snek_boi

I figured I'd pay for a month of Netflix so that the movie creators would get paid.

I paid and THEN Netflix asked for a phone number. Why do they need a phone number when we all know SMS spoofing is trivial?

At this point, I hadn't even logged in, and I was done with Netflix. Then and there, I cancelled my subscription.

However, the next day, I was able to log in with no problem. No phone number needed.

Alright. I figured I could use the month's worth of Netflix I paid for. I searched for the movie and tried watching it. I couldn't.

• "You can't use a VPN"
• "Your browser doesn't let us spy on you enough"
• "Honestly we're just tempting you to get this movie through piracy lol"
• "Nah, we don't care about you. We care about profits xoxo"
• "Nah. No refunds. We warned you"

I don't know what I was thinking.

Oh yeah, I wanted to support artists. But Netflix made it impossible. What a joke.

Why do this? Because surveillance capitalism wants you to be less free. It wants you to be glued to the screen. It wants you to buy whatever advertisers want you to buy. But you can fight back by deliberately poisoning your data.

I used to not really care about stationery. That changed when my uncle showed me his fountain pen. I had never used one before. I couldn’t believe how smooth it was. He suggested I went to stores and tried different pens. That way, I’d find what I like. And that’s exactly what I did in the last couple of weeks.

I found out exactly what I like at a price that is reasonable for me. When I now have to write something by hand, I get excited about it!

Everyone will have different tastes, but here’s what I learned for myself:

• Lamy Safari Rollerball sucks*. I thought I was getting a pen for life, but the ink flows inconsistently. This same problem has been reported by other people online. This pen was not designed for rollerball. It was designed as a fountain pen.
• InkJoy Gels are alright. They’re an improvement over normal ballpoint pens, but they’re not as good as other gel pens, such as the G-Tec-C4.
• G-Tec-C4 is my new go-to. They’re relatively cheap and the experience of writing with them is amazing.
• I rediscovered mechanical pencils. I tried one that had buttery-smooth lead. I fell in love. I won’t buy any yet, because I have pencils at home, but I know what I will eventually buy (a metallic mechanical pencil with Uni lead).
• Point balls are not my thing. I haven’t found one I like. Unfortunately, they are probably the most environmentally friendly pen that is both convenient and cheap. If someone has a good recommendation, I’m open.
• Fountain pens are amazing for writing, but they’re not resilient. I need pens that will survive my life. I fling my backpack around. I don’t want to have ink spill all over. A fountain pen is an amazing writing experience that doesn’t fit naturally in my life. I could be wrong. Are there resilient fountain pens?

*Edit: I said this because I used my Lami Safari Rollerball in smooth paper. However, what I said stopped being true the instant I tried the Lami Safari Rollerball in rougher paper. Thanks, dr_jekell@lemmy.world for the heads up!