If you go to Reddit, you will inevitably very quickly come by posts that seem to be from regular users, but are actually fill-a ads.

Funny thing happened and I just happened to be eating their food when I filmed it. We did a thing and it failed at other joints but succeeded at their place. My dog can do a cool thing with their box, etc etc.

It feels like they have an army of as people dedicated to creating this content.

It started soon after they got a lot of bad press for finding anti-LGBTQ organizations. Instead of changing their ways, they decided to change their image through social media posts and largely succeeded. Most people associate their brand with good times now, even though they don’t know why.

Much like whenever US police murders someone, Web gets flooded with memes and videos of cops doing fun things and being generally great fun.

They already run what seems to be every other post on Reddit, so why not streaming, too.

We’re not blaming oil rig workers. We’re blaming the industry. And yes, food manufacturers and fast food restaurant chains (not farmers) are largely to blame for the obesity epidemic.

Could be a black Friday palette swap?

I once lived in Ankara, Turkey and had my family send me a cassette with the latest album of my favorite band from Gdańsk, Poland. Never got it and moved on (and moved out).

I got a message from my former neighbors 9 years after the tape was sent, informing me, it has arrived. (It was around early 2000s)

Also up and down after left right

Ok, that’s a good one. I think I might have fallen down with the good old bias: everything before my time is antique and everything newer than my time is an abomination. Thanks for slapping some sense into the old grumpy guy :)

I guess my beef is not with the abbreviations, but more with the fact that short versions completely replace long ones. I can’t recall the last time I heard someone say words like mayonnaise or influenza.

Ever noticed how in America we tend to come up with abbreviations for any word people don’t feel like learning to spell? Renaissance, Mayonnaise… even Through. (Ren, Mayo and Thru, respectively).

Anyway, awesome costumes, love both armors equally.

Yes! Made me miss 2000 tech!

What engine is that?

What’s that? Stable Diffusion? Looking good

Mid journey just did it’s usual “pretty thing from artstation”, so here is what dalle3 came up with

All these services from Netflix to Uber are built on understandable foundations. They lose a ton of money in their first phase in order to gain subscribers but sooner or later start looking to turn profit out at least stop the bleeding.

I can already hear the outcry of surprised gamers when Microsoft cracks the whip on their Game Pass pricing, and there will be little to no alternative because they bought out most of the studios and publishers.

Look up the “theory of American exceptionalism”. In short there is a very strong belief here that America is one of a kind and things that may work for others simply don’t apply here.

Explains why the US stocks a 12hr clock, messed up month/day/year mission, imperial measurement and a ton of other things that any foreigner will find anywhere from quirky to infuriating.

IMHO the exceptionalism theory is a b.s. lazy way of keeping things conservative and unchanged and shutting down any discussion of uncomfortable progress.

GPT 4 with image uploads gets pretty damn close, though it’s not real-time and processed server side

Uhhhh I’d so like to see that!

Googly eyes. Don’t leave home without them

People eat that garbage :(

A big part of it is corporations simply eliminating competition. Why improve yourself when you can buy them out, scrape them for parts and then dissolve.

We must not forget another factor though: A lot of these apps, companies and studios are built on a startup model. They were never designed to be profitable or even economically sustainable. Their entire goal was to create a flashy product with positive user experience and then to get bought by a bigger company. That’s the cash-out time, and most of startups don’t really plan for anything afterwards.

You get bought, you do your time (1-2 years of continued service for the new owners) and then cash out, break loose and either retire or go fund another startup.

There are some cases, like game studio Bungie, where the company itself had vision beyond selling out and after being bought by Microsoft and not loving it - bought itself OUT and then continued its existence (until being bought by Sony). Most of startups don’t think that far, and the product they truly build is not an app or a service but simply stockholder value. They make the buyer’s stock go up when they get acquired and get paid for that.

It’s kinda sad to see for someone like me who was brought up with the ideals of building things that last and creating your own legacy, but that’s today’s startup-driven innovation economy.