A ragtag band of bootleggers open a speakeasy for bottled colour in the greyscale city of Ironwell.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
All Known Alternatives
Karolina 'Kajotko' Jankiewicz
Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Hemlock
Josceline Fenton
A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
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If that’s /really/ the issue, the answer is simple. Pass laws regulating how _politicians_ can use social media or provide them their own platform, like c-span. Nobody took away the press corps. The guy gave away his power by monopolizing it under a single utility. Per their own rules he should have been banned years ago. Also, no-one has pointed out that news organizations aren’t requires to show up and report on white house press briefings. No one /has/ to carry news briefings (except specific types like E.B.S).
I do agree there is too much power in tech giants, but this incident is not an example of that problem. When people start talking seriously about the thousands of j. q. publics who have been deplatformed, had their content used by companies without consent, and lost access to their data, then we may have a real discussion about the actual problem.
I did enjoy whichever Trump representative it was insisting in the last days of the regime that he’d been silenced. Like, dude, he was still the president: he’s got this whole press briefing room he could tell lies in. Of course, the problem is that people there might publically point out he was lying his pants off.
Still not quite as fun as QAnon-Congresswoman giving a speech on the floor of the House while wearing a “Censored” mask, though.
I’m conflicted, because I had planned to unfollow him on inauguration day and now I’m denied the satisfaction of doing that lol. (IDK if his account is even still there for me to unfollow, I haven’t actually checked, but even if it is, I don’t think it would be quite as satisfying to do it now.)
What concerns me is the power wielded by a handful of individuals beholden to virtually no one
Its always fine when its someone like Trump but what if it happens to the next republican candidate or a centrist democrat that maybe wants to reign in the tech companies (Elizabeth Warren for example)
You say this as if this wasn’t constantly wielded against others who weren’t breaking the rules, consistently and extremely, for years. Allow me to cry a river when someone on power who regularly incited violence is finally not allowed to do so
The user-base. If you feel that say, twatter has over stepped some bounds then you should just close your account and stop using their service. Case in point, I did so a very, very long time ago. And frankly I’m happier for it.
Ever heard of Gab? It was launched in 2016 as an alternative to Twitter. It hailed itself as a protector of free speech, allowing users to post updates without worrying about getting suspended based on what they say. But due to their laissez-faire attitude toward hate speech, Apple did not allow the app in their store. Google allowed initially but removed their app afterward.
Consumers clearly don’t want to be part of a collection of other users who are mean or hateful. You feel it’s power-hunger, while it’s actually just the free market.
The influence the tech companies have is too concentrated, as an example if Twitter was bought out by some right wing nut bars what damage could they do or if Apple or Google were bought out
Worse what if they started censoring differing points of view, who’ll stop them
Sorry but the amount of power they have to influence peoples thoughts is not good at all
The alternative is to put that power into the hands of the government, which would be even worse. Imagine if Twitter were nationalized, and Trump had been allowed to put someone in charge of it. Who do you think would have had their accounts blocked then?
Is this not the glorious, unregulated hand of the free market at work? Why should a company give any individual special treatment on their own platform? Shouldn’t all users be held to the same standard?
(I’d argue they handled him with kid gloves until it was “safer” to drop him and save face. Anyone else would’ve been banned much sooner for far less. Just look at that bot account that copied and reposted his tweets verbatim in real time; it was suspended and locked numerous times.)
You all are forgetting something. Trump blocked users and then people complained about censorship it was said “it’s my personal account”. If twitter were to be nationalized, then no one would get blocked, because that is government censorship and is disallowed by the first amendment. Trump could block because “it’s my account.” It was his personal account, so hey tweeter… block and ban all you want.
The power to… ban a user from using the space they own and maintain due to violation of their T&Cs? The power that anybody who owns any sort of business wields?
Mm, I get where you’re coming from, but also terms of service pretty much renders that fear null. The real slippery slope is how much leniency they grant to political figures when they are violating their platform’s policies. They needed to draw the line early, or not at all.
Yeah true I’d imagine that being able to silence the most powerful man in the world is quite the message to send to other politicians especially politicians that might be thinking of limiting their powers…
45 was never “silenced” by social media companies. They just finally put their collective foot down after there was virtually zero chance of negative repercussions on their part. The Emergency Alert System and White House briefing room were always right there. He was too hyperfocused on the personal sleight of getting kicked off the privately owned platform that perma-banned him (after years of egregious ToS infractions) to use them.
Politicians can’t be silenced by tech companies. Politicians have plenty of avenues to communicate. They can hold rallies, press conferences, go on talk shows or send surrogates to do so. They are news. Even being blocked by a social media platform is itself a big story.
Old media companies shifting or slanting their coverage of politicians has far more effect and that’s gone on forever.
Are we only supposed to trust the likes of Firstname Bunchanumbers on Twitter and Freedom Eagle Gazette on Blogspot for “real” news?
The actual newsgathering organizations behind the big networks prodice solid content; the problem is that it gets chewed up, regurgitated, mixed with opinions, and spoon-fed to hungry eyeballs for ratings. 90% of the talking heads on the big cable networks are spouting opinions on top of lower thirds full of twisted, leading questions. (Fox is especially guilty of this, I think they only do hard news for five minutes in a graveyard slot.)
Where’s Walter Cronkite when we need him? We need to know the way it is. (Oh who am I kidding, he’d get booted after a week because he wouldn’t get ratings.)
Nonetheless, it’s still hardly being silenced. When the big news story for days is how you were silenced and all your complaints about it, you’re not actually silenced.
