Theft of others’ creative works (and to an actor their voice is part of their creative work) has been going on via Big Tech for decades now. My first view of it was years ago when Google started stealing books it hadn’t purchased and wasn’t licensed and adding them to public spaces on the internet. I remember the big publishing houses and a lot of authors up in arms, but obviously they weren’t able to truly reverse any of that.

Also why is there a generic Christian but then also Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox? But then they just Muslim and not it’s different denominations? Why even have different denominations when you have the generic catch all and the Other category?

There are kinds of Christian that don’t fall under Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox by their own measure (which doesn’t care how the Big Three want to categorize them). Perhaps this was why? (Probably not.) Graph should have just lumped them all together as “Christian”.

Someone definitely signed you up. For lots of things.

I did that to a friend in college once, but signed her (as if I was her) up for 3 or 4 dozen different religious colleges and organizations, asking them to snail mail her information. Years later she found out it was me and said “I’M STILL GETTING THIS (#&%^@ IN THE MAIL!!!”

This. Though I left Netflix because the only way family was watching it was via Roku device, and in the last 6 months you had a 2 in 3 chance the Netflix app would lock up on it and none of the “fixes” (reinstall, clear cache, etc., etc., etc., … ) did anything to help.

Even worse, not only would the Netflix app lock itself up, it would lock up the entire Roku device so someone had to be dispatched to unplug, wait, replug the power on the Roku device to restart Roku.

We have so much on the Roku that actually works (Hulu, etc) - why pay monthly for such a crappy app? Family complained for about 2 days and then forgot Netflix even exists.

I don’t recall - I uninstalled it so fast I didn’t register the name. I was looking for a productivity app, so it was a planner or something. If I come across it again I will make a separate post for it so we can all grumble and wow.

I started having problems with freetube a few months back, as well. I switched to one of several piped instances (whichever one is working at any given time) in my browser.

I hate stuff like this, that thinks it’s being “cute”, or “cool”, or “clever”, or whatever as if the company and I have some sort of personal relationship and could just interact on this level. No, Ridiculous Company, you and I do not have any kind of relationship - and now we never will even try again for one, any time in the future. In fact, from now on every time I see your logo, I will remember your “cleverness” and imagine a room full of imposter marketers and imposter developers sitting in a plastic building full of foosball tables and needlessly-big vertical monitors being “clever” for each other while their stock goes further and further down the toilet.

Or is that just me?

At least they didn’t eat them…? 🤔

I see continued guaranteed employment for someone who needs a job. Can’t clean up after meatheads with AI - yet.

I installed a deb package this morning and started it up - only to face an ad for other software. It’s seeping in…

Buy less. Use less. Reward good pricing with your money. Spouse stopped buying favorite frozen sausages months ago because they went from $5 to $12. The other day noticed they are “on sale” for $5.25. Bought 2 and will continue buying them until they go back up. I’ve also started buying a lot of things on sale in bulk that will store awhile, so I can just walk by the ridiculous pricing until the next sale drops it again.

Since the receipt says the 18% “helps facilitate a higher living base wage for all our employees”, then that’s already the tip. So I would write the word “ZERO” on the tip line, and never return to that restaurant.

I’ve already stopped going to anywhere that:

1. Pulls stuff like this, or

2. Wants me to input a “tip” for fast food (which includes coffee shops - looking at you, Starbucks) and other places that don’t use the traditional waitstaff model for pampering and serving your table, or

3. Makes me input a tip up front before I get “service” or even product.

All of the above also means I’m eating a lot less garbagey and/or overpriced food-stuffs from restaurants these days. Better health. More money in my pocket. Higher quality food.

Currently paying for YouTube ad-free, Netflix ad-free, and Hulu ad-free.

YouTube’s algorithm seems intent on making me look elsewhere for content, as it suggests the same twenty things over and over again, despite the fact that I’ve watched half of them already and ignored the other half for months now. We only keep it because spouse wants it for YouTube music. Me? I’ve wandered off to piped and peertube, mostly.

The Netflix app locks up and crashes the Roku at least once every movie. It used to do this just now and again, but recently it’s so bad I don’t even load it anymore and spouse is THIS CLOSE to being talked into just cancelling it.

Hulu…? Well, it’s ok. I wish it still had a lot of the older stuff, as a lot of the newer stuff is just stupid and/or revolting. Because of the above, we’d probably keep this one and dump the others, based on price and what (mostly spouse) finds useful to watch.

I’m actually checking out other things. Like Hoopla through the local library, eBooks, real books (the local library is free). Spouse and I have also learned to play several different card games, and sometimes we actually interact with each other instead of alpha-wave mind-bending into the electronic hallucination machine on the other side of the living room. We’re also exploring more outdoor activities, like hiking, birding, nature walks, team sports, and so on.

Sometimes, a “bad” thing is just the right thing that needs to happen.