oh yah, I remember the absolute torrent of crypto shills that started spamming the place when crypto shill posts from other subs started getting posted there.

They were proper angry that they got called out.

Companies definitely astroturf on Reddit, but, they do it through third or even fourth parties. There is a whole micro industry of vote buying and comment spamming, ad firms or companies will pay such groups to add certain messaging to their comment spam. You can actually make a quick buck by selling any old Reddit accounts to such groups.

Mad Maximillian: the slope warrior. He can only go down hill for so long before he must fight his way up the lift.

Most menus are fixed paper with back lighting not changing displays, most of the places that have the new displays added them at the same time as the touch screen stations.

Lmao, they use solid tires. Probably because of how hard it is to replace a punctured tube on a wheel like this. Solid tires have no bounce, so in turn with a rigid wheel you get a rigid tire. So no cushioning. You get every bump and bounce of the road right in to the frame.

Corporate/marketing decision making is basically just a slow moving AI. It takes in a huge amount of data, process it through a black box of processing and decision making, and spits out a decision that is pure hallucination.

The menu is 6 foot across, above the counter where you order, glowing, with pictures of each item and number next to it. Even someone who couldn’t read could order food using the normal system.

I’ve literally ordered by signing a number with my fingers to indicate the item I wanted in a country where I don’t speak the language at a fast food franchise I’d never been to before.

They do work, but are basically worse in every way.

Bearings are really impressive pieces of engineering that require really tight tolerances to reduce wear and friction. On a traditional bike you have a small bearing at the center that is a standard mass manufactured commodity part.

On these they’re turning the whole wheel in to a giant speciality bearing. It has to spin faster, has to deal with force being applied to a small section rather than the whole bearing, and has way more surface area where dirt could get in and grind against the surfaces.

So these are more expensive, way heavier, higher friction, less reliable, harder to repair, and faster to wear out.

But they look futuristic don’t they?

I prefer just saying “can I get a medium #2 combo, please.” And being done with it.

I suspect that even if they were abandoning future plans for AI drive through ordering, they wouldn’t say they were. Saying you’re not doing anything with AI might actually hurt a companies share price right now.

Them existing and Google being able to enforce people turn them on, and consistently blocking everyone who doesn’t, is a whole other problem that is a lot more complex.

The tech exist but enforcing that people use it is another matter. They cannot even properly paywall Picture in Picture and background play on IOS.

It’s not practically feasible because people will find ways around it. The app can require an eye tracking features to be turned on, but people will go to the browser site. If they get the people making a browser to integrate it, then people will use another browser. They’d have to block access on any mobile browser that doesn’t enforce it, and that’s a futile effort.

At least on IOS, they tried to lock Picture in Picture and background play behind a paywall, but that only worked in the app, and both features still work for the mobile site with a bit of fussing. Just because they implement restrictions and features doesn’t mean they can actually get them to work enough that people won’t glitch around them.

I mean, it’s technically feasible, just not practically feasible, like flying cars.

I think the podcasts are a more a symptom of people attempting to rationalize how real issues are the fault of anything but the systems they are personally invested in.

See, I have no doubt they would if they could, but i doubt such things are actually feasible.

Like right now I just refresh the page to skip ads on my phone.

So, it’s not exactly easily available for workout purposes, but, much like antibiotics, aquarium and fish farm suppliers are not bound by the normal laws of pharmaceuticals but are bound by food safety to make sure the stuff is pure and uncontaminated.

(source: I have family who work in fish farming)

Because they’re playing a role, an actor so to speak, they’re not presenting their own personal opinions. They’re vocalizing and embodying the output of a series of complex internal mechanism, it’s a slow moving self optimizing system beyond the comprehension of any individual working with in the system.

Much like AI’s it often outputs stupid shit.

Leadership at these companies is personally compensated based on how quickly the company grows. They’re trying to maximize growth of the company by absorbing demand from the higher end, but in the process of doing so they end up pricing out the low end of the market, leaving low end consumers under served. They’re growing, they’re leadership is getting compensated better than ever, but now it’s difficult to find affordable places to eat out.

Theoretically what is supposed to happen in such a situation is new companies come in to take advantage of the gap left, but that’s not really happening because investment is all being focused on higher return opportunities. The low end stuff is still profitable and has potential for growth, but it’s not profitable/growing enough to attract investment over stuff that is perceived to be growing more aggressively.

Imagine if they replaced the crash screen with a fake automatic update.