Oh I 500% assume racism is a big part of this too.

Not familiar with Catalonia but I assume there are at least a few ethnic groups that are associated with “rich” and this is a way to group them in.

Which, funny enough, was also kind of the deal with Blackberries. Yeah, Dealers had them. Because Dealers like buying expensive shit (See also: really expensive Rolex in a neighborhood where everyone is on food stamps) AND because they were ridiculously ahead of their time tech wise. You know who else had them? Business and (proto-)tech folk. And cops LOVED to say that the kid who actually made something of themselves going back home to visit family must be a Dealer because they have the same phone all their co-workers do.

Which gets back to: As part of an investigation, it is good. It is one part of a potential puzzle. In the reality of ACAB… ACAB.

Those articles don’t really support the claim? At all?

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-organized-crime-preferred-phone-3573578/ is unsourced but, taking at face value, seems like what one would expect. People aren’t getting stopped at checkpoints and forced to divulge what OS their phone is running and being taken to a black site if they run GrapheneOS. But someone holding up a pixel in a sea of cheap motorolas DOES raise some eyebrows. Same as someone with a ridiculously expensive rolex walking around The Hood and so forth. And, presumably, people who have been arrested for other reasons raise even more eyebrows if their phone isn’t running a stock OS which…

Look, with a just police force (ha!), that actually is a very reasonable stance. Back in the day it was having a Blackberry. For a decade or so it was having two phones until people learned to not do anything personal on a work phone and that became kinda normal. There are activities that are generally associated with “weirdos” and “criminals” and I think even the GraphenOS devs would acknowledge their userbase fall firmly into the former. If you see someone with a Blackberry hanging out leaning against a 7-11? You maybe hang out across the street for an hour and keep an eye on them. Arrest someone and they have three burner phones in their pants pockets? Maybe you look a bit deeper.

That is actual investigative work. Of course, the problem is that it instead becomes “That gameboy looks like a drug dealer’s phone. We are going to stop and frisk you and maybe sexually assault you in the back of the cruiser if we are bored”.

I’m keyed in on a lot of “high level” protest discussion as well as what investigative journalists need to do for actual safety. And one of the biggest topics that regularly comes up is the idea of “the burner”. In theory, if you are crossing a questionable border or think you might be stopped, you bring a completely blank burner. If they hack into it, you are safe, right?

Wrong. Because you are now an anomaly. NOBODY has no social media and NOBODY has no documents on their laptop. So what are you hiding? Let’s beat it out of you.

Which is why general best practices are often considered to have a real device that you actually use everyday and take through those checkpoints and on the riskier protests. But you make damned sure there is nothing incriminating or sensitive on there. Optimally through having your “burner” be the one you do said activities on, but also through just removing it well before you get on the plane or get in the car.

And a lot of that applies to device choice too. That cool ass Linux Phone might seem like a great idea but now you stand out from the crowd quite a bit. Same with taking your top of the line iphone to Korea where Samsungs grow on trees and so forth.

Homie? I want you to know that while I am going to be inflammatory, I am not insulting you. In a slightly sane world, that should be fine.

NEVER work with children. “Hey kids. You can go home or you can stay with me and a few others and learn how to use a computer!”. At best you are setting yourself up for some awkward phone calls when Little Jimmy gets caught looking at something his parents don’t approve of.

If you are a close family friend and the parents understand what you are going to be teaching their kid (and obviously want you to teach it), go for it. If you are just watching them while they eat orange slices? Don’t fucking go anywhere near that. Let the teachers who actually train in how to handle these situations do it.

And the other aspect: Kids (and most adults) are not rational or intelligent. They aren’t going to take “Hey, if Susie sends you nudes don’t put them on this server because it will get me sent to prison as a diddler” as education on why they should not fucking do that.

If you ever want to get scared straight as it were? Take a teacher out for drinks (and you better pay for them!). You’ll hear LOTS of horror stories and get even a glimpse into the kind of hell they have to put up with.

The show Black-ish (like a lot of Kenya Barris’s work) has a LOT of problems. But the number of times teacher friends have shared https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jqmj0ILwfM. And it is not at all exclusive to black people (or even men).

