
Miscellaneous
Unsplash: Free images with blanket permissions for personal use. Great for covers/headers.
NASA Image and Video Library
Compare the Heights of Your Chars
Writing With Color: Words for Skin Tone: How to describe POC with sensitivity and artistry
Describing characters of color in writing: First of NK Jemisin’s excellent three-part series on this topic, with real examples from various works
Tagging Guide for AO3
#pigeon writes#writing#writing tools#writing advice#not mass effect#i actually have power thesaurus set up as a custom search in chrome#so i can just type power and the word directly into my address bar and get results#that's how much i use it lol
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I’ve been laughing at this tiktok for the last hour (by hour I mean for the last week) and I can’t help but think about Wayne and Eddie 😭
Slamming the car door, Eddie takes his phone out his pocket to listen to the message Wayne left.
“Hey Ed. It’s your dad. Listen—your sister sent me and Susan money to help out with the garage fixin, since she plowed my car through it at two in the morning…”
Eddie feels the nerve in his lower back spike. He pinches his nose.
“Which is fine, her mama and I very much appreciate it. However…this lil’ girl Pippy—”
Poppy Eddie mouths
“—ya’ got told Max to send me electronic money. Now, I know I got it. I got a message saying it’s at the Apple Pay.”
Eddie groans, he leans his forehead on the steering wheel.
“Jesus fuck! Why did she send it through Apple Pay?!”
He remembered specifically telling you to take max to the bank.
“Now, I don’t know what that is. I didn’t even know I had the Apple Pay. Apple not paying any bills in this house…so what I’m thinking—what?! Yeah I’m on the phone with him. What?! A message! He didn’t answer. I don’t know if he can pick up the roast Susie!…anyway, so I’m thinking Apple Pay has my money. I don’t play about money, Ed, not even Monopoly money.”
Eddie opens his messages to send you a text.
Teddy spaghetti
You sent Wayne money to his Apple Pay!!!
Poppins
Hi honey, how are you? I’m fine. How’s your day? I’m only driving all over town for your step moms grocery list
Teddy spaghetti
Hi honey
Poppins
That’s better
And yea
Max forgot her PIN number
Teddy spaghetti
She says that so she doesn’t have to pay for shit!
Did you ask Billy????
Poppins
You gotta be fuckin crazy 🫠
lol
“Now, what do I have to do to get my money from Apple Pay? I don’t like all this virtual money. I don’t even like blade runner, Ed. I don’t like all this Casio, casius app, vinega—vinmo, I almost said vinegar. It’s hard for me to, ya’ know—they don’t make this easy on older people…well…that’s what I got a son for. We need to figure this out so I can get this money…anyway. Call me back. Bye.”
Based on this masterpiece 💀
#Eddie and poppy#Eddie and Poppins#poppy Pierre#eddie munson/reader#munsonology’s eddieverse#eddie munson x female reader#eddie munson fem!reader#fem reader#sav’s multiverse of eddie’s#mary poppins!reader#Eddie Munson/poppy Pierre#Eddie Munson/marypoppins!reader
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AU PROMPTS FOR AU AUGUST ;
It’s August, that means it’s time for more AUs. Send a number for an AU, dynamic, or trope that will be used to write either a drabble or starter. Send 💫 for a random number instead. You’re welcome to send multiple in one ask to combine them.
POPULAR PROMPTS.
001. aristocrat au
002. assassin au
003. bakery au
004. band / musician au
005. coffee shop au
006. college au
007. cyberpunk au
008. dark fantasy / grimdark au
009. dystopian au
010. high fantasy au
011. historical au
012. monster (vampire, werewolf, etc.) au
013. murder mystery au
014. paranormal au
015. pirate au
016. roommate au
017. royalty au
018. superhero / supervillain au
019. time travel au
020. zombie / undead apocalypse au
LESS POPULAR PROMPTS.
021. alien invasion au
022. circus / performer au
023. deserted island au
024. host (alien, parasite, etc.) au
025. host club au
026. imaginary friend au
027. mad scientist au
028. mmorpg / virtual world au
029. no humans au
030. penpal au
031. podcaster au
032. private investigator au
033. role reversal au
034. influencer / streamer au
035. space opera au
036. street racing au
037. treasure hunter au
038. underground fighting au
039. urban fantasy au
040. writer au
FANDOM CROSSOVER PROMPTS.
041. Alice in Wonderland
042. Among Us
043. Animal Crossing
044. Assassin’s Creed
045. Avatar: the Last Airbender
046. Battle Royale / Squid Game
047. Beauty and the Beast
048. Dead By Daylight
049. Dragon Age
050. Dungeons and Dragons
051. Mass Effect
052. Peter Pan
053. Phantom of the Opera
054. Pokémon
055. Scooby Doo
056. Silent Hill
057. Stardew Valley
058. Stranger Things
059. Studio Ghibli (any film)
060. The Lost Boys
POPULAR TROPES.
