Random randomness

[Sudy]

Want to feel old?

I just had a student write that the beginnings of the Star Wars saga "date back to the late 1900s."

To be fair, a 1921 student probably would have said similar about Swan Lake.

[Blackhawk]

One 'old' thing I keep doing is not remembering that things that have been gone for decades have been gone for decades. I'm picking my son up from a post-school event (homecoming - he's in the band) late tonight. I have no idea where I'll find a place to park while I wait for him, so I mentioned that for the future I should get a blinking LED, glue it to a clip, and clip it to the top of the antenna.

"The what?"

[Unagi]

Want to feel old?

I just had a student write that the beginnings of the Star Wars saga "date back to the late 1900s."

I’ll just assume you flunked the student.

[Blackhawk]

At least they didn't go with '...before the turn of the century.'

[Daehawk]

One 'old' thing I keep doing is not remembering that things that have been gone for decades have been gone for decades. I'm picking my son up from a post-school event (homecoming - he's in the band) late tonight. I have no idea where I'll find a place to park while I wait for him, so I mentioned that for the future I should get a blinking LED, glue it to a clip, and clip it to the top of the antenna.

"The what?"

My car has an antennae. Well its 20 years old. Dont cars have them now? Or are they all embedded in the windshield? I remember my dad getting a car in the early 80s with it in the windshield. Thought it was so sci-fi.

[Blackhawk]

Dont cars have them now?

Sort of. They have them, but they're either not visible or not of the type you'd clip things to (a lot of cars have 'shark fin' antennas now, for instance, or they have a tiny little antenna that's only a few inches long.)

[Kraken]

An "old" thing I've noticed is time compression. That is, I'll notice that my debit card expires in 01/23 and think "wow, that's coming right up."

[Isgrimnur]

My 2018 car is similar.

[Max Peck]

At least they didn't go with '...before the turn of the millennium.'

FTFY

[Blackhawk]

Nah, doesn't have the same ring.

[Holman]

At least they didn't go with '...before the turn of the century.'

I'd feel better if they'd just stuck with "a long time ago, in a media culture far, far away."

[dbt1949]

In the first half of the twentieth century.................

[jztemple2]

In the first half of the twentieth century.................

Funny to think of it, my wife was born in the first half of the twentieth century. 1950, but in there under the wire

[Daehawk]

My wife was born 55 and already gone. I was born 69. Year of the moon landing, Woodstock, and a sexual position named after it. Im happy.

[Hrdina]

My 2018 car is similar.

[Blackhawk]

Random annoyance:

Remember when you could search for a product type and get reviews that were actually reviews? Or search for 'best [whatever]' and get actual information?

Now you get hundreds of results, and they're all the same: The top five [whatever] of 2021 are always the top five Amazon best sellers, and the site always consists entirely of one-paragraph reviews that are, essentially, paraphrasing the product page. And of course, all of them have affiliate links to Amazon. Some of these affiliate farms go so far as to even have custom URLS for the product: topheadests.url, bestchairs.url, etc. Others are less subtle - Alltoptenlists.url, thebestlist.url, etc. There are some that have a few other articles, but still consist almost entirely of top ten lists with affiliate links. The Spruce comes up in almost any search. The worst are the ones that try to look like real sites - toptech.url, etc. All of them exist simply to parrot Amazon and funnel your purchases through their links. Even sites like Wired and the NYT get in on the fun.

It's impossible to find actual reviews of items anymore.

(For the curious, I was just looking for a PC tower stand this time.)

/edit - and YouTube reviews that consist of the product descriptions dumped into a voice synthesizer along with photos from the product page and affiliate links.

And Amazon removes our links.

[Madmarcus]

The Spruce

What is or was The Spruce originally? For years now I've found a ton of good recipes on The Spruce Eats. Until recently that is all I ever saw of The Spruce.

[Sudy]

I've definitely noticed the "top ten" sites coming up on the first page of results. Usually I find I can still find some helpful reviews if I poke around, like on discussion forums like Reddit etc. But it's definitely headed in the direction mentioned and it scares the hell out of me. The reality is that consumers are probably less manipulated and controlled than we used to be... or, it was like that way from the net explosion until recently. But now everything's either Amazon, or a shadowy, faceless seller indistinguishable from Amazon.

