a petition to stop Yahoo from buying Tumblr
“Another reason Tumblr could be attractive to Yahoo! is the frequency with which its users post on the site. Mayer wants to incorporate Yahoo!’s products — including search, email, and its popular homepage — into the “daily habits” of its users.” - from Time online
Really Yahoo? Almost every Tumblr user I know is on their 3rd or 4th Tumblr, these pages get deleted at the drop of a hat. How long do you think it will take the cool users of Tumblr to go elsewhere if Yahoo buys it and commercializes it? A day? A week?
Trying to make Tumblr (a site that is basically only a lightweight diversion people use when they are bored at work or bored and high/drunk/eating breakfast at home…) into Facebook Lite is like getting your dog drunk and fucking it. You can do it because you’re bigger than the dog but nobody involved is going to see an upside.
Fuck Yahoo. Fuck Marissa Meyer. Fuck capitalist pigs. And if Yahoo buys it, fuck Tumblr. The backlash will be breathtaking and fast.
*the quote above says that Yahoo’s homepage is “popular”. Who is it popular with? And who uses Yahoo for anything after Google/Gmail pretty much killed it? If it wasn’t for all the recent headlines about the CEO I would have assumed Yahoo went the way of Myspace or AOL years ago.
*opera legend Maria Callas and her Royal HH manual typewriter. Photo from Writers and Their Typewriters, an interesting webpage.
My new neighbor, a grad student at the U, has a manual typewriter fetish and it has just about hooked me. I always fall for impractical expensive things and her prized vintage Underwood has the vibe and feel of a nice gun or a nice film camera, the sleek masculine perfect feel of machined metal sliding down a precisely-tooled path. Things that click into place do so with a strong solid feeling. It is obscenely heavy, feeling like it was carved out of a solid block of metal. It is rightfully expensive, she paid just south of $500 for hers. It is beautiful in a business-like manner, form following function like night follows day. It feels right, like my Nikon FA 35mm camera feels or like how I imagine a Walther PPK handgun would feel.
I’ve spent the last few hours gazing at typewriters for sale online. Surprisingly there are plain modern versions available in the $200.00 range, but to do this right a person has to go for something with a sexy body and a soul containing decades of passionate writing by people who poured their hopes and dreams into the click-clack of the keys.
This is a dangerous lust for somebody who has just received their tax returns to fall into, especially when I also have to buy airplane tickets soon.
In the age-old battle between book and bath, man has tried many things: the reading tray, the conveniently placed towel, the waterproof page. An eight-year-old has gone one better.
Google is evil to the core. Their motto used to be “Don’t Be Evil” but now they are just like a politician, always fucking you without the reach-around.
Google Glass. Data collector. The new vocal intelligent search. Data collector. Google +. Data collector. Everything that Google does is about data collection, and the way they try to tie all of a person’s data together in one mineable bundle is nauseating. They try to push the idea that it’s good that they know your habits and it’s good they can push advertising and make suggestions. How far in the shadows do you really think the U.S. government is lurking here? How long until Google starts imposing a marketing-driven digital gated community like AOL used to?
I’ve already improved my life greatly by shutting down all my Google services except Gmail, and that’s next. The instant they started tying things like Google+ and Youtube together it was time to leave them. It greatly disturbs me that Google knows things about me across platforms and across programs.
I don’t use an android phone or Iphone, those are like walking GPS transmitters. Plus they are isolating and dehumanizing. My phone is, in drug dealer slang, a burner. A disposable untrackable pay by the minute phone that I can change as easy as walking into a convenience store. I have only texted on it once, and it felt stupid.
I also started using apps to block all ads everywhere. An ad-free internet is soooooooo nice. I stopped using Blogger. I stopped using Flickr. Any presence I voluntarily have online, like this Tumblr, is layers deep in fake identifying data.
