By Nate Bear @natebear1.bsky.social

"The UK says it won't even bother when the next pandemic hits. The lesson most countries have drawn from covid is that letting the old and weak die is better for capitalism. The pandemic was a waymarker on our journey to a harsher, crueller world"

Source: x.com/NateB_Panic/status/19968…

Framework for managing the response to pandemic diseases: england.nhs.uk/long-read/frame…

Travel Influencer Caught Using AI to Make It Seem Like Minorities Are Terrorizing London
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/immigrant-influencer-ai-racism?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Futurism @futurism-Futurism

Travel Influencer Caught Using AI to Make It Seem Like Minorities Are Terrorizing London

Sensationalist travel vlogger Kurt Caz was caught using AI to doctor a thumbnail to look like immigrants are taking over London.

^{Joe Wilkins (Futurism)}

The median family income in the U.S. has gone from $10K in 1971 to $106k today, an increase of 10x.

However, the median cost of a house has gone from $25K to $445k, an increase of 17x.

And the median cost of a car has gone from $3.6K to $50k, an increase of 14x.

The median cost of college has gone from $2.9k a year to $45k, an increase of 16x.

And the average cost of healthcare per person has gone from $350 to $14.6k, an increase of 42x.

The average person is worse off today than in 1971.

Europe in danger?

#MAGA #Europe #EuropeanUnion #populism

I’ve been diving into the Mona 7 upgrade controversy, specifically the requirement for Mona 6 Pro users to buy a "Bridge Upgrade" to Pro Max ($10) in the old app just to unlock the *privilege* of buying the Ultra One-Time Purchase ($20) in the new app.

While a developer is absolutely allowed to release a new App ID and charge for it (that is standard practice), this specific "Bridge Purchase" mechanism appears to violate Apple's App Store Review Guidelines in two critical ways.

If you are frustrated by this, here is the technical breakdown of why this flow is likely non-compliant:

1. Violation of Guideline 3.1.1 (In-App Purchase Mechanics)
The core rule of IAP is that purchases must be for content/features *consumed within the app*.

Guideline 3.1.1 states: "Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality... Apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase."

By forcing users to buy an upgrade in Mona 6 (App A) specifically to unlock a price tier in Mona 7 (App B), the developer is effectively selling a "coupon" or "license key" for a different app.
* The $10 spent in Mona 6 is not primarily for Mona 6 features (since the user is abandoning that app for Mona 7); it is a fee paid in App A to modify the behavior of App B.
* Apple historically rejects apps that sell access to other apps. The "Loyalty Discount" should be native to Mona 7 (e.g., detecting the Mona 6 receipt), not gatekept behind a fresh paywall in a deprecated binary.

2. Violation of Guideline 2.3 (Accurate Metadata & Misleading Terms)
This is the "Bait and Switch" clause.

Guideline 2.3.1 states: "Customers should know what they’re getting when they download or buy your app... Don’t include any hidden or undocumented features in your app."

When users bought Mona 6 Pro as a "One-Time Purchase," the reasonable expectation was a perpetual license for that major version. By creating a *new* tier (Pro Max) and retroactively declaring it the *only* tier eligible for future loyalty benefits, the developer has obfuscated the value of the original purchase.
* Forcing a user to upgrade a "dead" product (Mona 6) to access the "live" product (Mona 7) is a "Junk Fee" structure that confuses the purchase flow and misleads users about the true cost of the upgrade ($11.99 original + $10 bridge + $20 new app = $41.99 total, vs the advertised $20).

The Bottom Line:
The developer has every right to charge $20 for Mona 7. They do NOT have the right to force you to spend $10 in Mona 6 to "unlock" that button.

If this flow remains, it sets a dangerous precedent where developers can tax users in legacy apps to gatekeep access to new ones. The "Loyalty Offer" should be available to *all* paid Mona 6 users, or the upgrade path should be handled entirely within Mona 7.

#MonaApp #AppStore #iOSDev #TechPolicy #Mastodon

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my name is ericjames*. i'm a 22-year-old furry from Queens, NY. i am asexual, aromantic, and non-binary¹. my pronouns are they/it. i have autism, ADHD, and non-24-hour sleep–wake disorder².

the "online" in my username is no joke. i surf the web almost every waking hour of my life. sometimes i make things and put them up on the internet, such as memes and mashups.

i listen to all kinds of music, but especially heavy EDM, such as dubstep, trap, drum & bass, and hardstyle.

my profile picture was made with a base by stardustfox.

visit ericjamesonline.carrd.co for all my links.

footnotes
¹ throughout my life, i've never really felt particularly masculine or feminine. just somewhere in between, i guess.

² my sleep schedule "revolves" over the course of 2 to 3 weeks, and i sleep about an hour later than the day before.

Canine Icon Base

A happy canine furry icon base! Includes versions with short and longer hair. Includes PSD files and PNGs!

^Gumroad

I am reading a book about gender ideology and class in pre-colonial Peru, and just finished a segment discussing how the word "supay" was originally a morally neutral term meaning spirit (add an adjective to make it refer to a bad or good or specific spirit) until the colonial religious authorities superimposed their ideological world view of an ultimate Good vs an ultimate Evil on the spiritual practices of the indigenous people they were colonizing. Anyway, this reminded me of the word "daemon" in Greek which was a morally neutral term meaning spirit (add an adjective to make it refer to a bad or good or specific spirit) and how that word is the origin of the word "demon" because Christianity of that time and place did the same to "pagan" religions of Europe as its descendant then did to the indigenous people of the Andes and elsewhere.

We say history doesn't repeat, it rhymes, but ideological machines that run for centuries really are just running exactly the same programs over and over again, so there is no poetry to the patterns we are lost inside. Just doing the same thing over and over again until we are brave enough to dismantle the machine that produces the pattern.

The artificer nodded. "I can build this wheeled chair, but why? You have an enchanted hover seat."

"Yes," the wizard fumed, "but the palace have erected magic-cancelling wards."

"Why?"

"Don't know. But they didn't think of people who need mobility aids. So I need wheels to go shout at the king."

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

How UI degrades over time.

Top (Windows 95): great contrast, obvious shapes. Instantly readable.

Middle (Windows 11): shapes are still self-explanatory, but contrast is gone.

Bottom (Windows 11 Insiders): what am I even looking at? The only shape I can understand here is the Run button. Barely visible, though.

Then, on the left, there’s another something that says Run and has an icon. What is it? A window title? Another button? Why does it have to say Run twice?
... 1/3