The real problem was that those tech companies gave Trump free rein to ignore their terms of service for years – because of fear of retaliation and because he brought in eyeballs. To a lesser degree the same is true for right wing content in general.
The handful of individuals aren’t beholden to nobody. The millions of Twitter customers make a choice every time they use Twitter as a platform, and they can make a different choice if they feel that Twitter has gone the wrong direction.
Take a look at the Signal outage recently, caused by a privacy policy change by … I’m not sure what the platform everyone was leaving, but I think I heard it was run by Facebook. All I really knew about it was my apartmentmates couldn’t log into their social media platform so that they could talk to each other while not in the same room, and it was apparently because millions of people were leaving the one platform to go to the one they used.
I think the bigger issue is that there’s something allowed sometimes called ‘corporate acquisitions’, and other times called ‘corporate mergers’.
I recognize that when a company is having financial difficulty, allowing it to be acquired by a healthier company allows for a more graceful process for the people that were depending on the failing company.
But I also recognize that many times, the companies get into the position of a failing company because one or more of their competitors engaged in practices that are made illegal for confirmed monopolies by anti-trust laws. I feel like those practices should be more generally frowned upon and at least somewhat more broadly made illegal. If they were only allowed for companies that were already in peril, many probably wouldn’t happen, because many of them are behaviors that, absent smaller rivals to run out of business, are generally self-sabotaging.
There is, of course, a subset of those practices that is reasonable, in the right context. For example, deviating from the published standard can be necessary for a company to innovate if they want to release new functionality not supported by the current public standards, and their attempts to extend the public standards have been thwarted. That said, I’m not aware of any time a company has deviated from the public standards for that specific reason, without publishing their own version of what they wanted to do. Publishing their own version is part of the process I described, even, because the standards community can’t decide to approve their extension without that.
The actual monopolistic behavior closest to this is just releasing a product not conforming to standards without documentation. These days, the product will support interoperating with companies following the standards, but only to a point – which shows that it’s not just ignorance of the standards that’s responsible for the behavior.
Without the acquisitions of healthy companies, mergers between very healthy companies, and monopolistic practices being allowed for healthy non-monopolies, we would have far more diversity in social media.
I grant you, this would be a big pain, except that there would be companies which would do social media consolidation, so you could go to one site to check on users from hundreds of platforms. There would be dozens of these to choose from. It would be a giant, glorious mess that would be difficult to shut a Trump out of, but given the way Trump behaved, I’m sure he still would’ve been.
That only holds in the pit of misery. Happiness can also be created, and shared or gifted to others. However, when the chain of command blocks all of that, the only remainder is schadenfreude, which does follow the LoCoH. This of course is the origin of that synonym for crazy.
In my limited experience, happiness can be destroyed without the creation of more happiness. It’s only in dysfunctional environments where the destruction of one person’s happiness is seen as a viable way to produce happiness for another person.
Also, from what I’ve heard, in the armed services, especially boot camp or their equivalent, where this happiness transfer seems most prevalent, it’s mostly the happiness of dozens of people is used to make one person a bit more content. It’s not a very efficient process, if the purpose is to transfer happiness. According to those people I’ve met who have been boot camp sergeants, the happiness transfer is not considered an interesting part of the process.
A recent counter-example also works. When Trump was banned from Twitter, that caused a lot of anguish for one person, a fair amount of discomfort for millions, but more comfort and sometimes even happiness for more millions. Net happiness was created by that act.
To be fair, boot camp is “Where Happiness Goes to Die.” There isn’t even much schadenfreude as most instructors are net less happy being there as well (at least in the great hopefully more inclusive north).
You have allergies also? My sympathies. My, um, boss, has been giving me a lot of problems lately, but between meds and using some N95s like they were intended, pre-Covid, I may get out from under its harsh rule soon.
I didn’t get glasses until well into high school. (I had contacts for a few years first actually because only one eye was myopic and for the first year or two I only had ONE contact.) 10 years later I mostly tolerate them, but even thinking about glasses induces me to start itching on the bridge of my nose.
“Since you were 12” I think is the key here. Joyce is 18 and tons of people have been since this glasses plot started how uncomfortable the transition to glasses are when you’ve never worn them before. But also Joyce is really being a baby about this whole thing too so don’t cut her any slack on it.
I’ve worn glasses since I was 13 and I’m still not fully used to the feeling. I always have to take them off and rub my nose bridge when I’m at home. And that’s just how it is with the ones that fit!
I’ve “worn” glasses starting when I was 18, and the transition from not having glasses to “wearing” them was not really at all difficult for me.
Admittedly, I think the only time I’ve worn them for more than about an hour at a time was when I was doing cross-country driving. I’m now 48, and I do know where my glasses are. One pair is in my backpack, and the other two pair are in my winter coat.
Oh, I did not like wearing them at all either for the first couple of weeks I had them! But that was primarily because I had persistent headaches as I was getting used to them and having something on my face was off-putting (I am autistic and have some sensory issues too, but it’s not debilitating). I still have to take them off sometimes if I have a headache. They were never itchy though, haha. Maybe it’s because I had the kind without nose pieces?
I started wearing glasses when I was around 13 and never had any itching troubles. But Joyce can’t have two kinds of food touching each other on her plate; she seems like the kind of person to have trouble with a “foreign” object sitting on her face.
My first pair literally made my nose go numb. I can’t wear the kind with the adjustable nose pads and I have to wear my glasses a bit too lose around the ears or I get a headache from the pressure behind my ears
If the nose piece is bothering her, perhaps she needs an adjustment. Dorothy was wrong when she said you just get used to it. There is not anything you are meant to get used to! That is why it is adjustable!