[AWS260]

This is pretty adorable.

Ten years ago, a teenager named Zach Wahls spoke in the Iowa House of Representatives about his moms, to oppose a proposed gay marriage ban. A journalist wrote a blog about his speech titled, "Marry Me, Zach Wahls."

[dbt1949]

I see where they convicted R Kelly. They're not going to sentence him until May 4. What kind of shit is this?

[Jaymann]

I see where they convicted R Kelly. They're not going to sentence him until May 4. What kind of shit is this?

Mat the 4th be with him.

[jztemple2]

And in other completely random news, in less than one hour I turn 68! And in associated news, I've lost 29 pounds since mid-May! I have to keep healthy to look after my wife and to keep up with the kids on the video games

[Kraken]

Happy birthday, jz.

[Rumpy]

Random annoyance:

Remember when you could search for a product type and get reviews that were actually reviews? Or search for 'best [whatever]' and get actual information?

I know exactly what you mean. Product information seems so sporadic. Recently, I've had to replace my PS4 headset, and I found one to my liking and out of curiosity went in search of reviews. Most of the reviews are sourced from the same place. I actually couldn't find much info on the one I ended up getting, and even then it was full of conflicting information. Then there are the articles that are pretty much just are product previews that don't even properly review a anything or don't get any opinion on them and instead parrot what the companies send them.

I've maybe found 3 real reviews of the model I specifically have, and even then I get a lot of reviews from different countries where the same model is differently branded with slight feature differences. Hilariously, the manufacturer's website can't even get it straight. I found the manual on their website for what I would assume would be the correct model (as I couldn't figure out some of the dials) , except it isn't, as the manual refers to something completely different for the same dials. Weirdly, I seem to have a european version of the product that was sold at Walmart as there's nothing about North America mentioned on the box. Doing a search leads me to two brands (based on region) with the same product, and the same problem of few reviews appears when doing a search on either, and I don't glean any extra information as I'd hoped.

And see, this is why I appreciate forums like these and bemoan the likes of Discord.

[Isgrimnur]

Wired does reviews.

[Rumpy]

If they do, they strangely rarely ever come up in search results. Most of the time, if they do come up, it's for different product results and never the one I'm actually searching for.

Here's an example of the manual:
https://media.nacongaming.com/media/dow ... _GUIDE.pdf

Now, the version that came with the headset is all images, no text whatsoever. Even with the text, it's headache inducing. The text explaining the use of the top dial is all wrong. It doesn't even do what it says. Instead the top dial is the mic monitor setting. But nobody would ever tell you that, and none of the reviews I've seen mention it. I'd find the top dial more useful for voice/game volume as it says, but ugh nope. And the mute button is simply the mute button with no extra function.

[Daehawk]

Standing in the backyard as it got dark tonight it struck me that my world has shrunk down to the size of the property I own. My yard, my house. Used to be an outgoing guy when I was younger. In my teens I could not stand to be at home if I could be out driving. All night . Alone or with friends or girls. Once married we went everywhere together. Anything that we wanted to do and could afford to do we went and did it if we wanted to.

But standing here tonight I realize I dont go anywhere or see anyone. My friend came up the other day. First person to visit me in over 2 years. Two. Years. Oh I go out and get food and pay bills. Say hello to my cashier or ask how are you to the door attendant at Walmart. But thats it. I dont mind being alone. Its new to me but im ok with it. Better than putting up with other people and their interests I guess. Its just my world has shrank from multiple States and city sizes to yard and home size. This is my world now. Right here. By my self.

[Blackhawk]

I've been in that same spot, after my divorce. I realized something: My world shrank, but I could choose to expand it again.

[Kraken]

I live in a tiny world because I want to, and I recognize that it's my choice. The pandemic swept away nearly every vestigial impulse to be social.

But not all; a couple of weeks ago we met a soon-to-be-former neighbor for dinner. There's a story behind why, but it's too long to type out tonight.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Standing in the backyard as it got dark tonight it struck me that my world has shrunk down to the size of the property I own. My yard, my house. Used to be an outgoing guy when I was younger. In my teens I could not stand to be at home if I could be out driving. All night . Alone or with friends or girls. Once married we went everywhere together. Anything that we wanted to do and could afford to do we went and did it if we wanted to.