061. bad guy won’t die
062. break the cutie
063. conjuring evil
064. dead cell phone
065. deal with the devil
066. everything is a simulation
067. false friend
068. final boy / girl
069. fire-forged friends
070. found family
071. found footage
072. hidden in plain sight
073. idealist vs. pragmatist
074. library full of secret knowledge
075. nightmare on Halloween
076. secret heir to the throne
077. the chosen one
078. the powerful artifact
079. the reluctant hero
080. the world that never progresses
LESS POPULAR TROPES.
081. aw, look! they really do love each other!
082. awesome, but impractical
083. bad guys doing good things
084. blessed with suck
085. condensation clue
086. dark is not always evil
087. dead all along
088. eviler than thou
089. false chosen one
090. genius bruiser
091. genius ditz
092. golden hero to anti-hero
093. good people with evil powers
094. light is not always good
095. mood whiplash
096. nature’s revenge
097. really 700 years old
098. villain is actually the hero
099. you are number six
100. you can’t fight fate
SHIP TROPES.
101. afraid to commit
102. bet / dared to date
103. dating app
104. drunk / Vegas wedding
105. enemies to lovers
106. fairytale retelling
107. fake relationship
108. fated mates / soulmates
109. forbidden love
110. friends to lovers
111. grumpy person with sunny person
112. holiday fling
113. love at first sight
114. marriage before romance
115. marriage pact
116. playboy / girl in love
117. right person, wrong time
118. secret admirer / unrequited love
119. there’s only one bed
120. work rivals
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A former Maryland mayor and well known LGBTQ activist, convicted earlier this year in a heinous child pornography case, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday.
Patrick Wojahn, who resigned as mayor of College Park, Maryland, on March 2 before his arrest, pleaded guilty to 140 charges related to child pornography as part of a deal struck with prosecutors. He was sentenced to 150 years total, with all but 30 years suspended, but still will be eligible for parole in 7.5 years under state law, The Washington Post reported. The conviction came after investigators linked an account sharing illicit images to his government email address.
"I do sense the remorsefulness," Prince George's County Circuit Court Judge Karen Mason said of Wojahn on Monday during an emotional hearing when prosecutors read hours of victim impact statements. "And I do know you take responsibility."
Authorities say the 48-year-old uploaded and shared dozens of photos and videos depicting explicit child sex abuse, including the rape of prepubescent boys by adults, to social media apps in January, The Post reported. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified Prince George’s County Police Department of the social media activity in mid-February.
Through their investigation, police determined a social media account with the screen name "skippy_md" belonged to Wojahn, FOX 5 DC reported.
By means of a subpoena, investigators found that Wojahn's College Park government email address was listed as the recovery email for the Kik account. Wojahn's phone number and home IP address were linked to the account, according to authorities, who say the ex-mayor used a virtual private network to mask his location when accessing the account.
More explicit images were also found on the social media app Telegram.
OKLAHOMA HUMAN TRAFFICKING SUSPECT ARRESTED, ALLEGEDLY USED FAKE ID TO AVOID DEPORTATION FOR 2 DECADES
Court records show Wojahn was indicted in March by a grand jury on 80 counts of possessing and intent to distribute child pornography, which were amplified to 140 counts in May through a superseding indictment. He pleaded guilty in August to all 60 counts of distribution of child pornography, 40 of possession of child pornography and 40 of possessing child pornography with the intent to distribute. Of those kids depicted in the hundreds of photos and videos Wojahn possessed and shared, law enforcement identified 52 child victims, some of whom are now adults, in collaboration with the Justice Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Their victim impact statements read in court detailed struggles with extreme anxiety, paranoia, poor sleep, trust issues and a sense of safety, and some said they have been stalked and forced to move their current families and children of their own after being exposed as victims of online child exploitation.
The judge cited Wojahn's own past as a victim of sexual abuse and also heard declarations of support from 16 people in the courtroom who spoke about Wojahn’s history of public service before deciding to refer the former mayor to the Patuxent Institution, a treatment-oriented maximum-security prison in Maryland.
Wojahn himself addressed the courtroom Monday to apologize.
"I know I contributed to that, and I’m deeply, deeply sorry … I recognize the damage I have caused," he said, according to the Post.
"I want to be the person they know me to be," he said to the community, before addressing his husband, "I love you, too, very much."
Wojahn, a staunch LGBTQ advocate and graduate of Georgetown University Law School who joined a lawsuit with his now-husband against the state of Maryland in 2006 to make marriage a right for same-sex couples in the state, had served on the College Park City Council for eight years until he was elected mayor in November 2015. He served in that role for seven years until his resignation earlier this year.
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About: the suggestion of region-locked servers
Since not everyone has read the Sky Economy Q&A here is the segment where it came up (transcripts below)
Image transcript
What is the team planning to do to address the impact of increased IAP prices on players? Because of ongoing inflation and real-life events, these IAPs are no longer in many players’ purchasing power.
Prices for in-app purchases (IAP) outside of the US increased unevenly for some countries last year when Apple and Google adjusted prices to reflect changes in the real-world economy. In response, publishers with games in certain regions increased the amount of virtual currency given in each purchase to try to offset the new price. They were able to do this because their games were available in only a few countries, or even just one country. Sky is available in dozens of countries, so this kind of offset may help in one country but create additional problems in others.
