Amazon is the fucking evil megacorporation from every near-future cyberpunk story they have warehouses full of wage slaves that can’t even take a piss or fall behind their ridiculous expectations without getting fired on the spot while their CEO is nearing trillionare status day by day while quite literally making local governments pay them to determine which city they install their next slave warehouse in and now their wiretap HAL 9000 bots that are in millions of houses all over the country are doing evil laughs and reading off names of cemeteries and funeral homes completely unprompted I know anger at amazon in general is very outrage-of-the-day basic entry level american leftist reaction but Jesus fucking Christ people
Another thing that just fucking rankles me about amazon is they offer 2 day shipping, then hand the job off to the United States postal service to complete the delivery, overloading their work force and underpaying the carriers to boot.
USPS gets paid per package delivered fee, which is flat, and Amazon does not have to submit to a weight limit for packages, unlike every other shipper.
USPS gets the raw end of the deal and bozo is a billionaire
? I mean I hate Amazon but I use Priority Mail flat rate boxes to ship my heavy Etsy items for a reason. If it fits, it ships, regardless of weight or destination, domestic, in 2 days. They don’t have weight limits.
I’m assuming you mean Amazon gets a different set of rates for that but I can’t find it. My Google skills must be lacking tonight.
amazon gives USPS a flat rate per package, regardless of size, or weight of said package. while USPS flat rate boxes only come in set sizes.
Thank you! I couldn’t find it via Google and I appreciate you explaining it to me.
And yeah, I knew about the Sunday deliveries. :/
yeah the way that usps has decided to handle this is a nightmare, in my area at least they’re hiring a TON of non-union workers, which means
1: paid less
2: worse hours (often more than 8 hours a day, and when i went to the interview one of the postmasters- thinking he was bragging about his best assistant carrier- said something like “one of my guys just did 29 days in a row without a day off”)
3: no/minimal vacation- NO work flexibility, like the impression i got at the interview was “dont ask for a day off because you might get fired”
4: its one of those jobs where you think you’re going home at 530 and then at 515 they ask you to do one more route and all of a sudden you’re there until 8
5: on call just in case a union carrier has to take a day off or cannot complete a route (due mostly to being too old to do that job but unable to retire yet)
6: the carrier assistants are also the ones who get to work sundays because, i quote, “we cant do that to the union guys”
7: if i remember right you get laid off after a year and have to reapply??? its something like that. and then on your second year THEN you can pay for your own healthcare through the company.
anyway the biggest thing i took away from my time on the dock at USPS and my application to be a carrier is that the non-union USPS workers and the amazon warehouse workers should ABSOLUTELY go on strike together and not return to work until workers at both companies are treated well.
I have been browsing the Internet in search of accessible mouse solutions (for my own use), and, as a result, I have been looking at able of websites that sell assistive technology.
And I have seen something that I think is, quite frankly, a predatory practice:
companies selling software that does very little from a programming perspective (and could easily be replaced with free software) for hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars.
And they’re selling these products to disabled people who have often been severely disadvantaged in getting a technology education because of their disabilities.
So, I present, a list of software functions that you should never pay for. Ever.
(To be clear, not all assistive software is predatory.
Some of it is very useful software that does complex tasks using innovative algorithms and large datasets.
I want to help you learn to tell the difference.)
You should never buy software to perform the following tasks:
1) hover clickers or dwell clickers
(software that automatically clicks the mouse when you hold the cursor still for a set length of time)
2) software to alter your mouse speed, acceleration, or sensitivity
3) software to remap inputs
(for example, to switch the right and left buttons on your mouse, or to type in a phrase whenever you press a certain key)
4) on-screen keyboards
(unless you have very specific needs, such as gaze interaction or interaction with another specialized input device. Or may be if the keyboard is particularly innovative and useful.)
5) software to “filter” your keyboard input or ignore repeated keypresses
6) macro writing software
(such as software that lets you “record” the sequence of actions and then play them back with a single keypress)
7) break timers
(software that reminds you to take a break from using the computer)
8) software to use a gaming device, such as a joystick or videogame controller, as a mouse
Please, please, please don’t buy these products!
Use free software (or features built into your operating system) to do these tasks, and spend your money on something that will actually help you!
If you need help figuring out how to use free tools to do any of these tasks, feel free to send me a message.
As a quick reference, is here is how I would recommend approaching the tasks that I have listed above.
I should probably write a post about AutoHotkey, hmmm?
Thanks for the reblog! It makes me so mad to see people get taken advantage of.
PS I hope you enjoyed/are enjoying the archive. 🙂
I think this is important, so I’m going to reblog it over here on my main blog where people might see it.
PS. If you ever come across a piece of assistive tech that you aren’t sure about and you want a second opinion, my ask box over at [link: @awesomeassistivetechnology ]is open!
“So the bird boy’s all grown up! Left the nest. New plumage and everything. Nightwing now, is it? Well, you’ve stuck your beak in the wrong place once too many times! Prepare to get your feathers plucked!”
