It’s a birth defect - Big Ed Brown from 90 Day Fiancé has Klippel-Feil syndrome, which makes his body look different from others.
I don’t watch it, but making fun of someone for his looks, which he can’t control, is a doozy, so I hope they laugh because of his antics and not his body. Would be kinda cheap otherwise.
They have, but they are not in charge. Apple’s goal is to make money; everything else comes as an afterthought.
Well, it’s a bit surprising that Tesla is the worst-performing stock so far. I mean, the Boeing scandal was a disaster image-wise, and others are struggling real hard. But even with all that, Tesla is performing worse than the airplane manufacturer, who can’t build secure and quality-controlled aircraft. The tide is turning for Tesla. Competition is getting stronger and starting to roll out strategies like the BMW 50% 2025 Plan, which means Tesla as an electric automobile manufacturer has dire times ahead if they don’t start fixing things.
Tesla long stopped delivering on promises they, or rather Musk, made. They need something other than words and visions to sell, and fast, otherwise, the stock is going to normalize more and more, to a degree a mid-sized automobile manufacturer would be, as the shareholders slowly start losing faith and jumping ship, as long as the stock is overvalued and there are buyers.
It is a lot more complicated than that - since G/O media was bought out in 2019, it goes downhill. The new owner pretty much goes with the strategy of prioritizing advertisers and shareholders over workers.
So, they maximize revenue streams upwards to GHP, which is hard, but an easy way to do it is to minimize fixed costs like salaried workers and their benefits. If the revenue goes up or is stable but workers get laid off and salaries get squashed, and part-time or contract workers get hired to do the same job for even less, workers are not going to like this, especially workers who are organized in a union.
Looking at one revenue number as the sole indicator of “healthiness” is exactly the mistake that ends up with worker protests and dwindling quality.
In other words, the money for fair pay for all would be around, but the owners would rather have an even bigger piece of the pie.
History and context behind the situation:
G/O Media’s leadership, introduced after the purchase from Univision, has been subject to frequent criticism by employees.[9] Complaints include closer advertiser relationships, a lack of diversity, and suppression of reporting about the company itself.[9] In October 2019 Deadspin’s editor-in-chief, Barry Petchesky, was fired for refusing to adhere to a directive that the site “stick to sports.”[15] Soon after, the entirety of Deadspin’s staff resigned in protest, leaving the site inactive.[16] In January 2020 the GMG Union, which represents the staff of six G/O Media sites, announced a vote of no confidence in CEO Jim Spanfeller, citing, among other issues, a lack of willingness to negotiate for “functional editorial independence protections.”[17]
On February 4, 2021, the Writers Guild of America East filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that G/O Media told employees it had fired Alex Cranz for labor activism.[18]
In mid-October 2021, G/O Media removed all images from stories published before 2019 from the 11 websites it owns, including Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, The Onion, and Jezebel.[19]
In November 2021, Gawker reported on substantial staff resignations at Jezebel over the course of 2021, comprising around 75% of staff. The resignations were reportedly related to a “hostile work environment” created by G/O’s management and the new deputy editorial director Lea Goldman.[20] In January 2022, another article detailed similar staff decline at The Root, with 15 out of 16 full-time staff having left throughout 2021 since Vanessa De Luca started as editor-in-chief.[21]
In January 2022, seven senior staff members at The A.V. Club left the site after management required them to move from Chicago to Los Angeles. According to the Chicago Tribune, the departing staffers cited a lack of salary increase to account for increased cost of living due to the transfer.[22]
On March 1, 2022, GMG Union members went on strike after failing to reach an agreement on a new contract.[23] The strike was resolved on March 6 with a new contract that included some of the members’ terms.[24]
On June 29, 2023, G/O Media implemented a “modest test” of artificial intelligence-generated content on its websites, in a move similar to BuzzFeed and CNET. The move sparked backlash from GMG Union members, citing AI’s track record of false statements and plagiarism from its training data.[25] The first AI generated articles on G/O Media sites appeared on July 5 and included a “chronological list” of Star Wars movies and television shows on Gizmodo’s io9 section that wasn’t in chronological order, omitted Andor and The Book of Boba Fett and stated that the events of the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars came after those of The Rise of Skywalker; a list of the “best summer blockbusters of 2003” on The A.V. Club; and a list of “the most valuable professional sports franchises” on Deadspin.[26][27]
I’m not so sure – YouTube is much larger than you might think. It’s not the video platform you grew up with anymore. No one in this world can match the backlog and content density/diversity of YouTube, not even all streaming services combined. People complaining that YouTube is dying because a few YouTubers “retire” from their main gig or that it’s not the same anymore don’t understand how YouTube works. They might not comprehend that the time of their “bubble” has come to an end. When this happens, there are already five new bubbles/niches that are even bigger, and you might not have heard of them, but they are more successful than their “predecessor.” The old bubble is still there to consume in the backlog. Someday in the future, AI will have a field day with the data accumulated via YouTube.