The Sky team has considered setting different prices for different countries based on the strength of their economies, but not everyone on the team agrees that it's the best strategy. This is because it comes with cultural costs.
We want to create a positive online community that promotes good behavior like inclusivity, compassion, and generosity. It moves us to see that this has led to people from different countries forming genuine friendships, even if their nations are in conflict. Meanwhile, a popular feature in Sky that we added based on player feedback is the ability to gift items to other players who can't afford them. We've made many in-app purchases giftable, and have even introduced Season Passes that can be gifted.
However, setting different prices for different regions can have certain consequences. One is pricing arbitrage, where people profit by exploiting price differences through trading. While we limit trading in Sky, people can still make a profit by scaling the number of transactions with enough buyers. We've seen similar arbitrage in other countries with mobile phone carriers and discount coupons, for example. In games, this leads to fraud, stealing, and toxic behavior in a community.
These harmful impacts could be prevented in the community by limiting players to servers for only their specific region or country. But, this would hurt our community's ability to meet friends outside their own country. Some of us at the studio think the trade-off would be worth it, while others prefer the current simpler approach that allows more people to be together. We want to know your thoughts too! Share them with us by using the hashtag #SkyRegions on social media.
Lastly, while foreign currency rates are improving over time, Apple and Google haven't adjusted their prices accordingly. We may need to reevaluate our prices if they don't change.
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Last week, Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as “X.” New CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted that X would be “centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking,” a step toward Musk’s vision of creating the “everything app” for the Western world. Musk has been focused on this vision for Twitter since before he even bought it, repeatedly praising the Chinese app WeChat in a June 2022 town hall at Twitter. WeChat is known for doing virtually anything an app can do—messaging, audio/video, meetings, translation, social networking, shopping, payments, ride sharing, food delivery, and more. It’s an indispensable app in China, and Musk wants to build X into that app in the United States.
Musk has been laser-focused on his vision of the everything app for longer than most realize. He’s also long been obsessed with the letter X—he named his original online bank X.com, founded SpaceX, and even named his son “X Æ A-12.” His X-ray vision, if you’ll forgive the pun, dates back to his founding of the original X.com. Musk described that firm, which would eventually merge with Confinity to form PayPal, as a “global financial nexus” that could handle bank accounts, mortgages, credit, insurance, stocks—anything and everything financial.
On the face of it, none of this seems unreasonable. Such an app would be one of the most valuable companies in the world if it succeeded. It’s a tall task, but Musk has been involved in the founding of three separate multibillion-dollar companies. WeChat (along with competitors such as AliPay) has proven that such apps can reach scale and be wildly successful. And WeChat was initially built on the back of parent company Tencent’s popular social network, QQ. If it can be done, why not Musk? And why not start with Twitter?
Unfortunately for Musk, his vision of creating a Western WeChat is doomed to failure. Companies like Meta and Alphabet have made attempts before. These companies have every advantage—more cash available than Musk, larger pools of technical talent, better public reputation, and more successful lines of business in the app ecosystem. Nevertheless, none have succeeded in building an everything app. WeChat exists in a very specific Chinese context, and attempts to brute force it in a very different context will crash and burn.
The most important function of an aspiring everything app is payments, which unlock enormous value for the app and convenience for the user. But mobile payments in China are an outlier—87 percent of Chinese people used mobile payments in 2021, almost double the next highest nation. And that outlier status comes from the unique way that China’s payment economy developed.
China’s explosive economic growth over the 2000s saw the country transition from being a mostly unbanked, cash-based economy to a phone-based, app-payment economy without ever having a middle phase of adopting credit cards. As China’s new middle class grew, credit cards were available to a limited upper class—but never became a commonplace part of national financial infrastructure.
What China did have was a lot of cheap smartphones. By the early 2010s, most people there still didn’t have a PC, but they had a mobile phone, and increasingly they were switching to cheap smartphones. But those smartphones were mostly low-end products, with limited processing power and storage space. A high number of bloated apps wasn’t going to cut it for an average user, so many basic functionalities began to cluster inside a small number of super-apps. With the public hungry to abandon cash, apps like WeChat were the natural and widespread solution. Most vendors didn’t have existing relationships with payment companies. But they were happy to jump all the way to taking mobile payments—especially since all they needed to do so was a cheap smartphone, not an expensive terminal. China essentially leapfrogged credit cards all the way to mobile payment.
The United States in 2023 is not in that same position. Americans, for the most part, are not newly middle class and unbanked. Americans love credit cards, have deep experience with them, and use them regularly. And the country is filled with an enormous number of financial firms competing at every level—banking services, credit services, payment apps, stock brokerages, and more. Musk’s X will be entering a far more crowded and competitive market for customers who are already using far better and more developed alternatives.