Nah that’s not true at all. If you have a foreign object with weight on your face that’s never been there before, you’re going to feel it regardless of fit. Plus Joyce probably has sensory issues
I’ve only had one pair break in 25 years; the temple pulled off the hinge. If I had a spare I would’ve just fixed them with JB Weld, but I didn’t so I had to have the optician rivet them back together with a press. They didn’t fold anymore, but they held together a few months until I got new frames.
Then again I’ve always had metal frames, never plastic.
I lose mine on beaches and in the river. Though I did break one pair once, demonstrating how springing and tough the wings were on the rimless, hingeless titanium pair.
For a while I had crappy vision insurance. The threads on the screwholes had worn out/stripped away, and the screw wouldn’t stay in. I had to balance what health things I was spending money on, so I did my best with glue to keep it
together. I couldn’t put off a dentist visit, the hygienist saw the sorry state of my glasses and showed me how to use unbent paper clips to hold it together.
I still have a pair made of glass. They’re transition lenses, and, at least when I’d gotten this pair made, transitions plastic lenses didn’t work very well.
My optometrist’s office had insisted on selling me a pair with plastic lenses before they sold me this pair, and I couldn’t tell they were actually transition lenses, until I took them back and complained, and they used a really bright light (maybe halogen? I’m not sure) to force it on one lens, so I could see the difference. I then took out my old pair and showed they reacted much more quickly, with a much greater effect.
The optometrist then insisted that glass lenses would be too heavy, and I had to point out the pair I’d demonstrated with were glass lenses.
Apparently, he wasn’t used to having a lot of customers with 20/45 vision with no other vision issues. (Well, at least, other than lights always being too bright, but…)
To be fair, it’s possible that the added weight of the glass lenses would have been more of an issue for me if I consistently wore my glasses, but I’ve never gotten to be a consistent glasses wearer. I wear them when I need them, but otherwise don’t. Maybe because I was 18 already when I first got them.
I’ve had plastic Transitions for years, and they’ve worked fine. They never get as dark as actual sunglasses, and they don’t work in the car (car windows block UV), but they’re great for cutting glare.
My problem with plastic is that the stupid anti-scratch coating always starts to peel off after a few months. It’s always the corners of the lenses near the bridge and nose, too.
I wonder is Sarah’s the type that’s only happy when other people around her are agitated? Like knowing other people can be just as miserable as she usually is, is a comfort. Or maybe it’s just refreshing because it’s Joyce specifically?
Well, historically speaking, Joyce has been an annoying, self-absorbed, extroverted… person, who refuses to respect boundaries (thanks in no small part to Becky), and now Sarah has the chance to get some well-earned payback.
From what I can tell, the reason Joyce is so touchy-feely with people is because Becky was that way with her, before she understood her sexual preferences.
Not entirely. Her parents instilled some of her more infuriating habits, like waking people up without asking if they wanted her to because it was her job to get her brothers up.
I’m 32, been wearing glasses since I was 3 or 4, and I have indents on the sides of my head from my temples to my ears from wearing glasses for so many years.
While I like the faces being made why doesn’t she just lift the glasses up and scratch whatever it is that needs scratching? (Worn glasses since 14 but needed before then)
Willis started all this 20ish years back (i think). Autobiographical implies she should be starting in possibly a couple of semesters, one decade per semester => 20 years. Yeah, math checks out. Unless thats bean juice and mustard from my beard on the back of the napkin.
Now we just need to see Walky study super hard and turn down gaming and chicken nuggets for it and Dorothy to snap and just laze about all day – even skipping class to just… Do nothing so Amber snaps out of her funk to wonder when the heck she woke up in Bizarro World
I think Walky may just have turned down gaming in favor of studying before this. I’m sure he’d find a way to combine studying and chicken nuggets, however.
Any decent optometrist won’t let her get LASIK for another couple of years. They have no baseline as to how quickly her vision is degrading since ‘yesterday’ was her first day seeing an optometrist. AFAIK, LASIK only becomes an option once your eyesight’s plateaued for a few years.
Well, first it depends on how bad her eyesight is. LASIK averages about 90-95% eyesight improvement, so if your eyesight isn’t too bad it is not worth the risks. Joyce is likely not a candidate since it appears she was able to see well enough, just not enough to see the slides/notes/whatever at the front of a lecture hall when sitting near the back.
Second, it depends on if her eyesight is deteriorating or if that is as bad as it is going to get for now. She’s never been to an optometrist, apparently, so there is no way to tell if this is all she needs or if her eyesight will continue to degrade necessitating new prescription lenses. LASIK is not performed if someone’s eyesight is still degrading.
Finally, even if she got LASIK, that wouldn’t be permanent. Everyone naturally becomes farsighted as they age. Joyce is apparently nearsighted, which means her eyesight would actually IMPROVE as she gets older, but no telling how many years that would be. And even with LASIK, she might need glasses later on due to that or other eyesight issues.
People don’t exactly “become farsighted” as they age.
When you are farsighted, that means your eyeballs are less curved than a perfect orb, they’re like a slightly squashed stress ball. When you are nearsighted, they’re a little more curved – more like a green grape than a marble.
As you get older, you suffer from presbyopia. That’s not far-sightedness like “the opposite of nearsightedness”. Your eyeball doesn’t suddenly squash down again. What happens is that your lens becomes less flexible and less able to focus on near things.
When that happens to nearsighted people, your vision doesn’t improve. You end up wearing bifocals. You are still nearsighted.