It is transforming, for sure, but I don’t think it will destroy itself completely. In a sense, you can say it will destroy whatever view you had of YouTube as a platform because it is not what it once was.
To my knowledge, YouTube will hit the billion-user milestone this year (Netflix currently at ~250 million paid users). If we look at other data trends from streaming services, it suggests that YouTube will grow more over the coming years. I don’t know how anyone can match YouTube as a whole. In certain niches, sure, but as a whole, it would be like fighting windmills. There’s a reason no one tries to tackle YouTube as a platform and only goes for certain niches.
I mean, if I were an investor looking at this, I would also get excited about making this change - much less risk, less cost, less customer support, etc., all for basically the same output in revenue. In other words, if I cut the small business (6% of value but over 100k accounts to handle) out of the model, I can make more money because the cost reduction is higher than the loss of revenue. And in the long run, when “big game customers” jump ship, I just downsize some more. I also don’t need to invest but can be sure it will generate a certain amount of revenue, as long as I do not squeeze the relevant customer groups too hard. This strategy is very feasible and relatively risk-free. I am not a fan of it, but I think a lot of software companies will go this way after they establish themselves in a market.
Well, I hope you are right. xd
It just seems to me like a monopolization of the market by the big tech corps, which won’t be beneficial to the majority, but at least a few billionaires will get richer.
I was recently invited to the Google research center where they presented their new AI assistant features, which should be coming this year. It was weird; it was at the same time more capable than I thought and more restrictive than one would assume. It’s like not even Google knows exactly what to do with it, or what it should be able to do, or what exactly it is capable of. I also once got to try an “uncensored” / “unrestricted” information model, which was actually a bit scary but far more useful than any of the current “restricted” chatbots. I’m sure AI will change things up, but how, when, and why I don’t know, and the more I find out, the more unsure I am about predictions, besides the one that big corps will try to monopolize the market.
The funny thing is, copyright doesn’t even matter; at least half of the world’s market couldn’t care less about copyright, especially if it’s from the “west.” They certainly won’t suddenly start respecting copyright law. They will use and develop AI without the restriction of copyright. All this talk about copyright and the law, and all the copyright suits against AI and tech firms, will be fruitless since we either forget copyright like we used to know it, or we get left behind in development because we need to respect the copyright of everything and make contracts with every big outlet, etc. Big tech knows that, so they walk this gray zone walk to still train AI on copyrighted material but somehow proclaim they are not copyright-dependent.
I’m not saying this is a good development, just that I think we need to reassess how we treat copyright on a fundamental level under the current development structure of AI.
We need to slow down the development of AI and hinder monopolization of the market. My guess is it’s too late, but we can still hope that maybe this time it will be different.
Why do you want to censor art? It’s a product of its place and time. jk, but who the fuck reads a greentext from 4chan and is like, “Oh no, the word retarded better be offended in someone else’s place.”
What issue? That unpaid interns or those one step below are not agreeing with long-term political decisions that were practically made before they were born and only understand the surface of the subject?
Yeah, thanks. I think I’ll just ignore those as well if I were in a position of power, and you would too.
What is this “moral responsibility,” and why is it just now relevant? There were, are, and will be much bigger and worse issues, like climate change, but no one is talking about moral responsibility and blasting the ones who are in charge like it is happening right now with the Israel/Palestine crisis.
Maybe it is just the age of massive misinformation and propaganda campaigns from all sides (some are engaging much more than others) with which I have a problem. Because, in the end, I applaud people who stand up for what they think is right, like those interns. It just comes across as too selective to be a principle. I mean, the Israel/Palestine issue has been ongoing for what? 50 years? It’s not even the first hot phase or siege of Gaza. And then you start working in politics and then you became aware of the politics and stopped working there? What?