Competitive is the key word there, because there are many Western companies that would have loved to compete with apps such as WeChat. But China’s government long ago banned nearly every non-Chinese alternative to native Chinese apps in areas including social media, video sharing, messaging, news, search, finance, and more. The list of apps banned in China is so extensive that it’s likely faster to point out the few that aren’t banned.
With so much of the competition absent, it was much easier for Chinese apps to dominate many fields at once as Chinese internet adoption skyrocketed. The Chinese government mostly didn’t pick favorites domestically at first—but it kept out foreign competition and let domestic products thrive. Twitter/X doesn’t live in that same world. The U.S. government won’t protect Musk from competition.
One of the ironies in all this is that the window to develop an everything app may be over in China as well, as the Chinese government’s approach to the tech sector has changed. During China’s boom years, the state often took a laissez-faire approach to tech regulation. The Hu Jintao government and even the early Xi Jinping years saw a booming economy, where tech companies were allowed to grow rapidly and dominate markets as long as they cooperated with censorship, handed over information to the government, and paid off the right people. Analyst XiaoFeng Wang explicitly links this flexible environment with WeChat’s growth, saying, “The more flexible regulatory environment in China at the time gave internet companies like Tencent and Alibaba more room to extend to a wide range of businesses. WeChat benefited from that and grew into a super-app.”
But the Chinese government has grown deeply worried about the power of the super-apps, for both good and bad reasons. Any power that does not reside directly in the party’s hands is distrusted at a time when Xi has demanded total party leadership of everything—and the influence and reach of tech companies has been sharply curtailed in the last few years, wiping billions off their value. Chinese regulators were also genuinely worried about the sheer degree of anti-competitive practices. It had become common, for instance, for firms to block links to their competitors’ products. Breaking down those “walled gardens” has become a major part of regulation since 2021.
Building a super-app would be hard in China today—and even harder in the United States or Europe, with their anti-monopoly legislation and political skepticism toward powerful tech companies. Even if Musk’s X could theoretically succeed, it probably wouldn’t be allowed to do so legally.
Yet paradoxically, while regulators raised eyebrows, elements of the Chinese government also welcomed the opportunities that WeChat and other ubiquitous apps offered. Chinese firms exist at the pleasure of the state and are always subordinate partners to it. WeChat’s parent company, Tencent, is well known for collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party in areas large and small, producing sycophantic patriotic games and engaging in widespread censorship and espionage. Foreign Policy has reported that Tencent was even partially funded by the Ministry of State Security in its early days.
These incidents highlight why an app such asWeChat would be permitted to thrive—because it’s useful to the party. In the James C. Scott sense, WeChat increases the legibility of Chinese society. You can’t control what you can’t see, so make sure you can easily see everything. If all of Chinese daily life is funneled through a single portal, it’s that much easier for the party to observe and control lives. Monitoring a single WeChat account could allow police to see an individual’s travel patterns, spending, and social contacts, which is why many dissidents or activists avoid using the app when possible.
Chinese consumers have become more privacy-conscious about the data they hand over to companies—but are hopeless or unaware of the amount of information the government can get from them. Western companies hoping to emulate WeChat not only don’t have the government on their side, but also face a much tougher and more skeptical audience. And in Musk’s case, who—apart from the most ardent of fans—is going to trust him with their money at this point?
WeChat and its counterparts in China grew up in unique, nonrepeatable circumstances. They faced a massive middle class with plenty of cheap smartphones but no traditional banking or credit cards. They were protected from Western competition by the Chinese government. That same government applied a very light regulatory touch as the companies grew, and also encouraged centralization as a way to maintain greater control.
None of those factors exist in the United States today, and Musk’s dream of building the X app for everything is essentially impossible without them. American consumers already have dozens of easy payment choices through credit cards, debit cards, and existing mobile apps. Musk won’t be protected from competition by the government. Instead, he’ll be treated in a more hostile manner by regulators concerned about privacy, monopoly power, and his general history with flouting the law.
Larger and more important tech firms than Twitter—or, as Musk now insists, X—have tried and failed in this area. Meta owns several social networks and several messaging apps, and has tried expanding into areas like marketplaces, video, payments and more. But most of these experiments have failed to reach any sort of scale, and Meta’s successes have come from disaggregating and breaking things apart rather than bundling them together. Google’s Alphabet parent company has succeeded in a wide variety of areas such as search, video, email, payments, and more. But its attempts to build a social network flamed out spectacularly, and like Meta, their biggest successes have come from separated apps and brands, not a singular everything app.
For all its cultural importance and for all that the chattering class is addicted to it, Twitter’s just never been that large. Meta has nearly 4 billion monthly active users across its family of apps. Twitter/X, even if you believe Musk’s suspiciously cropped data, is a bit more than a 10th of that. Meta and Alphabet are orders of magnitude larger and more important than Twitter/X. If they’ve tried and failed to create the everything app, there’s no reason to believe that Musk can succeed.
