The monetization creep has been evident for a while. Reddit has added a subscription ”Reddit premium”; offered “community rewards” as a paid super-vote ; embraced an NFT marketplace; changed the site's design for one with more recommended content; and started nudging users toward the official mobile app. The site has also been adding more restrictions to uploading and viewing “not safe for work” (NSFW) content. All this, while community requests for improvements to moderation tools and accessibility features have gone unaddressed on mobile, driving many users to third-party applications. Perhaps the worst development was announced on April 18th, when Reddit announced changes to its Data API would be starting on July 1st, including new “premium access” pricing for users of the API. While this wouldn’t affect projects on the free tier, such as moderator bots or tools used by researchers, the new pricing seems to be an existential threat to third-party applications for the site. It also bears a striking resemblance to a similar bad decision Twitter made this year under Elon Musk.
[...]
Details about Reddit’s API-specific costs were not shared, but it is worth noting that an API request is commonly no more burdensome to a server than an HTML request, i.e. visiting or scraping a web page. Having an API just makes it easier for developers to maintain their automated requests. It is true that most third-party apps tend to not show Reddit’s advertisements, and AI developers may make heavy use of the API for training data, but these applications could still (with more effort) access the same information over HTML. The heart of this fight is for what Reddit’s CEO calls their “valuable corpus of data,” i.e. the user-made content on the company’s servers, and for who gets live off this digital commons. While Reddit provides essential infrastructural support, these community developers and moderators make the site worth visiting, and any worthwhile content is the fruit of their volunteer labor. It’s this labor and worker solidarity which gives users unique leverage over the platform, in contrast to past backlash to other platforms.
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you know i forgot about that and for some reason though this was a dig at kelsier
Tell us more about Moby Dick!! :D
Ishmael is a fascinating little specimen let me tell you. He has a reputation for being a “boring narrator” but that’s complete bullshit. Right out the gate he’s like “hello this is my (fake) name, I’m poor, I’m depressed, but luckily when I can tell I’m about to kill myself I hop my ass on a boat because the water can cure whatever’s wrong with you, also we are all being controlled by the puppet strings of the divine and free will is an illusion. It is now Page Three.”
The entire first part of the book is his story of meeting, falling in love with, and marrying a hot tattooed Polynesian man in what may be the first recorded case of the “there was only one bed” trope and it only gets wilder from there. This really caught be off guard tbh, I had no idea that there was so much gay stuff in this book.
I honestly cannot even pick my favorite Ishmael moment. Could it be him being adamantly on the wrong side of the “are whales fish or mammals” debate? That he suggests narwhal’s horns would be good for turning the pages of small books? When he hides behind the mast and eats some spermaceti because he just has to know what it tastes like? When he tattooed himself with measurements of a beached whale but rounded all the numbers because he also needed room for the poem he was writing on his arm? The gay sperm squeezing chapter? When he made his drunk listeners fetch him a priest and a Bible so he could swear he was telling the truth? And then lied????
Ishmael’s musings range from beautiful, lyrical prose that makes you stop and reread the section because damn, and chapters about How Rope Works and encyclopedic writing about the whaling industry. There are lofty theological debates and accusations about the reader being a fish. You spend much of this book wildly seasick because Ishmael’s voice is manic, hilarious, and disorienting. Once you’ve finished this story, you, too, will feel like you’ve spent three years aboard a whaling ship.
Although the unhinged tangents are often amusing, many people complain because they probably account for 90% of the book with only the remaining 10% devoted to the plot. Surely if we just got rid of Ishmael’s Nonsense it would be better, correct? No. This is Ishmael’s memoir. He knows how it ends. These plot-delaying anecdotes are purposeful; he does not want to reach the end because it is The End. The death of his friends and his husband. The inevitable, unforgiving blade of fate that slices the lives of of the Pequod’s crew short and leaves him alone and adrift at sea. Enjoy his journey, because it may seem long now but it ends all too soon.
stickers for cosplay carnival 2024. see you all lol
Once again our paths converge. Welcome to this humble emporium of wares, named after one such commander of runes, dubbed the "dollar general." I stand as thy guide amidst these mundane treasures. I ask thee, what purpose bringeth thee to this realm of commerce today? And should thou be in need of aid, callest upon me with thine inquiries.
comic for an ask project
some thoughts about Sinclair's past between the Christmas an lcb events... i saw no one who'd talk about that it's insane!!! so i'll be the one who'll do it (in comfortable for me art form)
It's extremely funny how all of Regill's companion quests are some sort of trick or surprise (of the secret test of character variety). It's like his brain is forcing him to inject whimsy and gnome pranks into his life but he treats them 100% seriously. Like, if a Golarion gnome arranged a trial, spoke in favor of the defendant, then challenged the defendant to a duel afterwards, it would be seen as whacky anti-Bleaching antics. But Regill plays it totally seriously and it rules.
