zdl

zdl, 4 days ago

@cstross Sadly I don't think they're trying to commit suicide. I think they're being murdered by VCs.

zdl, 6 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, 6 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, 6 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, 6 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, 6 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, 6 days ago

@unlucio @ElleGray Or, as it has happened at least four times with AI in the past, not to mention the total failure of a plethora of tech (remember when VR was going to take over the world … IN THE NINETIES?), the tech fades out into an embarrassing whimper and is politely forgotten until it's resurrected again by another sociopath doing pumping and dumping.

zdl, 6 days ago

@unlucio @ElleGray That would be why I didn't reply to the billboard pic and instead replied to text that literally said "the problem is not technology".

zdl, 6 days ago

@unlucio @ElleGray No, I really don't.

When the marketing and business narrative reeks of desperate pumping and dumping FROM THE OUTSET, I'm pretty sure the tech behind it is utter shit and its practitioners know it.

It has the same stench that "BLOCKCHAIN ALL THE THINGS!" had: people who put money into something that was failing around them desperately trying to bolster its fortunes long enough to punch out with a profit.

zdl, 6 days ago

@unlucio @ElleGray Let's make a bet. I'll bet an RMB against whatever unit of currency you use. In one year's time we'll get back together and see who was right.

My prediction is that this round of AI will be forgotten like the previous (minimum!) four rounds of it.

Your prediction is that the tech is just fine and will progress by leaps and bounds.

In a year one of us will be paying the other. See you in that year. (I'll be muting you until then because you have nothing of interest to say.)

zdl, 5 days ago

@MeltingPenguins I'm pretty sure that the term "bacon" used before the 1920s campaign for breakfasts was not what we call bacon today. Up into the 1890s at least (and probably farther than that) "bacon" was used for any cured pork product, not specifically cut and processed pork belly.

zdl, 6 days ago

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

zdl, 6 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, 5 days ago

@ElleGray

Voiceover: University Professor elle was able to leave her job almost immediately.

zdl, 4 days ago

@dansup That's a cool feature ... as long as people are honest.

Sadly people are not honest. :(

zdl, 4 days ago

@rbreich The Republicans stand for the freedom of all people!

It's just that their definition of "people" is somewhat different from most. Apparently you're a "person" if you're a) white, b) male, and c) wealthy.

Everybody else doesn't count.

zdl, 5 days ago

@angiebaby You misspelled "shouldn't have" as "never has". ;)

zdl, 5 days ago

@pitd @VeroniqueB99 That doesn't look "put back". That looks like "took only half in the first place".

zdl, 5 days ago

@pitd @VeroniqueB99 Someone who's trying to cut weight, likely.

zdl, 6 days ago

@danmccullough Wow! That's the second-coolest moth I've ever seen!

zdl, 5 days ago

@fkamiah17 Stuff like this is why people who think "their" party is the answer to the problems that plague a democracy amuse me.

zdl, 5 days ago

@Hunterrules0_o @fkamiah17 Who let the toddler sit at the grown-ups table?

zdl, 5 days ago

@TheLastOfHisName Make it clear to them that Windows Recall opens them to legal risks. That's what most such places fear more than privacy risks.