Musk’s vision for the original X.com impressed Silicon Valley. By 2000, X.com had merged with Confinity, and Musk took over as CEO of the new company. He focused his vision on the global financial nexus, the proto-everything app, despite investor and board skepticism. He pursued that idea maniacally, to the detriment of PayPal/X’s core product of payment by email. He also insisted on branding the company as “X,” despite PayPal’s strong existing brand.
And in less than a year, he was coup’d out of the company and replaced as CEO by Peter Thiel. PayPal was saved as a company because its board ejected Musk. This time around there’s no board that matters except Elon, and there’s no one to save him from himself.
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Was supposed to have a doctor appointment downtown at a place I was referred to by my primary care doctor (who I'm about done with) but when I arrived they said 'oops we're actually not in network but you can pay us $200 if you still wanna have your appointment'
so I walked out and went to find a beer instead.
Only bright side is I refused to make another login on their stupid app so I didn't have to spend the last week getting spammed with all their 'appointment updates' and 'early sign in' prompts. Healthcare providers have lost their damn minds if they think I'm putting up with more of that. They called me yesterday to complain that I hadn't logged in to their 'patient portal' yet and I just said, 'mmm, but what if I didn't?' They were like, 'uh... um... okay just arrive 30 minutes early.' 'See, I can do that.'
Not that it did me any good. I gave them my insurance info on the phone when I booked the appointment 2 weeks ago and what was the point of even doing that if they were just gonna decide not to tell me I'm 'out of network'? Or is it that they're 'out of network'? Hell if I know.
Finished my beer, went home, and logged on to the stupid insurance site to find a stupid provider that IS 'in network.' Turns out there's only one without a slew of negative reviews. I called their number, got a robot maze, picked a dead end option, it hung up on me. Called again, tried a different path, got a person, she said she was the wrong person, gave me a number for the right people but said they were in a meeting. It was 4pm so I asked when they closed. 5pm. Waited 30 minutes, called the number, "number cannot be completed as dialed," hung up. Went back through the call robot, got their voicemail, voicemail explained that they won't return calls after 4pm. Left one anyway.
Also tried to find a psychologist since I was already suffering anyway and discovered there's only one who's 'in-network' who might be able to help me. Got rerouted to their website, very corporate (hate it), it funneled me into a virtual appointment queue and demanded my credit card info. Tried calling instead, lady on the phone says yeah no a virtual appointment won't work for diagnostic assessment so I have to go in person. Oh, and the location on my insurance site is wrong, it's actually 2 hours away. I say 'thanks I'll keep looking' and hang up.
I'll die, thanks!
#us healthcare is a joke#personal problems#defeated#why do I even try#I hope a horse kicks me in the head so I never have to talk to a phone robot again
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The Ink Black Heart: Braindump
**many spoilers ahead**
Firstly I want to say apologies for the DREADFUL formatting. There’s huge spaces between sections and no line spaces within the sections. I’m fully aware. This was originally written in the notes app and the Tumblr app hates copy and paste apparently. I couldn’t bring myself to type it all in again from scratch.
But here it is! A lot of this is just me letting my brain run free and might make no sense to anyone but writing it out helps me make sense of everything for myself.
The Case
Up until about page 800, I was fully ready to come out and say I did *not* like this case. It was almost labyrinthine in the way it baffled me. So many characters, both real and virtual, and trying to figure out which real life character is which mod in the game and who could possibly be Anomie, left me with a headache a lot of the time. I had to force myself to read through the more case-heavy chapters at the beginning of the book and resist the urge to flip ahead to more main character-led/shippy content. What I will say with some pride though, is I guessed Gus was the killer very early on - which never happens for me! Real talk, and others may disagree, but I do genuinely feel like a lot of women online are mostly able to pick out that type of male character a mile off and I just sensed it from first meeting of Gus. Also the way Flavia spoke about him was very sus from the beginning. The crescendo of this case however, was probably the best of any of the books for me. My heart was genuinely beating so fast at that final scene. Gus telling Robin very matter of factly that he was going to rape Robin before he killed her made my spine shiver. And then Strike being stabbed!! Absolutely did not see any of that coming and audibly gasped a few times. Something else that wasn’t hard to notice was how much danger this case put everyone in; the letter bomb at the office, the dude being pushed into the path of a train and Robin jumping down to help, the entire end scene with Gus - this book seemed to place everyone, particularly Robin, in peril at some point. As an aside though, I like the sense of renewal and reborn that the office explosion seemed to give. It feels like a fresh start is about to happen and I really do think that’s intentionally symbolic and hopefully a hint to good things to come.
Character Development
I’ve loved the development of more “minor” characters in IBH. Particularly Ilsa and Robin’s close friendship and her love life advice. Ilsa is the OG strellacott shipper and it gives me LIFE. I love that she’s there to remind Robin all the things that us as readers want her to know about the way Strike sees and values her. I think the reader is able to see so much of themselves and their thoughts on Corm and Robin reflected by Ilsa, I know I do, and that’s why I genuinely shed a little happy tear at her pregnancy news. Again, a rebirth and a renewal - seems to be a fledgling theme of sorts!! Also definitely worthy of a mention is Strike and Barclay’s bantery friendship. Absolutely loved the way they bounce off eachother and hope there’s more to come. Pat really endeared herself to me in IBH, she seems to have a secret soft spot for Cormoran that makes me so happy. Her basically saving Cormoran’s life and then dusting herself off and worrying more about her e-cig was just iconic. I also love the introduction of Midge!!! I need more Midge content in my life and I hope she gets a bit more involved with the other characters next book.
