Hello. I struck a bargain with the face.
But stuff still happens.
So what's up? Good news, Australia.
Your government's not going to watch you watch porn yet.
Contrasting what some states in the US and, of course, good old Great Britain is doing.
The Australian government has decided to not require ID verification to watch porn online.
This is because they came to the very obvious conclusion that any attempt to do so
would have massive privacy implications.
And this next part is just buck wild.
You know, this is this is unbelievable.
They're going to allocate money and resources towards educating parents
about how to work with their children to establish healthy boundaries,
as well as funding, quote, age appropriate, evidence based, respectful relationships education.
It is truly frightening to know that a country might treat their children with respect.
I think instead we should go back to using these children as political pawns to invade your privacy.
It just seems more free that way.
Speaking of wanting to know about your body,
Elon Musk wants to know about your body because X slash Twitter has updated their privacy policy
to say that they are now allowed to collect biometric data,
as well as your education and employment history.
They are claiming that this is for security or something.
That doesn't make any sense.
That's not how that works.
Extremely brief tech education.
Whenever you use like Face ID or a fingerprint scanner on your phone,
that's handled by your phone on secure hardware on your phone, not by the app that's using it.
So if an app wants to use Face ID, it asks your phone to do Face ID
and your phone just gives it a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
The app doesn't know about your face.
So Twitter saying we need your biometric data to be able to do privacy things.
That's not OK.
And it's triply not OK because all of these tech bro lords are trying to do biometric stuff
because all of them are into eugenics.
That is not speculation.
That is an understood thing.
I've linked an explainer in today's newsletter.
I would caution that it's a massive rabbit hole,
but largely, if you're ever wondering why all these tech bros are ultimately trying to do
health care innovations and talking about like fertility rates and whatnot.
It's all eugenics and it all goes back to Stanford.
I'll make a longer video on that at some point.
It don't use Twitter.
Get off of it.
I know a lot of people are saying like I'm on Twitter for the art.
I'm not sure if artists know that Twitter owns all of the art you put on there.
Like they also have said that they're allowed to take and use your art
for whatever purposes they want, including training their AIs and reselling.
It is not a safe place for artists.
It is not a safe place for communities.
It's not a safe place for really anybody but Nazis at this point
and people who want to give Elon Musk their biometric data.
Hey, you know what's not chill?
Texas, the Texas Supreme Court, which is made up entirely of Republicans,
have upheld a bill that bans health care for trans minors.
Before I go any further, I want to be exceedingly clear again.
For the gorillianth time, gender affirming care for minors
can be as simple as talking to a counselor, getting a haircut or a change of clothes.
It is exceedingly rare for a minor to actually get surgery.
Hell, it's rare for a minor to even actually be on medication.
It does happen and it's health care, but it's rare.
A decision which should be between families and doctors and pediatric experts
has now been thrown aside as the Supreme Court has said, no,
you cannot make that decision.
We are making it for you.
Trans minors who are already on doctor recommended medication
have to stop under this new law.
This starts today.
As of today, there are going to be human beings
who were previously taking medication for a condition they have,
and they are now legally not allowed to do that anymore.
Pediatric psychologists have already sounded the alarm
that this is going to cause some of those children to turn to self harm or suicide.
This is why it's often referred to as life saving gender affirming care.
It's no different than people with depression
who need to get medication to help with that
and otherwise may have suicidal ideation.
This is why people are saying there's trans genocide happening.
This is not a rampant thing sweeping the nation and corrupting our children.
This is just human beings trying to survive, be themselves and receive care.
There are far, far bigger issues that could have been tackled,
but instead we're just using trans people as a punching bag.
These are people who have decided that their myopic worldview
supersedes your rights so much so that if you tried to exercise
what were previously your rights, you can go to jail.
I am sorry.
I'm mad about Instagram now. I'm mad today.
This is not an important story. I'm going to rant anyway.
Just give me this.
There are rumors that Instagram is going to start allowing reels
to be longer than a minute and 30 seconds,
maybe three minutes or up to 10 minutes.
I, as a person who does a lot of work in the short form vertical video space,
have some words here.
So TikTok videos typically cap out at three minutes.
You can go longer, but it typically caps out at three minutes.
Reels currently cap out at a minute and 30 seconds.
You can post longer reels, but they won't go into their equivalent of the For You page.
YouTube Shorts caps out at 60 seconds.
Meanwhile, TikTok's new monetization system requires that your videos
be at least 60 seconds to make any money.
So TikTok is pushing back against Shorts by way of capping
when you can actually get money.
Shorts doesn't let you go past the 60 second mark at all.
And reels doesn't really let you go past the minute and 30 second mark.
And so if you're a person who's trying to make content for people,
you have to jump through all of these hoops to meet all of their requirements
because they're all fighting each other for domination in this space.
It is a great example of how we lose.
Anyway, Instagram might actually rethink some of that
because they might maybe allow some longer videos.
Why do reels and shorts even exist?
Anyway, like I said, it's not a pressing story.
I am just mad.
On this day in 1864, the city of Atlanta, Georgia,
was evacuated after a months long siege during the American Civil War.
Confederate General John Bell Hood called for the evacuation
because Union General Sherman was relentless.
While General Sherman had a stop at nothing to win the war kind of vibe,
apparently General Hood was described by a historian as,
possibly the largest mistake that either government made during the war.
Imagine hearing that your promotion was considered
the biggest mistake in the American Civil War.
Fucking yikes, bro.
Lightning round.
Mitch McConnell glitched again for like 30 seconds,
for the second time in like a month.
Retire.
Regulators are looking into Tesla after reports of a secret Elon mode,
which removes some safety features from their autopilot system.
Apparently Lockheed Martin's street wear is popular in South Korea right now.
I don't know if that's cursed or blessed.
Sony is hiking the price of PlayStation Plus,
so if you're subscribed, go double check.
And finally for today, Burger King is being sued
over potentially misrepresenting the size of the whopper,
that misleading advertising.
Fun fact, my grandfather designed the original Burger King logo.
Isn't that neat?
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
Head to Stuff Keeps Happening.online for sources, bonus content,
and a full sized whopper.
My name is Endeavorance.
I'll be back on Monday.
Take care and be well.