I know somebody who went through cancer treatment (immunotherapy) and had to get new glasses because they became drastically less nearsighted than they were before.
I’d say it’s cancer treatment that’s weird, but still, this is not something you expect to happen just as a result of getting older. Farsightedness as opposed to nearsightedness is hyperopia. “Farsightedness” when you get older is presbyopia.
Also, I have to say, I’m not finding any reports that immunotherapy is likely to affect vision in that way. I’m not saying it didn’t happen to your friend, but I am saying your friend’s doctors ought to write this up, because if this is commonplace, people need to know about it, and if it’s not then it sure is interesting.
I think it was a clinical trial that went off-label with an existing immunotherapy (designed for a different condition) and a TKI. Farsightedness was a known side effect from earlier rounds.
They had plenty of nearsightedness to make up, so that was an “I got that going for me, which is nice” that got thrown in. Now their old “before” coke bottles cause instant headaches.
I thought Joyce had the same glasses as me, but it looks like hers are full-rim instead of half-rim on the bottoms. Anyway, I was reliving the lack of people gushing over how cute they are, because them glasses are cute af
I had an acclimation period when I first got glasses that was made better by the fact I literally couldn’t see across the room without them. I could drive without them later but that might have been because I learned how to interpret the fuzzy shapes by sometimes not wearing my glasses while switching between shades and regular glasses.
a plague has hit our house
both children singing billie eilish's "what was i made for" but entirely in "meows"
we can't get them to stop
it's been weeks
please send help
The plantation burning reminds me of when the residential school burnt down in Shubenacadie.
I was very young. Not understanding why we were all there watching a scary looking building burning. Cars lined up all over both sides of the road. It seemed like the entire rez population (1)
Someone is citing the MA constitutional provision explicitly allowing the state to impede federal marshals enforcing the fugitive slave act, DAMN the average citizen is radicalized
you’re laughing. the largest antebellum plantation house burned down & there are brides who will not get to spiritually absorb the poisoned spectral energy of the land for their big day, & you’re laughing.
Me if I ever see Tony Hawk: Hey you’re Tony Hawk the famous skateboarder. That’s right I recognise you. Won’t be able to get any content out of this will you, you piece of shit
How to read all 28 issues of my Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run on Marvel Unlimited:
1: The first four issues were published as the miniseries "Mary Jane."
www.marvel.com/comics/serie...
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
Dana Simpson 
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I… don’t think I’ve EVER experienced that
although… I guess we’re ALL feeling better while Trumpy is unable to tweet
I know my happiness went up 100% after the ban.
Too much power in an individuals hands for my liking
If that’s /really/ the issue, the answer is simple. Pass laws regulating how _politicians_ can use social media or provide them their own platform, like c-span. Nobody took away the press corps. The guy gave away his power by monopolizing it under a single utility. Per their own rules he should have been banned years ago. Also, no-one has pointed out that news organizations aren’t requires to show up and report on white house press briefings. No one /has/ to carry news briefings (except specific types like E.B.S).
I do agree there is too much power in tech giants, but this incident is not an example of that problem. When people start talking seriously about the thousands of j. q. publics who have been deplatformed, had their content used by companies without consent, and lost access to their data, then we may have a real discussion about the actual problem.
I did enjoy whichever Trump representative it was insisting in the last days of the regime that he’d been silenced. Like, dude, he was still the president: he’s got this whole press briefing room he could tell lies in. Of course, the problem is that people there might publically point out he was lying his pants off.
Still not quite as fun as QAnon-Congresswoman giving a speech on the floor of the House while wearing a “Censored” mask, though.
Surprised he could hold it.
I’m conflicted, because I had planned to unfollow him on inauguration day and now I’m denied the satisfaction of doing that lol. (IDK if his account is even still there for me to unfollow, I haven’t actually checked, but even if it is, I don’t think it would be quite as satisfying to do it now.)
What concerns me is the power wielded by a handful of individuals beholden to virtually no one
Its always fine when its someone like Trump but what if it happens to the next republican candidate or a centrist democrat that maybe wants to reign in the tech companies (Elizabeth Warren for example)
This is a helluva slippery slope we’re on
You say this as if this wasn’t constantly wielded against others who weren’t breaking the rules, consistently and extremely, for years. Allow me to cry a river when someone on power who regularly incited violence is finally not allowed to do so
Someone should not have the amount of power that someone like Jack Dorsey has without the ability to be held accountable
Trump got held to account and got voted out by the people (and rightly so) but who holds the tech companies to account?
The user-base. If you feel that say, twatter has over stepped some bounds then you should just close your account and stop using their service. Case in point, I did so a very, very long time ago. And frankly I’m happier for it.
This *is* tech companies being held accountable.
Ever heard of Gab? It was launched in 2016 as an alternative to Twitter. It hailed itself as a protector of free speech, allowing users to post updates without worrying about getting suspended based on what they say. But due to their laissez-faire attitude toward hate speech, Apple did not allow the app in their store. Google allowed initially but removed their app afterward.
Consumers clearly don’t want to be part of a collection of other users who are mean or hateful. You feel it’s power-hunger, while it’s actually just the free market.
The influence the tech companies have is too concentrated, as an example if Twitter was bought out by some right wing nut bars what damage could they do or if Apple or Google were bought out
Worse what if they started censoring differing points of view, who’ll stop them
Sorry but the amount of power they have to influence peoples thoughts is not good at all
So, basically what happened to Parler.
The alternative is to put that power into the hands of the government, which would be even worse. Imagine if Twitter were nationalized, and Trump had been allowed to put someone in charge of it. Who do you think would have had their accounts blocked then?