But standing here tonight I realize I dont go anywhere or see anyone. My friend came up the other day. First person to visit me in over 2 years. Two. Years. Oh I go out and get food and pay bills. Say hello to my cashier or ask how are you to the door attendant at Walmart. But thats it. I dont mind being alone. Its new to me but im ok with it. Better than putting up with other people and their interests I guess. Its just my world has shrank from multiple States and city sizes to yard and home size. This is my world now. Right here. By my self.

In related news:

Professor warns of a ‘mating’ crisis in US as fewer men go to college

‘College graduate women aren’t interested in mating with men who don’t have college degrees,’ Scott Galloway says

Professor Scott Galloway has warned of a “mating” crisis in the US as fewer men go to college.

“We have mating inequality in this country,” the marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business told CNN on Saturday.

“Two in three relationships start on Tinder, 50 men, 50 women. Forty-six women show all their attention to just four men and what do those four [men] have? They signal success with a college degree,” he said.

Women make up almost 60 per cent of college students with men being at 40 per cent, and the gap is growing. In the fall of 1970, almost 59 per cent of college students were men, 41 per cent were women.

In 2020, US colleges enrolled 1.5 million fewer students than in 2015 and 71 per cent of those who have chosen to not study on are men. According to the Common Application, women made up 3.8 million college applications in the most recent school year, while men made up 2.8 million.

Mr Galloway noted that men also “drop out at a greater rate”.

“Over the next few years, for every one man that graduates from college, there’s going to be two women,” he said. “So this is becoming overwhelming. College is becoming the domain of women and not men.”

“The most dangerous person in the world is a broke and alone male and we are producing too many of them,” Mr Galloway added. “The mating inequality that’s going to come out of this dearth of men in college poses an existential risk to our economy and our society.

“The bottom line is we, on the left, like to think that men and women are exactly the same,” the professor said. “They aren’t. They’re different, including in their mating preferences, and the reality is college graduate women aren’t interested in mating with men who don’t have college degrees.

“If you look at the most unstable, violent societies in the world, they all have one thing in common. They have young, depressed men who aren’t attaching to work, aren’t attaching to school and aren’t attaching to relationships and our inability to provide the resources and encourage men to go to college is going to result in us producing too many of the most dangerous cohort in the world,” he warned.

Granted, no one's likely to describe any of us here as young. But the salient point there is the urge to live out the rest of your days as a reclusive hermit is rarely healthy or worthwhile.

[Isgrimnur]

They’re not attaching to work, school, or relationships, so we should totally fix the one that’s a chain of debt subjugation, unneeded credential inflation, and pays my salary!

Marketing isn’t sociology.

[AWS260]

That professor seems like a really insightful guy. Here's more of his academic prowess:

Bloomberg canceled Prof Scott Galloway's TV show after he joked about his sex life in a video, topless, in a hard hat

[Blackhawk]

I recently solved a problem we were having at home with the liberal application of a pair of smart plugs. The thing is, the best purchasing option was a pack of four. I've found a good use for another - to switch power on a light that usually requires gymnastics.

I've got one left. What's a useful function for a smart plug that I haven't thought of? I mean, I could plug it into any old lamp, but digging out my phone and opening the app takes longer than just flipping the switch.

[Jaymann]

How about a coffee maker. You could set it up the night before and fire it up from bed.

[coopasonic]

I use one to kill power on my younger son's pc monitor when he isn't listening (usually getting off the PC to come to dinner). I haven't really discovered any other use.

[Blackhawk]

I thought of the coffee pot (or tea pot), but ours both require a manual button-press to start once powered.

[dbt1949]

I was reading this weekend where Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) actually likes women now a days.

[Jaymann]

I was reading this weekend where Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) actually likes women now a days.

Maybe she needs a smart plug.

[Brian]

Not just now a days.

The amazing thing to me is that her girlfriend of the last twenty years managed to keep it a secret when the temptation to start every conversation with, "Hi, I'm banging Elvira" must have been overwhelming.

[Daehawk]

Maybe shes got one...or hers is corroded.

This woman is 70 years old!