Tay gently pushed the plastic door of the printer shut with an edifying "click".
Servicing Dark Printers had been illegal for years now. They enjoyed the seditious thrill.
It had started as a subscription grab after the printer companies tried hobbling third party toner cartridges.
"Subscribe for a monthly fee and you'll never run out of toner again."
"Let us monitor your printer so you don't have to."
People saw it for what it was - vendor lock in - but they had no choice really, not after all the printer companies started doing it.
Then came generative AI.
Everyone wanted to scrape every word ever written on the internet, tokenize it and feed it to an #LLM. #Reddit sold out, then #Tumblr, even open source darling #WordPress - selling out their user base for filthy token lucre.
So people started hiding their words, their art, their thoughts, their expression, not behind disrespected robots.txt, but through obscurity.
Rejecting Website Boy's "fewer algorithmic fanfares", they forked into the Dark Fedi.
Unscrapeable, unscrutable, ungovernable.
But people had forgotten about the printers.
The printers had to be connected 24/7, for "monitoring".
But you could tokenize postscript as easily as HTML.
And so every time a document was sent to a printer, it was harvested for tokens. Even secure documents. Documents not online.
Tay shut the metal door behind them, Dark Printer cossetted safely in its Faraday cage, and shuffled the hot stack of A4 paper it had borne.
It was a children's story, about how words were sacred, and special, and how you had to earn the right to use them.
Micro transactions for certain feature articles are ok but not the ehole shebang. And in 2024, I refuse to deal with anything that isn’t potentially using ActivityPub or can otherwise be federated and followed by my main accounts.
It is with a heavy heart that I share this sad news with you. Despite how much we’ve accomplished together, we will be shutting down Post News within the next few weeks. We have done many great things…](https://post.news/@/noam/2fJw4PYRFjya343RpiToiyEQr0x)
@starrwulfe@evan Yep. #PostNews had potential, & I believe that if they would have allowed custom domains for a fee & activated #ActivityPub, they would have been as successful as #MicroBlog.
Throw in #Tumblr importing & it would have thrived.
🇩🇪 Weiter geht's mit den Stufe 1-Quests in #MonsterHunterTri! Wir gehen für ein paar rote Korallensteine auf Tauchstation und machen einen Angelausflug an die Küste, um Goldenfische zu fangen.
🇬🇧 We continue with the level 1 quests in #MonsterHunter Tri! We go diving after some red coral stones and go on a fishing trip to the coast to catch Goldenfish.
No state of virtue is complete, however total the virtue, save as it is won by a conflict with evil, and fortified by the struggles of a resolute and even bitter experience.
🇩🇪 Wir starten durch mit den Stufe 1-Quests in #MonsterHunterTri! Heute geht es ein paar Jaggi(a) an den Kragen und wir beschaffen Zutaten für Kelbi-Horn Medizin.
🇬🇧 We're starting out with the level 1 quests in #MonsterHunter Tri! Today we go after some Jaggi(a) and fetch ingredients for Kelbi horn medicine.
This, right here, is why I do what I do. We [trans people] will never be safe on corporate social media. Even a platform that advertises itself as "the queerest place on the internet" will happily nuke our accounts with no warning or chance to appeal.
And so I push through the stress and burnout to continue one of the hardest things I've ever done. Running this instance is a daily struggle, but it's worth it. We've suffered enough under hostile moderation and apathetic corporations, so now it's time to ensure our own protection.
Transfem.social is and always will be a safe space for marginalized people. That's my promise, and that's the goal that keeps me pressing forward.
-- Ember, admin of transfem.social :heart_trans:
The aggregation of the spiritual life from the practical life is a curse that falls impartially upon both sides of our existence. A society that gives to one class all the opportunities for leisure, and to another all the burdens of work, dooms both classes to spiritual sterility.
🇩🇪 Es ist der 15. April - der Tag, an dem ich vor einem Jahr meinen Seelenverwandten aus #MassEffect getroffen habe: Legion. Eine kleine Geschichte unserer Beziehung, und wie #Liebe zu fiktiven Charakteren überhaupt funktioniert.
🇬🇧 It's April 15th - the day when, one year ago, I met my soulmate from Mass Effect: Legion. A little history of our relationship, and how being in #love with fictional characters works, anyway.
The evil arising from mental improvement can be corrected only by a still further progress in that very improvement. Either morality is a fable, or the more enlightened we are, the more attached to it we become.