Horizon: Forbidden West continues and expands upon the world and story set in the first Horizon-game. The central thematic thread that runs trough the main story in Forbidden West, is connected to the protagonist Aloy and another major character, Beta. Both Aloy and Beta are clones of Elisabeth Sobeck, a genius scientist that spearheaded the Zero Dawn project, which brought life back to Earth after the Faro Swarm devoured the biosphere. As both characters are clones of Elisabeth, they are the inheritors of her legacy and dreams. It is this relationship to their their progenitor, that Forbidden West explores. How does it feel to be a clone of this respected scientist, that some people viewed as a saint? The game inspects Elisabeth as an ideal/hero, that some of the central characters, Aloy, Beta and Tilda, wish to either imitate or possess. Interestingly while Elisabeth indeed was a remarkable person, Forbidden West also dives deeper into her character and shows, that she too was a flawed individual like everyone else. Forbidden West also explores the possible pitfalls of following or trying to be an ideal or a hero, in a rigid fashion. How does that affect the person aspiring it, or how it affects the person`s views on others? What is the picture we paint of the person we put onto a pedestal? These are the questions that I will attempt to answer in this post.
It began with a dream
A dream that Aloy recounts in the beginning of the game illustrates well, how she views Elisabeth and the relationship with her. In the dream Aloy is walking under a brilliant night sky, in a field of flowers. At the center of the field there is a tree where Aloy finds Elisabeth, inspecting her amulet. At the place where Elisabeth is sitting, a few rays of light are shining down upon her. Elisabeth wraps her amulet around Aloy and they hug warmly. Aloy explains how Elisabeth is the closest person to a mother that she never had, and that she feels whole with her. However the dream always ends the same way, the Blight corrupting everything.
The dream communicates both verbally and visually, how Aloy views Elisabeth. The rays of light that are shinning down on Elisabeth make her look like a holy, saint-like figure. Elisabeth is a ray of hope within the darkness, but the light also illustrates how highly Aloy thinks of her. As Elisabeth wraps the globe pendant on Aloy, its symbolizes Aloy carrying Elisabeth`s legacy and dreams, the whole world on her shoulders. Aloy seeing/portraying Elisabeth in such a high manner is not surprising, since Elisabeth Sobeck was not only a genius scientist, but a wonderful human being. Not only did she posses vast intelligence, but the emotional side of things was also important to her. That is why GAIA, the AI which governs Earth´s terraforming system, also had to care. She was supposed to be someone with emotions and an conscience. Thus this means Elisabeth is very human, and not only a calculating machine.
However what is interesting that while the first game establishes Elisabeth as this prodigy who cared about all life, the sequel also brings up her flaws. This becomes evident during the main quest “Death`s Door”, where we see a discussion between Travis Tate and Elisabeth. Travis tries to engage Elisabeth in small, silly celebration of sorts, but she only continues to work. This prompts Travis to ask that if Elisabeth, a paragon and a near saint, had any friends or people close to her at all.
Aloy who observes this recorded conversation tries to counter Travis´s statement by saying, that she cared about everyone. However Sylen´s interjects and says, that the path of the exceptional is one with solitude. Elisabeth`s final moments echo this statement and while she did a heroic deed, and managed to reach her home, she died alone. GAIA laments this fate.
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GONCHAROV (1973) dir. Martin Scorsese
“It funny because for many years people thought Goncharov was the main antagonist of the film, after all, he’s the one everyone’s out to get, right? But it seems people are starting to understand that in actual fact, it is time that is the main adversary in this story. There’s never enough of it and that torments a lot of characters, especially Goncharov, because he’s fighting so desperately to find his place in a world that is so keen on keeping him ostracized.”
[template by @bitchronan]
Apparently spez has said that the blackout is 'noise' and 'will pass'. Two days was never enough. I'm not using Reddit until pigboy backs off. This blackout needs to be indefinite.
And when you leave for good, make sure to delete your valuable content. Shitheel isnt making a cent of my posts.
The content of spez's internal memo:
Hi Snoos,
Starting last night, about a thousand subreddits have gone private. We do anticipate many of them will come back by Wednesday, as many have said as much. While we knew this was coming, it is a challenge nevertheless and we have our work cut out for us. A number of Snoos have been working around the clock, adapting to infrastructure strains, engaging with communities, and responding to the myriad of issues related to this blackout. Thank you, team.
We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor.
There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well. The most important things we can do right now are stay focused, adapt to challenges, and keep moving forward. We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail.
While the two biggest third-party apps, Apollo and RIF, along with a couple others, have said they plan to shut down at the end of the month, we are still in conversation with some of the others. And as I mentioned in my post last week, we will exempt accessibility-focused apps and so far have agreements with RedReader and Dystopia.
I am sorry to say this, but please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public. Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations.
Again, we’ll get through it. Thank you to all of you for helping us do so.