“Okay. I’m going to kick your ass in a minute, but I want to clear something up first. I appreciate the bird jokes, and I know I have a nighthawk symbol on my chest now, but Robin was never meant to be a bird thing. I know! It sounds crazy! Over the years I just kind of rolled with it, but my theme was supposed to be Robin Hood. You know those hot pants everyone likes to make fun of? In retrospect, they were a mistake, but my whole look with the tunic and the boots was based on medieval fashions. That’s why my costume had so much green in it! I thought I was cool in the 1940’s, before Green Arrow made Robin Hood his schtick. If I had intended for Robin to be a bird thing, I would have worn wings or a beak or something, not a Shakespearean-inspired leotard. Anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest after seventy years. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk! I’m going to break your face now.”
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
MY EYES
THEY’VE BEEN OPENED
AND THEY CAN’T BE CLOSED
“Alright, thanks for making that easy. Don’t bother trying to pick those cuffs. Do you mind if I wait here until the police arrive? It’s a slow night, and now that I have a captive audience… well. Where was I? Right. Historical costumery. I know I’m supposed to be ‘the nice Robin’, not ‘the nerdy Robin’, but my original costume has been the source of derision for three quarters of a century of publication history. I brought photos. ‘Oh, but Nightwing, your costume doesn’t have a utility belt! Where do you keep a photo album?!’ Heh. That’s my secret.
Aaaanyway. Let’s start with Jules Leotard, inventor of the flying trapeze, AND of the garment that still bears his name.
Looking good, Jules! That mustache is very 1867. Notice anything familiar about his costume? The gloves, the leotard, the bare legs, the boots, the belted waist…? Aerialists also often wore capes to make a dramatic entrance, only to shed them before performing. Not that this is relevant to my secret identity and backstory in any way or anything, of course.
Back in the day, Robin Hood was usually depicted wearing red and green. Here’s the cover illustration of a book published in 1900…
‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ starring Errol Flynn came out in 1938. Batman was created the following year, and I came along in 1940! Robin Hood was hot shit at the time, so it was probably more obvious that ‘Robin’ was a shout out to the hero of legend rather than the songbird. Check out the cut of their tunics:
And speaking of red and green! Did you know they weren’t always associated so strongly with Christmas? Coca Cola’s advertising campaign that began in 1931 may be responsible for that. Back in Ye Olde Days, folks were rocking the ‘red and green layered short tunics’ and ‘hose-as-pants’ look long before I was. Check out this illustration from the 15th century:
And also these fashionable dudes wearing poulaines:
Now, if I were meant to be a bird-themed hero right off the bat – don’t groan, that was a good one – it would not have been subtle. Batman has ears and a picture of a bat on his suit. Catwoman’s first costume was just a dress with a damn hyperrealistic cat mask over her head! Yeah, of course I’ve got a picture, but don’t tell her I showed you.
And there you go! Bet you didn’t think you’d be getting a history lesson AND an asskicking tonight, did you?”
“Robin” doesn’t even mean “bird”. I have discoursed boringly on this before. In sum, “Robin” is just a nickname for “Robert.” It doesn’t have anything to do with birds, really – it just means “Bob.”
The bird in England was historically called the Redbreast. There was an Olden Days trend for calling animals by people names, especially to denote their gender – in England it was considered a cute and funny meme around the 1600s. The animal would get a “Christian” first name, and its species would be its last name: Tom Cat. Jack Ass.
Some of these have stuck and become the actual names of the birds: Jack Daw, Jenny Wren, Mag(gie) Pie, Robin Redbreast. These days, those are all legitimate species, but before the meme, they were called Daws and Pies and Redbreasts.
When English colonizers invaded North America, they looked at a completely unrelated red-chested bird and thought they’d call it Robin Redbreast. This was shortened to Robin.
And that was that.
Thus:
basically Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow, Robin from Batman, and American/European robins are all just named after that one guy.
Robert.
What a legend
So, like, I don’t follow Batman at all but I guess a grown-up Robin might start to stuffily refer to himself as “It’s Robert. Actually.”
I just found out about the Small Penis Rule, where authors protect themselves from libel lawsuits by explicitly saying a character that was based on a real person has a small penis
supposedly, no guy is gonna come forward and shout “HEY, THAT CHARACTER WITH THE TINY PENIS IS ME!”
Evil and genius
Posted on
Justin talking about Augustus: so my character is an absolute asshole. he’s evil and a jerk and a terrible father and he’s going to go dark IMMEDIATELY and there’s nothing you can do about it
Justin actually playing Augustus: here’s a ghost joke. and another one. Oooooh I’m so spooky but I only use my powers to talk to a nice guy named Jonathan and to get my friend Errol a root beer because the bartender’s being mean and then when the bartender threatens me I wash the mug and put it back
Griffin talking about Errol: my character is a good good werewolf boy who wants to be president and to protect the people in his territory from potholes!
Griffin actually playing Errol: so we’re two minutes into the game and I already took on a Corruption point
