DABDA

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (13 children)

I don't have anything meaningful to add but just wanted to chime in that I noticed the same thing and ultimately just blocked the community. I thought about making a post but assumed it would lead into a big argument over acceptable behavior and not starting witch hunts and decided against it. I've also largely given up on clear or direct dialogue between mods/admins or responses to technical issues. I'm sure that doesn't apply universally amongst the different instances but at least for .ee and .world my experiences haven't really been productive - so I'm just going to lurk and assume everything is operating as wanted and intended. It's too frustrating to otherwise assume that help is wanted but just not accepted.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

A common mistake, the character name is actually Brett. Nice painting (as usual) btw :)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Some people say I'm egocentric, but enough about them.

 

My default display settings are 'All' sorted by 'New' and I was just served a post from [email protected] - https://lemm.ee/post/56448137

I tried to add the instance to the instance blocklist and that domain isn't offered by autocomplete; checked the linked instances for lemm.ee and it claims burggit.moe is blocked.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I also endorse the RPi+OSMC route. Another thing to mention about controlling Kodi [the underlying software used by things like OSMC or LibreElec] is that you can generally use any input method you prefer.

  • it supports a directly connected keyboard, mouse or controller
  • when using a RPi and connected to a television via HDMI, usually CEC will allow you to use your normal remote control - but if your particular TV isn't supported there's also things like Flirc you can plug into a USB port and then customize for your remote
  • you can use a web browser from any computer on the network
  • there's a bunch of different apps for your mobile phone. On Android the official (free) one is Kore, I prefer the extra features provided by Yatse but after migrating away from using Google Play Services I've had issues keeping the purchased "pro" features unlocked; but it's still a better experience even without them.

And it's not an either/or scenario, you can use all of the above simultaneously without changing any settings.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I don't know if there's a new official mascot but there still seems to be a Simpsons connection to Butterfinger in general (the bag "Best By" date is Dec. 2024).

An empty yellow Butterfinger "Fun Size" bag depicting The Simpsons characters dressed-up to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the company

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

"Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's actually a 4 week delay according to sidebar (unless that's outdated info)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

America died with a whimper!

Do you get royalties every time you say this or something? You've had an account for ~3 days and you've already used variations of that phrase at least 8 times. I'm not attacking the sentiment, it just feels forced and isn't a particularly witty comment worthy of that much repetition.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

There was a TED talk by Zeynep Tufekci in 2017 ("We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads") -- (YouTube*: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI) that briefly talks about this:
(*I'm aware of the irony in linking there)

So in 2016, I attended rallies of then-candidate Donald Trump to study as a scholar the movement supporting him. I study social movements, so I was studying it, too. And then I wanted to write something about one of his rallies, so I watched it a few times on YouTube. YouTube started recommending to me and autoplaying to me white supremacist videos in increasing order of extremism. If I watched one, it served up one even more extreme and autoplayed that one, too. If you watch Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders content, YouTube recommends and autoplays conspiracy left, and it goes downhill from there.

Well, you might be thinking, this is politics, but it's not. This isn't about politics. This is just the algorithm figuring out human behavior. I once watched a video about vegetarianism on YouTube and YouTube recommended and autoplayed a video about being vegan. It's like you're never hardcore enough for YouTube.

So what's going on? Now, YouTube's algorithm is proprietary, but here's what I think is going on. The algorithm has figured out that if you can entice people into thinking that you can show them something more hardcore, they're more likely to stay on the site watching video after video going down that rabbit hole while Google serves them ads.

These days it might also be about politics, but the motivation to capture attention to serve ads is still the priority.

 

I'm hoping someone has a definitive answer for what causes the phenomenon, but educated guesses are cool too.

Lately I've been trying more generic products to try saving some money, and despite my dislike for the company, Walmart generally has the cheapest prices around me for groceries. But trying to read product reviews to get an idea of what to expect it seems like the vast majority of comments don't talk about the product's qualities at all but just Walmart related service problems.

"This item was missing from my order!"
"It's expired, I want a refund!"
"The can was dented."
"Delivery driver put the chips under the milk!"
etc.

My question is: are these just confused users that are intentionally leaving these pointless messages on specific products they order instead of contacting support, or (my current suspicion) that Walmart is somehow presenting them with some kind of post-purchase rating request that is easily confused as something intended for customer service?

And regardless of the cause of it, why doesn't Walmart do anything to filter them out? They don't help prospective shoppers decide on an item, and usually only serve to make the employees/company look bad.

I don't place orders on their site so I don't know what the typical web order flow looks like to the end user so I'm hoping someone has an idea what's causing it.

view more: next ›