Abyssal Cocker Spaniel
Internet round-up for the week of May 27, 2024
Heya, happy Friday!
It’s a wonderfully sunny morning over here, and one thing I forgot about Chicago is how, in the summer months, the sun comes blasting through the blinds at like 5:30 AM and makes you think it’s the middle of the day when it’s actually too early for any human to be awake.
I’m glad I got up early though, because I did get a follow-up from the job I’m waiting to hear about in the wee hours of the morning — but I still don’t have confirmation either way yet. I have a call scheduled for Monday. So, perhaps…next week…I will have an exciting announcement? Bleh. I hate waiting!
It’s been a pretty busy week over here. I’ve had a couple outstanding projects to wrap up, and one quite large one I’ve made progress on and hope to finish soon so I can fully dive in to
’s 1000 Words of Summer (which starts tomorrow). As always, I have upwards of three thousand projects in motion, but I’m really trying to spend some time focusing in on the biggest and best of those. (I need to take a break from pitching headlines! If you see me pitching headlines, can you please come slap my hand? Especially if that headline comes along with a ~130 point list of video game characters? Thank you.)The weather has been a bit rainy, but the non-rain days have been truly great. I am so, so happy to be back in my favorite city as summer approaches. There really is nothing better than Chicago in the summer. Really.
Even as I say such great things about the weather, you know I’ve still spent plenty of time inside and online. So, let’s get to the stuff I’ve compiled for ya this week:
Billionaire Boys™
You will not be surprised to learn that:
Remember way back at the beginning of the year when I mused that the Billionaire Boys™ would be coming back strong to fight against newsworthy normies' insane behavior? Well, I appear to have been correct. They are back with a vengeance.
MISTER CONNOR. Have you completely forgotten what we went through last year?!
Sigh.
Okay, lemme have it.
An Ohio billionaire is planning to take a deep-sea submersible to Titanic depths to prove the industry is safer in the wake of the doomed OceanGate vessel that imploded last year.
Real estate investor Larry Connor, of Dayton, said he and Triton Submarines co-founder Patrick Lahey will plunge more than 12,400 feet (2.3 miles) to the shipwreck site in a two-person submersible.
“I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way,” Connor told the Wall Street Journal.
I bet it can. I bet it can be very life-changing.
He will be descending to the wreckage on a sub that he, a REAL ESTATE INVESTOR, designed. I wonder if it will be an open floor plan or have a primary en-suite bathroom? Maybe it uses a Nest thermostat as a controller instead of that Mad Catz Playstation madness.
I really want to understand the phenomenon of that billionth dollar somehow making people believe they’re invincible. Do we have a scientific name for that yet? Is it in the DSM-IV?
Look. I didn’t want to have to do this, but I’m gonna have to get out a deep sea freak. It’s the only way.
Larry Connor.
Are you sure you want to go down into the depths of the ocean, where this resides??
Damn, this one is weirdly cute for some reason. Like a little abyssal Cocker Spaniel.
Okay well NOT this one Larry Connor but there are WORSE things down there, much worse!! Also your ship could implode! And WHAT will you do with all your money if you get mushed into goo??
I mean it! What are you gonna do with all that money? Do you need someone to spend some of it? I’d be happy to help. LMK.
Brands a-Branding
Canva had a conference in LA last week that featured, perhaps, the most cringe tech video of the new era1?? I’m not sure we’ve seen anything quite this unhinged since the early 2010s tech boom.
Some are calling this the “Hamilton effect.” I’m calling this the “people in C-Suite positions don’t have anyone in their orbit telling them ‘no’ effect.” (Honestly, we’re getting dangerously close to Billionaire Boy™ territory here.) Honey. Why?
I feel like I would have had a complete out-of-body experience watching this in-person. How long did this take to rehearse? What were all of these backup dancers paid? Did anyone really get so excited they paid for Canva enterprise after this?
Honestly, I hope this motivates a bunch more tech companies to spend outlandish amounts of money producing themed performances. If nothing else, it’s more grist for the TMI mill. Keep ‘em coming, baby.
Karma, continued
Speaking of Companies, there’s been some solid reading (and watching) material this week about my ex (employer)’s search mess. First up, Google is apparently manually removing the weird AI searches that come up.
Yes, that’s manually, like by man. A human person, that they’re paying to do the work of sorting through search results to confirm whether or not they’re accurate. Work which could be done by the end user, if the AI search hadn’t been added in the first place. 🤨
Also, can I just say: nothing about any of this reads as “Artificial Intelligence” to me. I’d love to understand more about what’s meant by the naming convention, because all I see here is a computer doing calculations and logic based on weight. Nothing “intelligent” about it. Like, “this Reddit comment had a lot of upvotes! Must be relevant.” It obviously can’t understand sarcasm. When is it going to learn something about human speech, instead of just regurgitating it?
And to confirm: I’m totally here for making silly AI images for fun, or making chatbots say stupid things for us to laugh at. I love a good toy! Right now, though, I don’t see AI creating any solutions to any actual problems. (And I don’t think I’m the only one!) Isn’t that what tech is supposed to do?
For example, Apple solved the problem of me not having a little tiny device in my hand at all times as a distraction in case I have one second of actual thoughts. What is “AI” actually doing other than elevating a bunch of tech boys to billionaire status, leaving them vulnerable to trying to design their own submersibles??
Secondly, a new video from Adam Conover (Adam Ruins Everything) about how Google ruined the internet. Definitely worth a watch.
And lastly: Katie Notopoulos of Business Insider took one for the team and tried the AI-recommended glue pizza (original is heavily paywalled; here’s an archive link as well as her Twitter thread). Spoiler alert: the cheese stayed on! Maybe the AI search is good after all!
Shameless self-promotion corner
I had a new piece published in Hard Drive this week, “Here’s Every 1 Star Yelp Review of My Rollercoaster Tycoon Amusement Park.”
Was writing this piece an excuse to play 5-6 hours of Rollercoaster Tycoon so I could get screenshots for “work?” Maybe. Was it also very fun? Maybe.
I really enjoyed putting this silly little list together, especially because I got to make a fake Yelp review for the cover shot (shout out to an ex employer I’m still on speaking terms with!). And I made the cover image in Photoshop with very little help! Look at me, learning new skills!
I love getting to write niche junk, and I love Hard Drive for consistently encouraging this behavior. ❤️
Randomly selected animal cutie
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
LOOK AT HER LITTLE BOW!! She is so loved. 🥰 I feel as though TMI might be relevant to this man’s interests, so if anyone knows him, will you send him my way? He could be my 100th subscriber!!
That’s it from me this week! Time to dig back into to my giant pile of work. Hope y’all have a great weekend!!
K
Sorry not sorry for this Survivor reference. The New Era of tech includes shortened employment seasons, beware promotions, no starting benefit supply, etc.
Thank you for bringing back the Rollercoaster Tycoon memories 🥲 Good luck on Monday (and with #1000words! I still haven't decided whether I'm doing this one lol)