Yeah true that, letting politicians near it certainly wouldn’t work either
Is this not the glorious, unregulated hand of the free market at work? Why should a company give any individual special treatment on their own platform? Shouldn’t all users be held to the same standard?
(I’d argue they handled him with kid gloves until it was “safer” to drop him and save face. Anyone else would’ve been banned much sooner for far less. Just look at that bot account that copied and reposted his tweets verbatim in real time; it was suspended and locked numerous times.)
You all are forgetting something. Trump blocked users and then people complained about censorship it was said “it’s my personal account”. If twitter were to be nationalized, then no one would get blocked, because that is government censorship and is disallowed by the first amendment. Trump could block because “it’s my account.” It was his personal account, so hey tweeter… block and ban all you want.
The power to… ban a user from using the space they own and maintain due to violation of their T&Cs? The power that anybody who owns any sort of business wields?
+1
Mm, I get where you’re coming from, but also terms of service pretty much renders that fear null. The real slippery slope is how much leniency they grant to political figures when they are violating their platform’s policies. They needed to draw the line early, or not at all.
Yeah true I’d imagine that being able to silence the most powerful man in the world is quite the message to send to other politicians especially politicians that might be thinking of limiting their powers…
45 was never “silenced” by social media companies. They just finally put their collective foot down after there was virtually zero chance of negative repercussions on their part. The Emergency Alert System and White House briefing room were always right there. He was too hyperfocused on the personal sleight of getting kicked off the privately owned platform that perma-banned him (after years of egregious ToS infractions) to use them.
Too late. FB is quietly purging left-wing sites that did not violate any content rules.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/23/pers-j23.html
Interesting, wonder why that is
Politicians can’t be silenced by tech companies. Politicians have plenty of avenues to communicate. They can hold rallies, press conferences, go on talk shows or send surrogates to do so. They are news. Even being blocked by a social media platform is itself a big story.
Old media companies shifting or slanting their coverage of politicians has far more effect and that’s gone on forever.
Political landscapes changing unfortunately and social media is becoming bigger and bigger (a lot to do with how bad the msm are at the moment, imho)
What qualifies as “MsM”?
Are we only supposed to trust the likes of Firstname Bunchanumbers on Twitter and Freedom Eagle Gazette on Blogspot for “real” news?
The actual newsgathering organizations behind the big networks prodice solid content; the problem is that it gets chewed up, regurgitated, mixed with opinions, and spoon-fed to hungry eyeballs for ratings. 90% of the talking heads on the big cable networks are spouting opinions on top of lower thirds full of twisted, leading questions. (Fox is especially guilty of this, I think they only do hard news for five minutes in a graveyard slot.)
Where’s Walter Cronkite when we need him? We need to know the way it is. (Oh who am I kidding, he’d get booted after a week because he wouldn’t get ratings.)
Nonetheless, it’s still hardly being silenced. When the big news story for days is how you were silenced and all your complaints about it, you’re not actually silenced.
The real problem was that those tech companies gave Trump free rein to ignore their terms of service for years – because of fear of retaliation and because he brought in eyeballs. To a lesser degree the same is true for right wing content in general.
The handful of individuals aren’t beholden to nobody. The millions of Twitter customers make a choice every time they use Twitter as a platform, and they can make a different choice if they feel that Twitter has gone the wrong direction.
Take a look at the Signal outage recently, caused by a privacy policy change by … I’m not sure what the platform everyone was leaving, but I think I heard it was run by Facebook. All I really knew about it was my apartmentmates couldn’t log into their social media platform so that they could talk to each other while not in the same room, and it was apparently because millions of people were leaving the one platform to go to the one they used.
I think the bigger issue is that there’s something allowed sometimes called ‘corporate acquisitions’, and other times called ‘corporate mergers’.
I recognize that when a company is having financial difficulty, allowing it to be acquired by a healthier company allows for a more graceful process for the people that were depending on the failing company.
But I also recognize that many times, the companies get into the position of a failing company because one or more of their competitors engaged in practices that are made illegal for confirmed monopolies by anti-trust laws. I feel like those practices should be more generally frowned upon and at least somewhat more broadly made illegal. If they were only allowed for companies that were already in peril, many probably wouldn’t happen, because many of them are behaviors that, absent smaller rivals to run out of business, are generally self-sabotaging.
There is, of course, a subset of those practices that is reasonable, in the right context. For example, deviating from the published standard can be necessary for a company to innovate if they want to release new functionality not supported by the current public standards, and their attempts to extend the public standards have been thwarted. That said, I’m not aware of any time a company has deviated from the public standards for that specific reason, without publishing their own version of what they wanted to do. Publishing their own version is part of the process I described, even, because the standards community can’t decide to approve their extension without that.
The actual monopolistic behavior closest to this is just releasing a product not conforming to standards without documentation. These days, the product will support interoperating with companies following the standards, but only to a point – which shows that it’s not just ignorance of the standards that’s responsible for the behavior.
Without the acquisitions of healthy companies, mergers between very healthy companies, and monopolistic practices being allowed for healthy non-monopolies, we would have far more diversity in social media.
I grant you, this would be a big pain, except that there would be companies which would do social media consolidation, so you could go to one site to check on users from hundreds of platforms. There would be dozens of these to choose from. It would be a giant, glorious mess that would be difficult to shut a Trump out of, but given the way Trump behaved, I’m sure he still would’ve been.
The closest I’ve ever gotten was spectating the supernatural drama as a nonfan this November.
