>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.
>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.
>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.
>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.
>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.
>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.
>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.
>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!
>Lemmings problem now solved.
>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.
>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.
>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.
>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.
>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.
>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.
don't let the alt right make you think being a male is an immutable trait of yours. you can always become a woman to be a true leftist
you! tumblr user!
Amidst all the images coming out of palestine of death and destruction created by the zionist occupation, i think it is important that we take a moment to remember palestine as it was- seen and captured through the eyes of talented photographers like Shahed @shahednhall and remember exactly what was senselessly lost in the past few months.
This is Al-Azhar university, where Shahed used to study. She was an exemplary student, and used to get regularly invited by her teachers to give lectures.
Since the university was bombed and destroyed by the IOF, all she has left are these pictures. Even through all the violence and death around her though, she still makes sure to keep up with her studies through the university's online programme.
This is a shop Shahed had visited only some time before october. She told me it was run by an artist who painted these beautiful home items, and engraved them by hand with customers names. Shahed had photographed them because they were so eye-catching and beautiful, and had sent the woman her photos so she could use them to promote the shop.
Shahed has told me this shop isnt there any more. She is currently trying to get in touch with the woman who used to run this shop again, but shahed doesn't know if she is even alive or not.
Shahed has an eye for beauty in all things, and it shows in her work and in conversation. It has taken on a different meaning now when so much of everything she knows has been stolen by the occupation from her and other palestinians like her.
In her own words:
"As you know, I like to photograph a lot, everyone liked my photography. I was filming everything because a memory can never come back again. This sentence is not understood by many. I am happy because I photograph everything."
What had been a hobby of collecting moments for her has now become something of an archive of all the things in Palestine that have been lost to the zionist occupation.
Shahed's outlook on her photography tends to colour our conversation as well. She finds it is more productive to talk to me about her hope for a better future, rather than all the bleakness around her right now.
"Yes, because I see inside every picture of new hope, I feel a great motivation that I will survive to see that life is more beautiful than what I live at the moment. I seek to return to a life that is more beautiful than the one we live now, a very difficult life because it has turned black and white."
I don't know how anyone can look at her photos and think of anything but hope
The mainstream media in the west and elsewhere can lie all they like- but we will know always that palestine was and is a land full of beautiful people. Never forget that the death, illness and destruction in palestine today was something imposed upon them by the colonizers, and has been imposed upon them for decades.
Shahed doesn't like to share images of misery with me, but please remember that she and her family are suffering right now. The happy children in the pictures, her little sisters, are suffering from severe hepatitis and are no longer recieving treatment due to overcrowding at what hospitals are left in gaza. Shahed herself has been weak and ill for days, narrowly surviving multiple massacres in just the past few days while trying to get food for her family. They all got displaced just last week due to the intense bombing in khan younis, and in doing so have lost precious funds that could have gone into food and clean water. They are starving.
Shahed is only 21 years old but the responsibility of taking care of all 17 of her family members rests solely on her shoulders.
This gfm was verified and appears on hussein @/el-shab-hussein and nairuz @/nabulsi list of vetted fundraisers (#224) so please dont hesitate to donate whatever you can, and please keep sharing!!!
Take this as a call to action, please repost her her fundraiser in your discord servers, in your whatsapp groups. Repost her photgraphy and share her story on whatever social media you have reach, so that people can help because i really cant get her to her goal in time alone.
My grandma’s on and off again boyfriend that she cheated on grandpa with died today.
my "i don't need a rabies shot because i eat the vaxx-laced meatballs that fish & wildlife leaves out for the coyotes" shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt
"Oublier" means forgetting in french, so an oubliette is the place where one is sent to be forgotten.
But it always sounded a bit of to me as a french speaker, because the -ette at the end of the word implies it's a cute lil thing. Like " teheee i guess i forgot sometthing on my way owo, how silly of me :] ". When in fact you left your ennemies to be forgotten in the ground, still alive for now, but never to see the light of day again.
“oubliette” is such a fancy word for such an unbelievably simple thing. captain of the guard says “take their ass to the oubliette” and you think oh boy they must have some really high end perhaps grotesque punishment prepared for me and then they just throw you into a hole in the ground
I am Mahmoud Helles, the owner of the donation campaign.The campaign aims to expel my family from Gaza and expel my wife to Egypt due to her serious condition with a kidney injury. Please enter my page and then share .https://gofund.me/53fa2830🌹🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🌹😭
Hello, sorry i only saw your ask now. I donated a bit and truly hope it can help you
I define a chair as any object that is used to sit on
A big stone? I sit on it, thus it becomes a chair
A stack of wood palets? Let me move my ass and turn that shit into a chair
But wait
Now i moved to sit on a slightly lower stack of palets next to it, which becomes a chair
And i lay my food on the slightly higher stack of pallets; now i use it as a table, it has become a table and is not a chair anymore
But a chair is usually a seat for a single person, so if you sit next to me on the stack of palets, it becomes a bench.
Although a bench is made for sitting, so if we lay back on the pallets after our meal, it becomes .... a bed??
i think that all the people who argue about gender by saying "the woke left cant even define a woman" need to get hit with the "who are you" question by a buddhist monk. no, thats your name, who are you. no thats your profession, who are YOU. no you fucking idiot thats your species, who are YOUU. dumb bitch u cant even define yourself