Just a general warning:

It is one thing to provide something for family. It is another thing to be a person in authority providing one for an org. And kids are horrible and basically all have cameras everywhere they go. They WILL do something horrible and, depending on what that something is, you might now be liable for a lot of stuff you don’t want to be.

You don’t want that smoke. They can use google drive. Or you can talk to one of the companies that host next/own clouds for people and ask for a discount since it is the boy scouts.

Its less about class and more about socioeconomics. Kids get out what they put in (and parents go a long way towards teaching kids to get what they can out of school… which is why each generation has more and more developmental issues). But it is a lot easier to learn when you aren’t spending your entire day bouncing between being scared for your life to just trying to keep your heads down as an overworked and underpaid teacher needs to babysit the kids who desperately need more help but can’t get it because public school in “the ghetto”.

Part of it is that they genuinely don’t watch or care. They just learned they like trump and will continue to say so. Never forget just how many people didn’t even know Biden wasn’t fucking running last year. There has been a massive culture (on Both Sides) of “don’t watch the news for your mental health” that just puts people in isolation chambers where they occasionally hear something.

And the other aspect? He is them. Boomers are increasingly senile every single year and he is a boomer ass boomer. But also? Just look around on social media or in stream chats and so forth. A LOT of people sound like they speak English as a Second Language… until you realize they are making references to nickelodean shows and may even have comments or posts outright saying they are a native. They just are fucking illiterate (and this applies from boomers on down but is just a major crisis for genz/alpha because they might have a chance).

Also odds on someone thinking they are “witty” for saying this is “TLDR”? Because… think about the implications of “you talk too much” as an insult.

And that isn’t just their illiteracy. We mostly tend to skew middle/upper-middle/upper class around here. Spend some time actually communicating with “support staff” (e.g. custodial) or even talking to someone at a supermarket or fast food joint. The “Gen Z Stare” is definitely a thing but it isn’t just Gen Z and it is very much people who do not know how to communicate or articulate a thought literally locking up. THAT is trump.

I remember back when the problem was that people glazed Jed Bartlet and it had to be explained to them that real human beings don’t have script writers to make every single word they say deeply beautiful and intellectual. Now? People would hunt Martin Sheen down for daring to make them feel inadequate.

No. Palestine has almost nothing to do with it (and Tiktok “supporting” Palestine was vastly over-reported but whatever).

The issue is that TikTok is very blatantly controlled by China. I am not aware of any specific studies but… the “support” of Palestine lines up with trying to destablize The West by bringing eyes to a polarizing issue that China has no interest in.

And we have watched MANY elections get stolen by social media over the years. Look at Facebook in South America (and elsewhere) or Twitter in the US and arguably UK/EU.

The pleasure box is fun. But no country should be allowing the propaganda arm of the CCP to have complete unfettered access to their population. Just like no country should allow for Twitter or Facebook to continue to do the same on behalf of other powers.

So… does China or TikTok Corp know about this “framework deal”?

Some? Maybe

Mostly it is just that their hate and selfishness overrides everything. It is the same reason that pro gun republicans still won overwhelmingly after the massacre in Uvalde and farmers keep voting for republicans no matter how much they get screwed over. Because as long as they can believe someone else is suffering more, they are happy.

No, this is a horrible idea through and through. Delayed reporting only benefits those with insider information. It isn’t going to change the fundamental problem of so many companies existing solely to enrich investors nor is it going to change all of the bullshit accounting “tricks” that boil down to “fire your staff and say you did more with less”

As… ridiculously fucking stupid as this sounds, it is what his base wants to hear.

They don’t see “smart people” and think “people with an above average IQ” (and they sure as fuck don’t understand what “average” means). They see “intellectuals” and “college students” and “pink haired people”. Or, simply put, “people who think I am wrong”. Which is exactly what they want to hate.

Homie? Blocklists are like assholes. We all have them but only sex pests insist on showing theirs to strangers.

