Once upon a time, I was running a DnD game for some friends. The player characters were checking out reports that a local town had been having trouble with monsters. They’re informed that it was true, a few years ago, but a copper dragon set up a lair in the mountains and chased all the awful creatures out. A dragon slayer showed up shortly thereafter and neither dragon nor slayer were heard from again. Players are disappointed at first, but then quickly perk up when some other plot threads become apparent.
A few sessions later, the place they were staying burned down (their fault), forcing them to check out the more expensive tavern in town. There, they meet Allie Cohol, a half-elf woman with red hair that owned and ran the tavern. She was cheerfully greedy, but still helpful and always ready with a cheesey joke… And after only the third joke, one of the players, Bill, froze and locked eyes with me. “You fucker. She’s the copper dragon,” Bill says.
That reveal was supposed to be a big thing later, so I’m kinda on the spot. Fortunately, another player, Fran, pipes up and says, “nah, that’s stupid. The dragon in the mountain is a red herring. We’re here for the cultists.” The cultists were in the sewer and the PCs were actually working for the cleric Big Bad without them knowing.
“No, listen,” Bill continued. “Red hair. Greedy. Bad jokes… Her name is Allie Cohol.”
Everyone around the table gives him a fairly blank look, but I’m sweating bullets. Threads that I had spun oh so carefully were half a heartbeat away from unraveling. Bill is getting this real wild look in his eyes and pounds a fist against the table. “Allie Cohol. HER NAME IS ALCOHOL.”
Fran then slowly pans over and looks me dead in the eyes. “The deadly joke ability. She’s a goddamn dragon.”
So if you lived in a society where you had to secure your communication in order to be yourself around others, here are the apps that could help you do that.
Signal let’s you securely text and make phone calls.
Onion Browser allows you to surf the web without leaving a trail.
Duck Duck Go isn’t super secure but it won’t record your searches like Google.
ProtonMail is a email client that lets you email other secure email accounts.
Periscope allows you to stream live video.
Semaphor is there so you can securely make group chat rooms.
American privacy laws allow you to use these all. So that’s pretty cool.
Bunch of protests this weekend so here’s some added tips. Don’t officially sign up for them, many RSVP’s are a Terms of Service saying you will fully and quickly follow every direction an officer gives and protestors often do get arrested for a number of (bullshit) things. Signing proves you were there and may give up other rights you have depending the TOS. (Normally your right to sue if something bad happens.)
If you do sign one, make sure you are on your best behavior don’t want to risk everyone on the list because you were forced to jaywalk and the police start grabbing whoever is close for it. And now suddenly warrants are going out days later for more people.
Don’t fingerprint or face unlock your phone. Neither are legally protected by the 4th amendment.
If you are white and privileged dress like you are going to church and use that privilege as a buffer between anyone who might be trouble and someone who needs protecting.
99% of protests are actually nothing but shouting chants and waking peacefully along. Expect the best but prepare for the worst.
UPDATE 1/15/2019
Face ID and finger prints are still risky but it’s now legally protected!!
If federal employees were legally permitted to strike, the shutdown would be over in a day. The workers with their hands in their pockets have more power than the assembled forces of all the ruling class.
alright i gotta say. re: jack black & antisemitism:
1. i’m seeing a lot of “his mom is jewish and his dad converted to judaism” oh so you mean jewish. what you’re meaning to say is his parents are jewish, both of them, they’re jewish
2. why are we on this whole thing again “born to jewish parents” “raised jewish” “of jewish descent” like sorry your cultural icon is A Jew with zero degrees of separation
On 26 December 2018, the News Punch junk news site (formerly the equally disreputable Your News Wire junk news site) published an article claiming that CBS had reported on “world leaders and elite businessmen” who supposedly “ingest the blood of young children in order to achieve ‘eternal youth’”:
“CBS: Elites Are Lining up to Ingest the Blood of Children
World leaders and elite businessmen are ingesting the blood of young children in order to achieve ‘eternal youth,’ a CBS report warns.
What was once dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theory’ is now being publicly acknowledged by billionaires and the mainstream media.”
That News Punch report was typically distorted and deliberately misleading, intended to foster a false picture of vampiric patrons feasting on the blood of children to maintain themselves in a state of youthful immortality.
The underlying information that formed basis of the News Punch article did not come from CBSNews, but rather from a two-minute, speculative health segment produced by Philadelphia television station KYW. And that segment did not state, or even remotely suggest, that anyone was “ingesting” the blood of “young children” in order to “achieve eternal youth.”
The effectiveness — and advisability — of even that small Ambrosia trial has been challenged by those who maintain it holds the potential to do more harm than good.
These continents were already tamed by the indigenous inhabitants. And had been for tens of thousands of years.
Over 80% of the Native Americans were dead by diseases brought over by Columbus’ crew long before the Pilgrims arrived in North America. The Native Americans suffered an apocalyptic catastrophe that made the European Plague look like a bad cold season. This was not done on purpose but it was inevitable that it would have happened eventually.
So what we had here was a Post-Apocalyptic world being resettled by a technologically more advanced civilization. Anthropologically speaking, there was no other outcome possible but what occurred, not on the grander scale of it, anyway. That a bunch of political and religious refugees turned a culturally devastated land into the greatest bastion for freedom, self-rule, and scientific advancement this planet has ever seen is nothing to be sorry for.
Smallpox blankets
The effort to eradicate bison specifically to starve the Sioux
The trail of tears
Residential schools
Bounties for scalped Native Americans in Pennsylvania
The multiple broken treaties to respect Native Land
Please dont fucking act like Native genocide was some kind of unfortunate accident. It was a series of deliberate, violent acts that took advantage of the aftermath of the plagues Europeans brought with them.
are there actually still people who think manifest destiny is real and not babylogic?
i just got a super predatory debt collection letter. it was for a $113 debt from citizens bank, who i had an account with when i was 16 (20 years ago). the letter appeared to be an offer to cancel the debt if i paid them $22.75. HOWEVER, the actual wording is, “The amount of the debt is $113.77 and we will accept $22.75.” so, no MENTION of canceling the debt, but the implication is there because many collectors of current debt offer to settle for a percentage.
at the bottom of the letter, it says: “Because of the age of your debt, we cannot sue you for it and we cannot report to any credit reporting agency. In many circumstances, you can renew the debt and start the time period for the filing of a lawsuit against you if you take specific actions such as making payments on the debt or making a written promise to pay.”
basically… i don’t owe this money anymore, the debt is so old they can’t legally sue me for it OR put it on my credit report, BUT if i take their generous offer of paying them $22.75… they can sue me for the full amount because making a payment makes the debt current.
no thanks, jefferson capital systems llc.
always, always read the entire letter! it is so important because of semantic awfulness like this!
