Strike

Bisan made a smart move extending the global spending strike from the 21st by seven days more, until the 28th.

From what I heard, it means:

1. Minimize spending or banking to emergencies only
   
2. No work
3. No school, at least physically, but I suggest you completely avoid going to school altogether
4. Don’t go outside, except for protesting and emergencies (but even if it's for emergencies, show your support for Palestine physically and actively)
5. Even if you don't have Palestine badges, shirts, etc, or a keffiyeh, or anything in hand to make a peaceful protest item, show your activism verbally. Explicitly call out the west and Illegal Israeli Occupation and the IOF. Don't whisper, don't talk, you must yell.
6. I say don't go outside and don't spend money, except for emergencies. However, me, you should "boycott" the need of an emergency as best as you can. Take care of your health as much as you can as fast as you can.
7. No shopping, movie theater movies, or even streaming movies. That counts as spending. I'm putting those in front just in case I forget.
   
8. No social media scrolling unless it's for Palestine. Do not like (some people like but don't repost but some don't), post, repost, reply, follow, etc. unless it is about Palestine, which in that case, like and retweet, and comment if you'd like. You may need to mute people who don't apply.
   
9. Don't get mindlessly sucked into social media.
   
10. Remember to keep boycotting! Primarily boycott the ones BDS say to boycott (including the grassroot boycott section), as well as the popular McDonald's-Disney-Starbucks boycott in the West. There's a reason there's a focus on Starbucks and their $11 billion dollar loss in December and their Stanley Valentine's Day cup collabs.
• There's a reason why the boycott focus is on those 16 companies (and Israeli produce). It's simple, it's easy (unlike some of BDS' pressure targets, which own tons of subsidiaries or are monopolies), and it's organized. There are more companies that support Israel than you think. Looking at the BDS boycott list, I think the hardest to boycott as a consumer might be Carrefour (Idk I'm stupid), Chevron/Caltex/Texaco depending on your area, and Teva if you take their medicine but still decide to boycott. It's definitely not McDonald's though.
  

For eight days in a row, you will send messages from the martyrs and living people of Gaza and Palestine, just like you did in November. Your priorities and ideals should lie there.

I heard it can also go for as long as it needs to, as it should.

Unfortunately I’m not sure if I can participate to an effective ability as 1, most of the stuff they’re asking for (besides social media scrolling and a Notion and Bard addiction) I don’t do much anyway, and 2, I just started going to in-person college classes last week. If I strike so early, especially if online studying is off the cards, I’m not sure what would happen.

I use an ad-blocker, but taking a break from entertainment social media period will be my biggest contribution to the strike.

 

Also Click to Help! I think it doesn't count as spending as much as real spending does, I seen it promoted among other fundraisers during the strike. I think Click to Help uses the money from the ads on the site, so turn off your ad-blocker!

Note (January 24): There is also a boycott on K-Pop streaming in tandem to Bisan's global strike. K-Pop in particular, as it's ran by the K-Pop community. It started late, but there are probably others like this. The original plan was to boycott YG, SM, JYP, and HYBE for five days, but it has recently been updated to include all K-Pop (because people were using the strike as an excuse to promote "underrated" groups), and, since it's a consumer boycott, it will last as long as it needs to. The global strike, for the most part, is economic. Music streaming is not a necessity, and it especially doesn't need to be legal. If you're really concerned about where your money's going on streaming services, boycott Spotify and download your songs to a private place.

Some say the K-Pop boycott has been extended to end on February 1st (though some people are saying the boycott creator is against that), but I don't think that will do anything as much as last week did. Some are saying the boycott has been extended to February 29th, let's see how it plays out.

A desicion

I am worried about art programs using generative AI creation in their programs. Many tablet and art companies have been using gen AI lately:

Tablets:

• HUION and Gaomon (the tablet I use) have promoted an AI art class. They have apologized and blamed it on a third party, an independent art platform called JiDan.
• UGEE and XPPen have used AI to generate images for promotion of their tablets. They have apologized for using AI in October, blaming it on a third party supplier. However, the former, the parent company of XPPen and Xencelabs, has still kept AI promotion images in their Amazon listings as early as November.
  
• Wacom has used AI generated dragons for their Chinese New Year sale. They blame this on buying stock images and only using machine detection to see if it is AI. Machine detection is no better than generative AI. The only thing it's better at is not (blatantly) stealing from artists.

I'm not trusting anyone else to not use AI, sorry Artisul and Parblo. Next time I buy a drawing tablet, it will definitely be secondhand.

Art Programs:

• IbisPaint announced a premium only feature where you can generate an AI version of your work so you can use the AI version as reference and "experiment with different styles". They have reversed it the next day.
  
• In 2022, CLIP STUDIO PAINT added an AI art feature in its program, and reversed the decision three days later.
• Adobe has an AI art generation program called Adobe Firefly, and these images can be added to the Adobe Stock shop. Despite controversy, they show no intention of backing down.
• Microsoft, creator of MS Paint, is going heavy with AI by acquiring ChatGPT and making a Bing and Windows 11 AI with it. They are also using DALL E for making AI generated images with their own studio. The Windows 11 version of MS Paint has an early access feature called Cocreator. If I remember correctly, the future of gen AI is Microsoft's primary goal at the moment.

Non-Art:

• Duolingo has been promoting AI for years, removing the forums for a translator chatbot, but not until the latest layoffs of its translators has it gotten people's attention.
  

Unlikely:

• GIMP and Paint.net are unlikely to follow this route, I think. They have better things to do.
• Procreate has stated they are against AI. This was not for an apology, they have not used it before. The apps they have made don't connect to wi-fi besides for importing or exporting (I don't know how it works actually) so it seems like it's technologically impossible for Procreate or Procreate Dreams to even have gen AI tools, at least the 4k prompt kind.
• Krita is open source. Not in a million years, and if they do, there will be a new version with the same code made by a third party to replace it.
• Medibang and FireAlpaca? I don't keep up with them. They either will or will not.
  

Helping Palestine

 Note: Reposting and boycotting is good, but it is NOT the bare minimum.

Calling your reps ON A DAILY BASIS and protesting IN THE STREETS is the bare minimum as well.

Dear diary

I just got apps that "declutters" YouTube and Twitter, the primary social media platforms I waste my time on besides Pinterest.

If my pop culture knowledge goes up to the Stephen Hawking Epstein memes, I am sorry.

The Wonderful Pretty Cures are out and it's not a leak!

 The Cures are:

• Komugi (Inukai)/Cure Wonderful
• Iroha Inukai/Cure Friendy
• Cure Nyammy
• Cure Lillian

Four new characters are introduced as well:

• Satoru Toyama
• Daifuku
• Mayu Nekoyashiki
• Yuki

Mayu will likely be Cure Lillian and as Yuki is her pet, she will likely turn into Yuki Nekoyashiki and become Cure Nyammy. Technically not confirmed but it's obvious.

A preseries theory has come around that Satoru and Daifuku will be the midseason Cures! After all, why else would this supporting character have a rabbit in the Pretty Cure fairy style? (Well in this series Komugi and Yuki are not born magical, so there's no complete guarantee Daifuku won't transform)

For some reason I'm weary that he will become a Cure because his name is in kanji. Albeit, it's only one kanji, but it's the first time since Aguri, I think!