If you are thinking in terms of building a widget or making an industrial process, it makes perfect sense. Something like a wristwatch is the kind of innovation a LOT of people more or less simultaneously made and it is just impossible to definitively prove what country the first watch was made in. Even figuring out who was the first to file becomes a mess. Same with factory processes where the players who would even have the ability to iterate are often counted on fingers and toes.

But software (and research) in a global society is a real mother fucker. Because now the entire world can more or less see everything and reproducing things is fairly trivial. And… it isn’t like the patents actually matter all that much when so much gets done overseas. China Don’t Care but also the EU doesn’t really either and so forth. Sure there are avenues to try to pursue a studio using the patented Nemesis System but… at best you are going to be tied up in courts for years trying to get a judge to insist that a company in Germany needs to send you a check.

For the exact same reason that “fair use” is still so incredibly nebulous and twitch streaming/let’s plays still exist.

NOBODY is crazy enough to want to take that to the courts. Because maybe you get a judge who has “common sense”. Maybe you get an old white guy who thinks Pong was too complicated and decides that you are wrong. At which point you have now made a bunch of legal precedent for REALLY stupid stuff.

Its also kind of why so much stuff about video games actually never gets patented. It is playing with fire.

I ANAL and am not a lawyer.

The verbiage on this is RIDICULOUSLY specific (as patents generally should be) to the point that I refused to even pass the PDF through an OCR system and instead will trust that site’s transcription

    (1) There must be a PC, console or other computing device and the game is stored on a drive or similar storage medium.

    (2) You can move a character in a virtual space.

    (3) You must be able to summon a character. They call it a “sub character” by which they mean it’s not the player character, but, for example, a little monster such as a Pokémon that the player character has at its disposal.

    Then the logic branches out, with items (4) and (5) being mutually exclusive scenarios, before reuniting again in item (6):

    (4) This is about summoning the “sub character” in a place where there already is another character that it will then (when instructed to do so) fight.

    (5) This alternative scenario is about summoning the “sub character” at a position where there is no other character to fight immediately.

    (6) This final step is about sending the “sub character” in a direction and then letting an automatic battle ensue with another character. It is not clear whether this is even needed if one previously executed step (4) where the “sub character” will basically be thrown at another character.

All of those criteria must be met for this trap card to be triggered (shit… Yugioh lawyers getting revved up now).

Step 4 specifically covers the case where you summon your little guy to fight someone else. As worded, that actually would impact a Summon in every JRPG and Final Fantasy just got sweaty. Step 5 summons a character as an assist or to replace the main character in a fight (so… Pokemon).

What I find most interesting is that step 6 specifically says “automatic battle”. Which… to my Not A Lawyer brain, means this doesn’t even cover Pokemon since you specifically give your mons battle commands. Err, aside from S01E01 Pikachu who did not give a fuck. And then Charizard. And probably a dozen more pokemons after I stopped watching The Son Of Mr Mime’s Adventures. But, from what little I saw of it, it DOES cover Palworld where you just summon your pals to do work for you or fight for you. And it potentially covers Final Fantasy and Ichiban’s Like a Dragons (the Poundmates, not the Sujimon)…

Which is probably the most interesting thing and why I think Pokemon Co is going to be ridiculously selective of who they try to sue. Because any of the big hitters can just say “Dumbfucks, we were doing this before Game Freak even existed”. Whereas indie devs are small enough they don’t want to risk it.

It might be worth keeping an eye on MinnMax as Haley MacLean IS a lawyer who actually specializes in video game IP but I suspect this is too close to her day job for her to publicly speak about it even with the “not legal advice” disclaimers. Which hopefully guarantees she actually talked about it on one of the podcasts this week and I just haven’t looked yet.

To paraphrase everyone’s basketball GOAT: “Bitch, nobody says no to me”. Err, sorry. To paraphrase the old everybody’s basketball GOAT: “Nazis buy sneakers too”

Actually taking a political stand potentially impacts sales. You and I think that anyone who would not want to buy a widget can go fuck themselves. Does EVERYONE at that company think so? What about their families. Lisa doesn’t get braces because you wanted to make a political statement?