Charlotte
I remember there was some debate after Troubled Blood as to whether we’d be seeing Charlotte again. Cormoran had deleted her phone number and all roads were leading to Robin at that point. However, Charlotte is Charlotte. Deleting her number isn’t going to deter her and my girl knows people who know people who know people. She was always going to creep back somehow.
Might be contentious, but part of me did think a little bit of Cormoran at the beginning of this book wasn’t fully over Charlotte, deep down. When Valentine told him about Madeline’s connection to Charlotte, he didn’t run a mile as I - and to be fair, most people - would if the guy I was chatting up turned out to be matey with a particularly batshit ex of mine. I found it really really interesting to see him date a girl that both looked like Robin physically, but knew Charlotte on a social level and had similar social climber tendencies. It’s almost as if it was his way of having a little bit of both, and ultimately realising that can’t work. What’s changed though, and what made my heart happy, was Cormoran’s reaction to Charlotte’s clear manipulation and advances. A part of me did really think we’d have a Charmoran (?) reprisal at one point, but he seems almost…pitiful toward her? He truly does seem to have moved on - and this was seen in that almost seismic revelation toward the end of the book that Charlotte doesn’t care a damn about her children, and there aren’t any hidden sensitive depths to her as he had once believed. This was big for me as a reader as if I’m honest, I’d thought he’d came to that conclusion a long time ago but clearly he hadn’t, so seeing it on paper gave a sense of finality that was so refreshing to read. Do I think we’ve seen the last of Charlotte now? Maybe not in terms of her being mentioned. I’m sure she’ll crop up at some point even if it’s just an update on where her life is at. But I do genuinely believe this is finally the last of Cormoran being in any way affected by her.
Corm & Robin
So the big one, of course, is that we got two admissions of love!!!! Or at very least Cormoran now concedes he can’t deny ‘its’ existence. That’s an admission to me! This is huge. I do truly hope that this is the last book of slow burn before we see actual romantic content. I know RG said in interview that they feel Robin and Cormoran both need to fix a lot about themselves before they can be ready for one another and I do believe we saw a lot of that in IBH. It felt a lot different than previous instalments in terms of emotional development from both; I noticed, for example, Robin taking Cormoran to task for any snarky offhand comments she found patronising or insulting, telling him specifically why she didn’t like them. In books gone by, she’d brood over those comments for days before either letting it go or waiting until Cormoran realised his errors and apologised. There’s the obvious changes too, of course. As much as I hated reading about Robin kissing Pez or agreeing to date Ryan, I get why she needed to do that. I feel like most of us have told a girlfriend that they should broaden their horizons and see different people after a breakup, so I’d likely give that advice to Robin. That said though, the end of the Coda chapter absolutely killed. Me. Off. I can’t pretend I’m not planning some kind of quickfic about two certain people going on the most disastrous date anyone’s ever been on…. A central theme of the book was Cormoran’s health finally catching up with him, and his complete bullish stubbornness in regard to doing anything about it. I think a lot of us know somebody like this. My own dad would rather chew his fingers off than admit he might be a little bit unwell, for example. So we all know how frustrating it is to see someone in total pain and letting the problem fester and worsen when they could just swallow their pride and sort it out early on. If we want to get all CliffNotes over here - and made no mistake, I always wanna get CliffNotey - this is mirrored with Corm’s refusal to face his feelings for Robin head on, choosing to let them simmer away and letting Robin think he’s uninterested, or his avoidance of his father and extended family. Cormoran is a really brave guy, but he’s also quite a daft one. His daftness, combined with that ever-present overprotectiveness, however, provided us with the most quotable and gif-able comment of the whole series - “I don’t want to lose you” - cue me, in the words of Ms Swift: screaming, crying. And ultimately, I think this is what pushes him to improve his health and lifestyle. Sure, being stabbed and almost losing even more of his leg helped, but he wants to be better for Robin. She doesn’t want to lose him so he won’t let himself be lost. If I think too much about it I’ll dissolve into a puddle of goo. I feel like book 7 will see a real kiss at least. I think Robin’s hesitation with Strike’s attempt came from not being quite there yet with her realisation of feelings. As much as I would have loved it to be then, it wouldn’t have been right. There would have been more questions raised than either were happy answering and a lot of doubts and discomfort. My genuine prediction is that when it does happen it’ll be in very dramatic circumstances or very much like chapter 58 from Troubled Blood. I’m picturing either a near death scenario on the one hand, or a whiskey-soaked lamplit late-night rendezvous on the other. Both equally delicious…. Either way, Robin’s name is etched on the door now so they’re as good as married in my eyes x
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Brazil creates an app to block stolen cell phones: ‘They will be a useless piece of metal’
Cell phone theft in Brazil is one of the most frequent crimes in big cities, almost a ritual that you have to go through at least once in your life. There are types for all tastes: from theft in the middle of a crowd to armed robbery, including the latest rising trend: shattering the window of a vehicle by surprise and tearing the device from its owner’s hands in milliseconds. Normally, the trauma of loss is followed by a string of painful bureaucratic efforts, and in many cases, the unpleasant surprise of finding a hole in the bank account.
