>First, Weve Discovered That About A Quarter Of All The Internet Connection In Or Out Of The House Were

>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.

I had a discussion with my mom tonight about the upcoming solar eclipse on Monday and found out exactly how much audacity the local Chamber of Commerce has.

You see, my mom works for the town library, and the library, as a member of said organization, was asked to wait to provide free eclipse viewing glasses until the Chamber had the chance to sell some for a profit.

The asking price?

$50!!! Fifty fucking dollars!!!!

For the cardboard piece of shit glasses that you can buy at the Wal-Mart 4 pair for 5 bucks or get for free with an Eclipse slush at Sonic!

The fucking audacity!

We are in the path of totality here and will be in it for just under 4 minutes, so the price of everything has soared for the weekend, including hotel rooms at our 2 just barest of okeyest hotels, has skyrocketed.

The price on those hotel rooms?

Starts at $675 a night this weekend. Starts there!

That, and most of the surrounding area hotels are sold out at those prices. We are not metropolitan, just rural with a little bit of industrial mixed in. We should not at all be able to command that pricing.

One of the local churches wants fifty bucks to park in their parking lot to watch it, and a few other places around followed suit. Private residents want anywhere from ten to fifty dollars to park on their property.

The gas prices here are up because of a predicted peak in use. There's an Eclipse Festival at the fairgrounds this weekend, with bands playing all weekend, and the pricing on it seems to be the only reasonably priced thing in the entire racket.

Our entire city collectively lost their minds in a money grab over this eclipse thing.

Assuming equal technical prowess, well, I'm picking Trip for the eye candy. But also, for the polite Southern gentleman thing. Since I'm a lady Captain, he's probably gonna put up less of a fight with me.

If you're in the mood, reblog for sample size!

It's my 7 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

Today, I submitted a short story to a professional editor. I went to a symposium over the weekend, and there will be two rounds of edits, then submission into a contest. The winners will be published. Here's hoping I get published for the first time.

#Digital Library

This is definitely not a google drive full of the sleep stuff from the Headspace app, including sleepcasts, music, and wind down meditation, that normally costs 17.99 a month, no siree and you definitely shouldnt share this with people