Anyone else see a red circle at their feet, or is that just me?

I haven’t, and I’ll have a look at those, thanks!

People seem to forget that GenX saw this shit and was like, no more. That’s what led to the current drive to fix this. But GenX doesn’t get credit for starting it – we’re grouped with boomers for some reason.

The rivers of fire was one major thing that contributed to the formation of the EPA, actually. In the preceding decades, if was totally normal for industry to just dump whatever waste into rivers and nobody cared.

We still have far too much pollution going on, but I feel many people have forgotten just how egregious it was before government regulations were put in place to stop shit like that.

It’s pretty bad now, but more to the point, we’re still paying for the wanton destruction wrought decades ago. And now ‘conservatives’ (air quotes because in this case, it’s the opposite) want to roll back regulations because freedom.

Monotonous, or if you’re hopelessly stuck. If I can’t get past a puzzle or fight, and I’d otherwise stop playing because it’s not fun anymore, I’ll look up a solution. The alternative is not finishing the game and not seeing the rest of the content or story.

Rivers on fire, gay bashing, satanic panic, abortion clinic bombings, acid rain…

Shit was wild, and often not in a good way. 70s fashion was groovy, though.

I could curl up with that movie and a warm blanket if I had the flu. I wouldn’t necessarily choose it, but I wouldn’t resist it, either.

Many family movies also work. Plus Scooby doo for some reason.

I stopped raking years ago, and have started seeing fireflies again.

My neighbours hate it, but honestly, I’ve never understood raking in the first place. It’s autumn, and leaves are natural. What’s with the obsession to make lawns look like artificial carpeted spaces?

The leaves look nice imo. Better than a scalped layer of dying grass.

It’s a good thing trump isn’t dumb enough to think US debt is easily solved by printing more money, right?

Wouldn’t that be crazy?

(I really hope this isn’t something he can actually do. It shouldn’t be possible, but neither should a lot of things he’s done.)

It’s not about making something useful. He and a few others are cloning everything any of their cult might use to further fence them in from external information and entertainment.

They’re having a harder time in entertainment, because artists tend to be more liberal, but they’re gaining ground there, too. After a certain point, they’ll just radically censor everything else.

I still see that button (in the mobile version, anyway).

What’s more alarming is that I’ve run across several things akin to toilet seats (things you probably buy like once every 20 years) that have defaulted to the ‘Subscribe and save’ option. I don’t know if this something the seller does or if AI is flagging things for them, but it’s insidious.

If you’re not paying attention, you can wind up an accidental collector of toilet seats.

AI is good at some things, but terrible at creative tasks. It can make images and videos if you give it very specific prompts, but it’s awful at creative writing, for instance. It’s like a teenager who just discovered a thesaurus. Its characters are shallow caricatures, its plotting and pacing are weak, and it’s addicted to adjectives and adverbs.

It’s basically useless for anything more than emails and summaries.

It will probably get better, but right now, its writing and editing skills are abysmal. It has no soul, and it shows. And I mean the pro models. The free ones are even worse. And also, it can’t knit.

Oh, you can get one picture.

One.

I could give you diarrhoea, or sepsis, or tetanus, your choice! I’m flexible and I don’t judge. I just love being inside you!

Sambo’s managed to barely survive until 2020.

So hot.

I completely agree. A couple of his books are okay, but most are long-winded, self-indulgent tosh that would have been far better if written by practically anyone else. Half the time, you can skip entire chapters and miss nothing, because he seems to think describing every minute aspect of every minor character’s life equals character development. Five pages cataloguing all the canned goods in Jimmy’s grandmother’s pantry, all the steps of her apple pie recipe, where she learnt it, how she decides which milk to buy, why the grocer moved the milk from aisle 5 to aisle 2, etc, etc, etc – none of it matters and it’s a slog to read.

It’s like he thinks more words equals a better novel. He is a better writer than a director, though.

Sure, you and I know that. Most people don’t.

I wasn’t talking about what’s necessary, but how it’s marketed. Most people don’t even know enough to have accounts on Lemmy.

It sounds stupid (and it kinda is) but modern smart beds track all your vitals and give you a readout of your brainwaves with suggestions on how to improve your sleep.

I can totally understand how people desperate for sleep would buy one.

It’s mostly marketing fluff plus that thing where more data != more knowledge, but I do get it. Sleep deprivation is the worst.

e: plus, you can’t expect sleep-deprived people to make good decisions.

It’s all fun and games until your $1200 bed folds you into a pretzel in the night.