The Brazilian government, through the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, has decided to take action and on Tuesday presented a project that aims to make life easier for victims and reduce robberies. It’s called Celular Seguro (Safe Cell Phone) and it’s a very simple application that will get underway this week. Users must register the cell phone number, or save the number of a trusted person who would be authorized to manage notifications from one’s cell phone. When the theft occurs, the user activates a warning button, which automatically reaches the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), which then renders the device inoperative. In theory this could already be done, but it was almost science fiction, as it required endless minutes on the phone talking to an automated system.
The great novelty is that now, in addition to speeding up the process, the system will also automatically notify the bank in order to block the mobile application, so thieves cannot hack into it. According to the government, banks have promised to act within a period of between 10 and 30 minutes. Virtually everyone who operates in Brazil has joined, so the coverage will be quite broad.
Continue reading.
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Hi, I'm big briefly, and I have a question for any regressors or caregivers who see this.
I've started using the GoodNotes app, and I want to set up a virtual activity book for my smol self, and I would love it if you could reblog this activity pages I could use or comment suggestions or something. I would prefer that everything could be done easily from either a phone or an iPad, meaning that if there are coloring stuff the spaces to color are very large, and if something requires writing then it could be done with a text box. That said, I think that having a few number/letter tracing things could be nice for when I have my iPad.
Also, I want to make a few pages for when I feel overwhelmed, so any suggestions for activities, prompts, etc to help with anxiety and such would also be appreciated.
It's fine if you don't have any ideas, but feel free to reblog this so other people can see it. (Or don't, there's no pressure.)
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Prying Apart The Grip
The iPhone was introduced in July 2007. It’s hard to believe we are coming up on the 17th anniversary of what is now a necessary device—be it Apple or a competitor—for daily living. Apple ushered in a whole new way of life, merging phone, camera, and music player into one device.
Of course, those three were just the tip of the iceberg, and developers wanted a way to get their cool new web-based applications onto those phones. So Apple wisely opened the App Store in 2008. While the number of apps peaked at 2.2 million in 2017, it has settled into a comfortable groove at 1.8 million, thanks to Apple sifting through the mess and deleting some older apps that no longer worked.
But buried in the details of the App Store agreement that developers had to sign with Apple—who vetted each app for safety and security—was some fine print: Every in-app sale would be divided 70/30 between the developer and Apple. Basically, there was and still is a 30% Apple tax just for playing, at least in the US. Every time a user buys something in an app, then Apple gets a healthy chunk of it.
But that is now changing in Europe, where the EU has become the tail that wags the dog.
Remember all those Cookies boxes we have to check off on virtually every website we visit? We can thank the EU and their GDPR, which stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It was easier for everyone to just make it the global standard, even if they are annoying.
And then there was Apple’s announcement last year that all new phones going forward would feature a USB-C connector, instead of the Lightning port. This too was in response to the EU mandating that all phones must have the same connector, and rather than have two global systems, Apple sided with the EU. Admittedly, it does simplify things for everyone, except for Apple users during this transition period. Legacy phone users will have a bunch of obsolete connectors real soon when they upgrade.
The third wave of EU influence just passed, and it is the opening up of the App Store to competitors who wish to have their own stores, thus bypassing the Apple ecosystem. Furthermore, it marks what will be the end of that 30% Apple tax, something that Spotify has been dreaming about ever since it wanted to upsell users with its audio books program. They are pretty happy right now.
Apple, of course, is concerned, arguing that third-party app stores may not pass muster in terms of safety and security, and users could be at risk. Point well taken. I’m betting they are more concerned about losing their revenue sharing program, though.
But for now, this is only going to happen in Europe, but you can bet that US regulators will be watching closely. It could just as easily be mandated here. Apple has enjoyed a tightly-held monopoly in many aspects of its phones, ceding only accessory items to third-party makers. You know. Things like connector cords and dongles that allow you to connect to your laptop all the things that were once standard on a MacBookPro.
Here in the US, we are not accustomed to the heavy hand of government telling companies how to run their business, and if someone wants to take the chance of using proprietary connectors and being the only source of mobile apps, then so be it. The risk is on them.
In the case of Apple, though, this has played out very well for them. It all depends on how the FTC feels about such monopoly power. Apple has 58% share of smartphones in the US, with the remainder scattered across the Android platform. That’s power. If the US were to follow the EU regarding the App Store, it would at least loosen some of the grip this company has on our daily lives.