Yeah, but wasn’t all the art stuff in austria pre-migration? So I would say he is a failed austrian painter turned german dictator?
This happens rarely, and if it happens, the chances of it being someone we know from the media are almost 0; that would be all under the table. The “best” are the ones you don’t hear about because they are too busy working on actual stuff, same in most science fields.
Most of them are recruited in “normal” ways; there is much more talent around these days. No need to engage with criminals and put them on actual sensitive stuff. Also, they get paid more than you might think; the people leading these projects are not stupid and make a simple mistake like underpaying talent they still need.
Please, you are so right - but please do not engage further with this kind of posts in the future, just report them - the OP of this post is 1 day old, most likely a bot account - Lemmy needs better moderation, and that fast, it’s getting worse and worse, day by day.
Thank you for the information sir!
Holy yes, that’s a whole lot to unpack here. I understand the situation a bit better now. What a shitty choice for an election xd
On the plus side, I understand the Argentinean memes now that pop up then and there—their game is on point. (South American/Latin American meme culture, in general, is on top of things and much more represented among all age groups.) Kudos to them, still keeping humor alive despite the situation.
oh yeah for sure could be a reaction to the opium wars
It’s never the drugs that make a society erode; it’s a symptom. If you have a big drug problem in a country, most likely it’s related to much bigger issues at the core. Like in the Opium Wars, it was the British Empire that basically drugged China as a means to get what they want. It’s not like they discovered drugs and then just stopped doing anything else; we humans had drugs and used drugs since we know about them.
Some argue this tactic is still very much in use today, hence the fentanyl crisis, which seems to be fueled by China. It’s a destabilizing tactic. That’s also part of why China and other Asian countries are so strict because they know firsthand the effectiveness of literally drugging your foe to gain an advantage. This does not mean China and co do not have their own drug market; they have a pretty vivid drug scene.
Also, as an example, Japan or China, yeah, sure, you can’t buy weed; they will basically curb-stop you legally. But you can drink as much alcohol as you want, smoke as much tobacco as you want, and drink as many caffeine drinks as you want. These are all recreational drugs with a much higher impact on society than weed, yet they are totally legal and accepted by everyone or are even traditional.
RIP Argentina. I don’t know the situation that led to this, but man, that sounds real, real bad for the average Argentine people.
I think he’s pointing out that in the future, this could lead to regulatory measures by the government because they get pressured by the big corps that AI locally is dangerous, but AI with big corps is all good and the right way. Which is an understandable concern. It’s not about you using whatever model you’re using; it’s about the broader philosophy of how AI should be integrated into our world. He’s saying the big corps are trying to monopolize the AI market, which is valid because that’s what’s happening right now.
In other words, the market is nearly saturated now, and Evernote makes its money with business people and institutions who often adhere to the “don’t change a working system” principle regarding their “tools.” Most of them will just keep paying if the functions are needed and already integrated.
It’s a model most of these types of companies adopt sooner or later if they are for profit, and investors see the potential of this business as almost exhausted. It’s: grow, establish, grip, and squeeze.
If you really want, you can use almost any cloud-based solution that allows you to sync folders, with some caveats.
I use Obsidian with my Google Drive; it took me about 5 minutes to set up, and it works like a charm now. However, you need to set it up on every device you plan on using for synchronization. Also, you cannot work on the same document on two devices simultaneously. Otherwise, it works as you’d expect.
It’s definitely messier than the Obsidian cloud, but for my needs, syncing it via Google Drive is more than enough.
"90 Day Fiancé star Ed “Big Ed” Brown is working on himself mentally and physically.
The interior designer, 55, opened up about his insecurities stemming from having Klippel Feil syndrome, how he’s been combating them and his fitness journey that resulted in a 21-pound weight loss."
https://people.com/health/90-day-fiance-big-ed-inspiration-people-with-klippel-feil-syndrome-21-pound-weight-loss/
“I grew up with the condition called KFS - Klippel-Feil syndrome- where it looks like I actually don’t have a neck,” Big Ed explained. “But I do. I have 3 vertebrates that are the size of 2 when most normal humans from this world have 7. And I have a bigger than normal chest cavity so I’ve been bullied all my life.” While some viewers have been cruel about Big Ed’s appearance, he is used to receiving criticism and standing out.”
https://screenrant.com/90-day-fiance-big-ed-neck-rare-disorder/