Again, you and I probably both err more on the side of “fuck it, do what’s right”. But… the nazis feel the same way about anyone who would dare to acknowledge a trans person’s right to exist. Now Lisa doesn’t get braces because Johnny just wanted to masturbate on a trans person’s corpse and, really, how can that possibly be fair?

Which… gets to your second point. The world is REAL fucked up. And anyone with half a brain (who at all pays attention to politics) has expected this for some time now. Nazis ARE a protected class in the US (and increasingly parts of Europe…) at this point. So now letting Tom say something as fundamentally right as “the only good Nazi is a dead one” without any reprisal means the company faces that reprisal instead. You no longer get any government contracts and now you suddenly find the IRS actually cares about what you filed last year and…

Which changes it. It stops being Chuds versus Humans and instead becomes the people who are willing to put their necks on the line dragging down everyone who is just trying to survive.

Personally? You would need to be REAL fucking radical for me to penalize you at a company I have any control over. But… I would probably sign off on the “Our company believes that, regardless of beliefs, nobody should be executed in broad daylight and our hearts go out towards all those who are impacted”… after spending a few hours pissing off the lawyers to figure out exactly what I can get away with in there. And then I would pop on a VPN and do some REAL heavy shitposting and drinking.

And none of this is new. Back in the day, plenty of us would say things like “Dude, take off your fucking work shirt before you go to the punk show” and so forth.

There is a distinction without difference in terms of what you define as “coordinated” but there have been a decent number of folk over the years (less so in 2025…) who have been identified for being racist either in their own social media posting or when getting video taped by others who were doxxed and fired. A quick google brings up “Lilly Gaddis” who was apparently a “trad wife tiktokker” who was fired after using the n-word in a cooking video (also I thought the point of trad wifing was that you let some redneck stick it in you so you didn’t have to work but…).

Which is kind of the reality of the world. Yes, it is fucking infuriating to see people getting rounded up and fired for expressing relief at the death of a nazi who regularly called for the death of them and/or their loved ones. But it is also important to understand that we are ALL “PR” for our companies in the modern internet. We just don’t get any training. And someone doing crotch chops and making “protect ya neck” jokes about the violent murder of someone doesn’t reflect too well on KFC (for Popeye’s its just another Tuesday). And people need to be aware of that.

Its why: I have a LOT of fun with my various burners like this one (speaking of, it may be time to cycle this account). But on the social media with ties to my government name? I popped a few reposts on the tamer messages by my trans friends and then just texted/called them or went out for drinks. Because… this is late stage capitalism and I gotta eat. Which goes into the whole contrast of support and survival which is a very long conversation.

Could someone do a deep dive on everything I have ever said and figure out who I really am? Of course. But… anyone who knows who I am knows that I was not at all shaken up and got REALLY cheerful midway through the work day. But the difference is that that isn’t me actively representing my company as someone who cheers for the murder of nazis.

People are deeply stupid. Even “This is pure speculation” rapidly becomes Fact through the game of telephone. It is best to avoid it as much as possible in situations like this. Even “he might have been autistic” very clearly lines up with certain fascist agendas.

I would be incredibly wary of any descriptions of his character or any details that aren’t easily corroborated by trusted sources. There is a LOT of misinformation out there.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2jaemvpgujnb5nzi66rcxhse/post/3lynjvt3yyx2q is a good breakdown which is as cited as anything gets these days.

Which lines up with what many others are saying: He is a “groyper” and seemed more alligned with the fuentes alt-right than the kirk alt-right and this seems like the sadly logical outcome of heavily armed children getting radicalized every second of the day.

Excuse me. You mean the charlie kirk memorial event. Fuck those losers in the planes or the towers or the pentagon or all the first responders who died on that day or who survived and still have difficulty getting their long term medical issues treated. I mean, we were going to ignore all the people whose lives we ruined with the resulting wars regardless. But whatever, this is AMERICA. We only care about nazis who take advantage of children!

But yeah. Fuckface has been in very poor health for a while. Just a question of how long he hangs on. Already way too long.