Next step is getting rid of Chrome and Google search. Opera browser is just as good and a million times less evil. Using a different search will make it harder for Google to track you (but they still will…) Getting rid of Gmail might cut the covert Google cord permanently. I’m sure Google’s invisible spying tendrils somehow extend to the very center of the internet itself though.
Beyond that, using the Tor Browser is a logical next step. The U.S. government is only slightly more trustable than a terrorist, and even that is debatable. You know every interaction you have with the internet is sitting in government servers. Just as a “FUCK YOU” to the 1984-ish surveillance of the populace using an anonymity/proxy network will be worth the added trouble.
This whole computer geek thing of being accessible online is idiotic and mind-controlling and isolating. Look at the sheep walking down the street frantically staring into their smartphones. When I see somebody walking down the street looking into their phone I see a potential victim. An unaware oblivious potential robbery victim who doesn’t even hear traffic noises or bird songs or see other people. Just a narcissistic zombie lost in their own head. This is what we’ve become, and Google is a big part of the evil that got us here.
I’m no tech luddite, my whole job is done on the internet and my office is many times higher-tech than most. Working at the headquarters of one of the largest companies in America we have to be out on the cutting edge. I just don’t want to be a sheep. I just want to always kick back at the pricks. Google, and by extension the whole 24/7 connected data-mining social website personalized internet surveillance world, are pricks.
You might think it’s worth it to have Google suggest some new restaurant you might like. Will you think it’s worth it when your door gets kicked in or you get audited or end up on a no-fly list? Fuck Google. You can never not be tracked, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it as hard as possible for the pricks to do it.
With scandals engulfing the US government it’s obvious to see that the two-party system is broken. Fuck the two-party system it’s time for a third: LINDSAY LOHAN’S FRECKLED FREEDOM PARTY!!!
Under the Freckled Freedom Party it will be fine to get shitface wasted. Under the Freckled Freedom Party it will be fine to get shitface wasted and drive your car around and smash into other cars like a video game. Under the Freckled Freedom Party it will be fine to get shitface wasted and punch out people in clubs. Under the Freckled Freedom Party it will be fine to take things from those who have more.
The Freckled Freedom Party is immune from scandal. Look at how many times Lindsay has faced down false accusations in a court of law. She has proven time and time again that she can make a mockery out of any judicial system, so let the oppressive fuckers try to impeach her she will make a kangaroo court out of the whole thing. Her against the Tea Party? Ha ha ha not even fair. Her against the Supreme Court? Ha ha ha not even close. She knows it and you know it and THEY KNOW IT.
Lindsay knows you. She knows what it’s like to be made to go to rehab when she doesn’t drink (much) and doesn’t do drugs (much). She knows what it’s like when the IRS dogs your ass about some piddling back taxes. She knows what it’s like to be accused of made up shit.
Furthermore, with countries like Syria and North Korea and Iran being a pain in the ass the worst the US government can now do are vague veiled threats of nuclear strikes that everybody knows will never happen (because then Russia and China will make the US stop existing). A REAL THREAT would be to threaten to get President Lindsay all coked-up and hammered and to fly her over to those countries to go clubbing and shoplifting. Facing this option and it’s likely total decimation of their society and infrastructures these misbehaving countries will surely quickly back the fuck down and hope Lindsay goes somewhere else.
As far as budgets and deficits, the Freckled Freedom Party operates on an “out of sight out of mind” level. If the deficit gets too bad Lindsay can sell some more nudes and get us back on track. By dangling the possibility of a full-on beaver shot or torrid lesbian photo series she can probably put us so far ahead money-wise nobody will ever have to work again.
Plus, she cannot be assassinated because of her ability to be in more than one place at once, proven by the security camera shot that showed her shopping while she was supposed to be checking into rehab. She could be here, she could be there, she could be everywhere. She is you and she is me but she is also her.
So next election cycle remember the Freckled Freedom Party. because you gotta fight for your right to party!
Not responsible for any ladies getting pregnant just looking at this picture.
(Source: 70sstreetmachines)