Oh same
probably too late to be clear, the “that” was the itching glasses, but this resulting thread is cool
Even someone else’s glasses bouncing off her head can’t spoil this moment.
Happiness can only savored for such a limited amount of time.
If those glasses survive, ho nelly. Net-negative action, tho.
The half-life of happiness is only a few minutes at most.
Law of Conservation of Happiness. Well known in the military, or at least in the Navy.
In order to be happier, I have to steal your happiness. That’s why all sailors are giant assholes.
That only holds in the pit of misery. Happiness can also be created, and shared or gifted to others. However, when the chain of command blocks all of that, the only remainder is schadenfreude, which does follow the LoCoH. This of course is the origin of that synonym for crazy.
In my limited experience, happiness can be destroyed without the creation of more happiness. It’s only in dysfunctional environments where the destruction of one person’s happiness is seen as a viable way to produce happiness for another person.
Also, from what I’ve heard, in the armed services, especially boot camp or their equivalent, where this happiness transfer seems most prevalent, it’s mostly the happiness of dozens of people is used to make one person a bit more content. It’s not a very efficient process, if the purpose is to transfer happiness. According to those people I’ve met who have been boot camp sergeants, the happiness transfer is not considered an interesting part of the process.
A recent counter-example also works. When Trump was banned from Twitter, that caused a lot of anguish for one person, a fair amount of discomfort for millions, but more comfort and sometimes even happiness for more millions. Net happiness was created by that act.
To be fair, boot camp is “Where Happiness Goes to Die.” There isn’t even much schadenfreude as most instructors are net less happy being there as well (at least in the great hopefully more inclusive north).
Sarah remains an absolute gem.
What is happening in this comic?? I’ve worn glasses since I was 12 and I’ve never experienced what Joyce seems to be going through here, haha.
My first couple of pairs caused my boss to itch like crazy until I got used to them. After that was never a problem.
My boss? Sigh … My nose … Also, I got Carla, WIN!
You have allergies also? My sympathies. My, um, boss, has been giving me a lot of problems lately, but between meds and using some N95s like they were intended, pre-Covid, I may get out from under its harsh rule soon.
I kind of want a pair of glasses that make my boss itch.
I definitely want a pair of eyeglasses that make my boss itch!
I didn’t get glasses until well into high school. (I had contacts for a few years first actually because only one eye was myopic and for the first year or two I only had ONE contact.) 10 years later I mostly tolerate them, but even thinking about glasses induces me to start itching on the bridge of my nose.
“Since you were 12” I think is the key here. Joyce is 18 and tons of people have been since this glasses plot started how uncomfortable the transition to glasses are when you’ve never worn them before. But also Joyce is really being a baby about this whole thing too so don’t cut her any slack on it.
I think Joyce has some sensory issues too.
Unsurprising. Joyce at least appears to exhibit quite a few lowkey spectrum behaviors.
I’m not sure whats happening to me cognitively, but I first read that as,
“honkey spectrum disorders”.
Well, I mean… objectively…
I think it’s mostly obsessive-compulsive disorder in her case.
I’ve worn glasses since I was 13 and I’m still not fully used to the feeling. I always have to take them off and rub my nose bridge when I’m at home. And that’s just how it is with the ones that fit!
I’ve “worn” glasses starting when I was 18, and the transition from not having glasses to “wearing” them was not really at all difficult for me.
Admittedly, I think the only time I’ve worn them for more than about an hour at a time was when I was doing cross-country driving. I’m now 48, and I do know where my glasses are. One pair is in my backpack, and the other two pair are in my winter coat.
Oh, I did not like wearing them at all either for the first couple of weeks I had them! But that was primarily because I had persistent headaches as I was getting used to them and having something on my face was off-putting (I am autistic and have some sensory issues too, but it’s not debilitating). I still have to take them off sometimes if I have a headache. They were never itchy though, haha. Maybe it’s because I had the kind without nose pieces?
Glasses Pressure Headaches are real. Also, if you have high peripheral vision, the noticing of things at the side not in focus also hurts.
But do you allow your foods to touch?
The itching specifically or you’ve never had an uncomfortable pair of glasses?
I had one pair once that I was half convinced I was allergic to.
I was made to wear glasses when I was around 10. I hated them so much I refused to wear them.
I was the opposite. I got glasses at seven and my parents struggled to get me to take them off. I was so utterly gleeful at being able to see clearly.
I’ve worn glasses since I was 3 or 4. I can’t relate to what Joyce is going through either.
I started wearing glasses when I was around 13 and never had any itching troubles. But Joyce can’t have two kinds of food touching each other on her plate; she seems like the kind of person to have trouble with a “foreign” object sitting on her face.
My first pair literally made my nose go numb. I can’t wear the kind with the adjustable nose pads and I have to wear my glasses a bit too lose around the ears or I get a headache from the pressure behind my ears
I can’t wear the kind with adjustable nose pieces either!
sarah: nope, that just makes me feel even better
“Stop making a spectacle of yourself!”–Abbott (to Costello)
As a life long glasses wearer I’m starting to feel just a little insulted.
glasses of aging
thrilled to announce today’s Joyce will be drawn by Chuck Jones
I could stare at Joyce’s face here for hours and not stop laughing
If the nose piece is bothering her, perhaps she needs an adjustment. Dorothy was wrong when she said you just get used to it. There is not anything you are meant to get used to! That is why it is adjustable!