Maybe that's not such a bad idea, and this coming from a guy who is very laissez faire in worldview. As much as I am an Apple fanboy, with many phones, tablets, and computers through the years, I often feel like Apple is guilty of abusing its position by using customers as product testers, and forcing us to buy things we really don’t want, like those silly dongles so I can read a memory stick or SD card.
Besides, I feel for Spotify on this one, because it has the potential to pose a formidable threat to Audible in the audio book world, except that for now Apple will always have its hand out. Audible, of course, is an Amazon property, and dodges the Apple tax.
Furthermore, 17 years is a long time to have such a death grip on a market. I’m good with following the EU’s lead on this, because in the end it will likely be good for consumers. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
Dr “iReckon” Gerlich
Audio Blog
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Can you provide more information about the personal number masking technology used by RideBoom?
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Torshan Story Segment Four
More Than Meets The Eye
No Trigger Warnings
You click on the ANCAM application and a new window appears, filling the entirety of your primary monitor. The user interface is fairly mundane and spartan. The only few splotches of color on your screen come from the logos of various social media and messaging apps on the left side of your screen. The right side has a bank of editable information such as IP address, physical address, name, phone number, MAC address, and a plethora of other technical information. In between the two sides, right in the middle was a gray, blank slate. The top of the screen had a simple ribbon of options such as “File”, “Options”, and “Identities”.
Tomas leans forward to better look at your screens.
“Ah, ANCAM. It stands for Anonymous Networking, Calling, And Messaging. It’s like a virtual private network, but much more customizable. You can spoof your phone number, location, device information, and even generate believable web browser history and advertisement data if you want to get that in depth. We use it to talk with informants a lot and to interact online without people knowing who we are. Because, let’s be honest, people aren’t always eager to talk with cops. Especially not Xenos.”
Poking about the interface, you find you’re able to automatically generate new identities and devices to spoof, then save them for future use to maintain consistency. From there you’d be able to use that generated information to create an account on Facebook as Jeremy Brewster, a carpenter living in Ronkonkoma, New York. Then you could just as easily create an entirely new identity as Mei Zhao, a journalist living in Hong Kong. From there you’d be able to send messages over a plethora of different apps and websites. While you poked around, you thought it’d be a good idea to pick Tomas’ brain a bit about the goings ons here on the island.
“What’s the current situation with the locals and Xenos?” you ask.
Tomas nodded his head, as if approving of your question. He thought for a moment longer before answering.
“It’s complicated, like everything else,” he scoffed. “Some Xenos integrated pretty well. They’ve got jobs and play nicely in society. Others… well, they ain’t so interested in playing nice. We have a serious gang problem with Xenos. The only reason we haven’t devolved back into a warzone is because some Xeno gangs want to keep the peace. Some of the locals see them as like comic book superheroes come to life.” Tomas shook his head, and rolled his eyes.
“The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Remember that,” he warned.
You pause for a moment, letting his words marinate in your mind.
“Well, what’s the day to day like here? Is there constant fighting going on?” you ask. From what you could tell from the flight in, the island wasn’t quite on fire yet.
“No, no,” Tomas shook his head, “we get into some serious skirmishes from time to time but it’s not every day. Most days it’s just like any other city: except you might sit next to a beast from hell on your bus ride to work in the morning, order food from a vendor that looks like the fish it's selling. In a way, that's the worst part of it all. It all seems so normal until one day, out of the blue, we're all reminded of what these things are capable of." He exhaled deeply, and laid a hand on your shoulder.
"That's why we're doing what we're doing. With your help, we might be able to find a better way to keep Torshan's population safe." With the same hand, he pointed to the screen.
“ANCAM’ll be an important part of that.”
You looked back at the screen and the multitude of options and no clear indication of where you should start.
“What channels of communication do we have for the locals and Xenos?” you ask, gesturing to the left side of the screen containing all of the possible messaging apps and social networking sites one could ever want. You could spend days trudging through it all and still be searching in all the wrong spots.
“Where should I be looking?” you added.
“Well, locals tend to keep to what they know. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram. Those are the places to go if you want to talk with the more… above board people. You’ll get a good amount of Xenos on those platforms too, especially the ones with a professional presence. It’s a good place to get started. Join groups with a decent mix of human and Xeno members and make some friends. If you want to poke around in the seedier side of things, it’s pretty much exclusively done on peer-to-peer encrypted messaging apps. The one popular with Xenos is an app called Semaphore. The only way to get into any of the groups is an explicit invitation by the person who made the group so it’s a notoriously hard nut to crack. If you can get close enough with a Xeno to get into one of these groups, you can get a lot of sensitive information. Though, the crux of the issue is that Xenos don’t tend to be friendly towards known OXEN agents, especially the Xenos that are up to no good. That’s why if you want to be effective here, you’ll need to be discreet.”
You looked back to the screen, at your fake name and phony facebook account, and thought of the stories of undercover agents that came before you. What would you uncover? What would you find? Would you even have what it takes to do what needed to be done?
There's definitely more to look at on the computer, or you could dive right in and start trying to make connections. You can also look at the Xenoform database for more information on some of the big players.
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