zdl

zdl, 9 days ago

@MeltingPenguins @tayledras @mitten @ElleGray See also bacon.

zdl, 9 days ago

@radiojammor @cowardlylionel @Lazarou @ElleGray As far as I can tell the only thing that "improves" exponentially with the latest wave of AI (this time the initialization being "Always Incorrect") is the cost of running it, compared to the at best linear improvement in its capabilities.

There's a reason why all of the AI pushers smell like pump-and-dump to me, and I suspect it's the prohibitive energy costs.

zdl, 9 days ago

@kubefred @ElleGray What do I do with the extra forearm growing out of the side of my elbow?

zdl, 9 days ago

@emi @ElleGray Don't compare AI to the Internet.

Compare AI to … well … AI. In my adult(ish) lifetime alone I'm pretty sure I've seen at least four waves of AI hype and collapse.

And so far this wave is following the script to the letter.

zdl, 9 days ago

@Pinterestforthng @ElleGray I have no idea what you just said.

Did you generate this with ChatGPT 2.5 or something?

zdl, 9 days ago

@unlucio @ElleGray Be fair. The technology kind of sucks too.

zdl, 9 days ago

@MeltingPenguins @tayledras @mitten @ElleGray Baconmania is the product of a conscious and cynical marketing campaign that started likely before most people reading this were born, statistically speaking.

The craze began with the moderately successful "pork, the other white meat" campaign of the early '80s. But lean pork is the smallest part of the pig and pork producers REALLY didn't like throwing away most of their product.

🧵 (1/n)

zdl, 9 days ago

@MeltingPenguins @tayledras @mitten @ElleGray The rising tide of "healthy" anti-fat sentiment in the consumer space continued clamping down on pork producers until sometime in the late '90s or early '00s they decided to do something about it. They paired up with the fast food industry (that was suffering from a huge crush of its own because of some nasty food poisoning issues) and basically paid fast food companies to put bacon onto their menus.

🧵 (2/n)

zdl, 9 days ago

@MeltingPenguins @tayledras @mitten @ElleGray That plethora of bacon-laden food that suddenly popped up in every fast food menu in the late '90s and early '00s? That plethora was paid for by pork producers. They even went so far as to research new ways to process and cook bacon (because bacon is a serious BITCH to cook without generating rivers of grease in its normal form). Basically the pork producers paid for the marketing and the fast food industry skimmed from the sales.

🧵 (3/n)

zdl, 9 days ago

@MeltingPenguins @tayledras @mitten @ElleGray The resulting explosion of bacon-flavoured EVERYTHING (candy, soda, sexual lubricants, booze, etc.) is what happens when a bunch of rich guys don't like seeing their profits cut into because people wanted to eat "healthy" foods.

I mean fuck people's health! There's PROFITS at stake!

🧵 (4/n)

zdl, 9 days ago

@MeltingPenguins @tayledras @mitten @ElleGray The resulting baconmania was the product of a very well-designed and well-managed (second only to DeBeers) marketing campaign. It wasn't gentrification. It wasn't organic. It was cynical manipulation.

🧵 (5/5)

zdl, 9 days ago

@MeltingPenguins This was just straight-up cynical manipulation. (Indeed if you wanted to do a deep cut, you could go back to the '20s when "bacon and eggs" became "breakfast food". It was pitched as what hungry farmers ate ... despite them eating no such thing. But the actual MANIA started in the late '90s/early '00s.)

The sad thing is bacon isn't even all that good. There's much nicer things you can do with pork bellies that don't involve carcinogenic nitrates and the like.

zdl, 10 days ago

@SaltyMonk I would be if I didn't think it heralded a never-ending stream of them.

Better would be a message saying "we have a new feature, click on this link to read about it" followed by an explicit "turn this on if you're interested".

It's not hard. Don't turn on a feature and give a "don't show again". Inform about the existence and give a "turn this on if you like it" button. THIS IS HOW CONSENT WORKS.

zdl, 11 days ago

@EssAeEm Here magpies are symbols of glad tidings.

I feed the magpies in my neighbourhood. They look like this. They're really smart little beggars too; we don't hang sausages out to cure at Spring Festival anymore because these little tricksters have defeated every attempt we've made to keep them from the sausages.

zdl, 11 days ago

@Delphi That looks absolutely delicious. Cranberry in there or something else?

zdl, 11 days ago

@juergen_hubert So perhaps in Kansas people should start voting "FUCK NO!" with the weapon of their choice at the polls.

zdl, 11 days ago

@juergen_hubert Well, the Americans had their little hissy fit against the UK over "taxation without representation". If voting is not a right, that sounds very much like, well, taxation. Without representation.

zdl, 12 days ago

@backpackandsnorkel Longjing is a very fine green indeed, yes, but I'm more partial to the category of 云雾 (cloud and mist) teas from the high mountain areas: 庐山(Lushan), 峨眉山 (Emeishan) and other such places. I find them a little less finicky and prissy as teas go; more forgiving of deviation from the "perfect" technique.

If someone else is making the tea and has practice with it, Longjing all the way! But for my own uses, Longjing only when I have the time to focus and concentrate.

zdl, 12 days ago

@LALegault But that's different! That's … anti-American! Or something! I'll get our spin doctors at work to explain it with enough bafflegab that most people will just give up and accept it…

zdl, 12 days ago

@angiebaby I think the USA is reaching the point where the only rational choice at the election is to vote "FUCK NO!" at the ballot with the weapon of your choice.

zdl, 12 days ago

@RickiTarr Ah. The Canadian solution.

zdl, 13 days ago

@angiebaby So punk after the artists grew up. Gotcha. :D

To me it's still punk then. I never bought into the thesis that you had to suck to be punk.