There is a period of adjustment even for well-fitted glasses, if you’ve never worn them
+1 (the “no-upvotes-here” upvote)
Nah that’s not true at all. If you have a foreign object with weight on your face that’s never been there before, you’re going to feel it regardless of fit. Plus Joyce probably has sensory issues
Not going to lie, I *flinched* at seeing those glasses thrown.
Agreed, mine cost me half my pay. No way I’d throw them like that.
Same. Whenever my glasses break, it’s always a major incident.
Likewise. Glasses are expensive to replace when they break.
You guys break your glasses?
I’ve only had one pair break in 25 years; the temple pulled off the hinge. If I had a spare I would’ve just fixed them with JB Weld, but I didn’t so I had to have the optician rivet them back together with a press. They didn’t fold anymore, but they held together a few months until I got new frames.
Then again I’ve always had metal frames, never plastic.
I lose mine on beaches and in the river. Though I did break one pair once, demonstrating how springing and tough the wings were on the rimless, hingeless titanium pair.
For a while I had crappy vision insurance. The threads on the screwholes had worn out/stripped away, and the screw wouldn’t stay in. I had to balance what health things I was spending money on, so I did my best with glue to keep it
together. I couldn’t put off a dentist visit, the hygienist saw the sorry state of my glasses and showed me how to use unbent paper clips to hold it together.
Never the lenses, because I go for impact-proofs, but I’ve mangled frames pretty badly on a few occasions.
Lost a pair in a lake once, too.
Same. When I started wearing glasses, they were made of glass
I still have a pair made of glass. They’re transition lenses, and, at least when I’d gotten this pair made, transitions plastic lenses didn’t work very well.
My optometrist’s office had insisted on selling me a pair with plastic lenses before they sold me this pair, and I couldn’t tell they were actually transition lenses, until I took them back and complained, and they used a really bright light (maybe halogen? I’m not sure) to force it on one lens, so I could see the difference. I then took out my old pair and showed they reacted much more quickly, with a much greater effect.
The optometrist then insisted that glass lenses would be too heavy, and I had to point out the pair I’d demonstrated with were glass lenses.
Apparently, he wasn’t used to having a lot of customers with 20/45 vision with no other vision issues. (Well, at least, other than lights always being too bright, but…)
To be fair, it’s possible that the added weight of the glass lenses would have been more of an issue for me if I consistently wore my glasses, but I’ve never gotten to be a consistent glasses wearer. I wear them when I need them, but otherwise don’t. Maybe because I was 18 already when I first got them.
I’ve had plastic Transitions for years, and they’ve worked fine. They never get as dark as actual sunglasses, and they don’t work in the car (car windows block UV), but they’re great for cutting glare.
My problem with plastic is that the stupid anti-scratch coating always starts to peel off after a few months. It’s always the corners of the lenses near the bridge and nose, too.
Tag urself I’m second panel Joyce
I’m sixth panel out-of-frame Joyce mad enough to throw expensive glasses.
I’m Mike in the frame where he’s over the rail and headed downwards. Wheee.
Dorothy: “eventually you itch without the glasses.”
I wonder is Sarah’s the type that’s only happy when other people around her are agitated? Like knowing other people can be just as miserable as she usually is, is a comfort. Or maybe it’s just refreshing because it’s Joyce specifically?
Well, historically speaking, Joyce has been an annoying, self-absorbed, extroverted… person, who refuses to respect boundaries (thanks in no small part to Becky), and now Sarah has the chance to get some well-earned payback.
Why thanks to Becky?
I’d assume it’s thanks to their shared upbringing.
From what I can tell, the reason Joyce is so touchy-feely with people is because Becky was that way with her, before she understood her sexual preferences.
Not entirely. Her parents instilled some of her more infuriating habits, like waking people up without asking if they wanted her to because it was her job to get her brothers up.
Fair for her close female friendships, but as BBCC says a lot of her boundary issues are distinct from that.
been wearing glasses since i was 6 years old… i think i have a saddle in the nose by now (50 years old)
I’m 32, been wearing glasses since I was 3 or 4, and I have indents on the sides of my head from my temples to my ears from wearing glasses for so many years.
‘ve been wearing glasses since I was 1½… I think my ears have dropped down a full cm from the weight of my glasses.
Poor thing. I wonder if she’s eventually going to cave and get contacts or maybe spring for laser eye surgery.
Yeah, definitely Joyce will open her eyes in front of a laser machine.
If Joyce can just maintain this level of miffed indefinitely then Sarah might actually live a well adjusted and fulfilling life
Panel four. That face!!
‘Nuff said.
While I like the faces being made why doesn’t she just lift the glasses up and scratch whatever it is that needs scratching? (Worn glasses since 14 but needed before then)
I really like the lighting effects in the last two panels!
So when is someone going to tell her contacts exist?
Somehow I don’t think Joyce is a good candidate for contacts. You have to be able to tolerate putting stuff in your eyes.
i dont think they make them in her size either
Anime-size?
You get better about it. I used to be barely able to tolerate eyedrops and now I pop my contacts in and out without even thinking about it.
The glasses’ frame on her nose is making her itchy. Imagine a freaking lense on her eyeball.
She knows contacts exist.
Her Mother and Father both wear contacts to correct their vision.
SHE SAID THAT HERSELF.
Itch itch itch itch itch
Y’know, Joyce, you can scratch your nose and adjust/take off your glasses without being quite so dramatic.
This moment and this moment alone has made Sarah an absolute Icon in my eyes.
That’s called Schadenfreude, Sarah.
Sarehnfreude
“Oh, schadenfreude, huh? What’s that, some kinda Nahtzee word?”
“Yup! It’s German for ‘happiness at the misfortune of others!’ ”
” ‘Happiness at the misfortune of others.’ That IS German!”
*puts on Captain America costume that happens to be in closet because reasons*
I understood that reference.
Not that we believe in stereotypes or anything.
Everyone’s a little bit racist.
Relax, Joyce. In 20 years you’ll be making money writing a webcomic about all of this.
Willis started all this 20ish years back (i think). Autobiographical implies she should be starting in possibly a couple of semesters, one decade per semester => 20 years. Yeah, math checks out. Unless thats bean juice and mustard from my beard on the back of the napkin.
Doink attack is ineffective!
Planned Parenthood uses “Educate the masses”, it is super effective.
Now we just need to see Walky study super hard and turn down gaming and chicken nuggets for it and Dorothy to snap and just laze about all day – even skipping class to just… Do nothing so Amber snaps out of her funk to wonder when the heck she woke up in Bizarro World
I think Walky may just have turned down gaming in favor of studying before this. I’m sure he’d find a way to combine studying and chicken nuggets, however.
I hope those frames are sturdy, because otherwise Joyce is gonna have to get new glasses again and they can be pretty expensive.
Joyce is getting a lasick as soon as she is able isn’t she?
Any decent optometrist won’t let her get LASIK for another couple of years. They have no baseline as to how quickly her vision is degrading since ‘yesterday’ was her first day seeing an optometrist. AFAIK, LASIK only becomes an option once your eyesight’s plateaued for a few years.
Even then, AFAIK there’s nothing stopping it from changing further so she could need glasses again later on regardless.
Well, first it depends on how bad her eyesight is. LASIK averages about 90-95% eyesight improvement, so if your eyesight isn’t too bad it is not worth the risks. Joyce is likely not a candidate since it appears she was able to see well enough, just not enough to see the slides/notes/whatever at the front of a lecture hall when sitting near the back.
Second, it depends on if her eyesight is deteriorating or if that is as bad as it is going to get for now. She’s never been to an optometrist, apparently, so there is no way to tell if this is all she needs or if her eyesight will continue to degrade necessitating new prescription lenses. LASIK is not performed if someone’s eyesight is still degrading.
Finally, even if she got LASIK, that wouldn’t be permanent. Everyone naturally becomes farsighted as they age. Joyce is apparently nearsighted, which means her eyesight would actually IMPROVE as she gets older, but no telling how many years that would be. And even with LASIK, she might need glasses later on due to that or other eyesight issues.
People don’t exactly “become farsighted” as they age.
When you are farsighted, that means your eyeballs are less curved than a perfect orb, they’re like a slightly squashed stress ball. When you are nearsighted, they’re a little more curved – more like a green grape than a marble.
As you get older, you suffer from presbyopia. That’s not far-sightedness like “the opposite of nearsightedness”. Your eyeball doesn’t suddenly squash down again. What happens is that your lens becomes less flexible and less able to focus on near things.
When that happens to nearsighted people, your vision doesn’t improve. You end up wearing bifocals. You are still nearsighted.
I know somebody who went through cancer treatment (immunotherapy) and had to get new glasses because they became drastically less nearsighted than they were before.
Eyes are weird.
I’d say it’s cancer treatment that’s weird, but still, this is not something you expect to happen just as a result of getting older. Farsightedness as opposed to nearsightedness is hyperopia. “Farsightedness” when you get older is presbyopia.
Also, I have to say, I’m not finding any reports that immunotherapy is likely to affect vision in that way. I’m not saying it didn’t happen to your friend, but I am saying your friend’s doctors ought to write this up, because if this is commonplace, people need to know about it, and if it’s not then it sure is interesting.
I think it was a clinical trial that went off-label with an existing immunotherapy (designed for a different condition) and a TKI. Farsightedness was a known side effect from earlier rounds.
They had plenty of nearsightedness to make up, so that was an “I got that going for me, which is nice” that got thrown in. Now their old “before” coke bottles cause instant headaches.
Bodies are weird.
Ah, I see.
Well, it’s certainly fascinating.
I love Sarah more with each strip, and I’m really happy with my current gravatar.
Sarah’s great.
Also, why is Joyce performing the Walky mating dance?
Why hellooo new gravatar!
Good Joyce faces?
Or best Joyce faces?
SOMEBODY
SOMEBODY please give Joyce a nice compliment on her glasses
This was attempted. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/joycelifeevents/
(Also even a 2-minute edit function would be boffo)
ONCE TOLD ME
NOT TO TOUCH
The world is gonna roll me
What horrible alternate universe has Willis placed us into, where Joyce is the grump, and Sarah is the obnoxiously cheerful one? I do not like it!
Me either. I prefer the smiley Joyce. Although seeing cheerful Sarah is nice too.
Ooooh, this feels like ironic foreshadowing. Now I’m worried something bad will happen to Sarah today. Probably mildly bad, but still bad.
Jacob and Raidah got back together over the break.
Her parents will phone her.
The cafeteria will be out of pudding.
Something along those lines.
I thought Joyce had the same glasses as me, but it looks like hers are full-rim instead of half-rim on the bottoms. Anyway, I was reliving the lack of people gushing over how cute they are, because them glasses are cute af
Joyce needs to discover Nerdwax. Or have her frames adjusted.
That wouldn’t solve the problem. Much like Walky, their mere presence is the irritant.
I had an acclimation period when I first got glasses that was made better by the fact I literally couldn’t see across the room without them. I could drive without them later but that might have been because I learned how to interpret the fuzzy shapes by sometimes not wearing my glasses while switching between shades and regular glasses.