It's rich for a TV exec to call YouTube 'slop'. Compared to traditional TV, where 1/3rd or more of your time is spent watching ads for prescription drugs or fake silver coins, the YouTubers I watch put much more thought and artistic energy into what they produce than the laugh track trash on TV.
You skipped the part about how much of your time is spent watching ads on Youtube? If zero and you've got UBO on then you are stealing revenue from your favourite YouTubers who put so much thought and artistic energy into what they produce
Youtube Premium actually pays the Youtubers similar or possibly slightly better than running Youtube advertising and I don't watch ads to fund that, I pay them money.
I guess you could argue that the stuff where Hank Green is telling me to consider buying a crash course coin is advertising? But by the same token arguably watching Carl Sagan play Blue Prince is advertising how great Carl is? Where are we drawing the line here?
No I wouldn't argue that, it's fair. Promotions or product placement and that stuff are everywhere and no place is special in that.
But I bet the guy I replied to doesn't actually pay for premium. Most people who say "TV sucks because ads and YT is great because no ads and creators braining" mean that they can block ads on YT and those brainy creators can deliver stuff to them for free, so it's totally better than TV yeah. like it's "better" if you can steal stuff than if you have to pay for it)
I'm wondering if authors are making the same mistakes that the music industry did with Napster and kazaa. Using AI has led to more book purchases for me. If I discover and enjoy a book via AI I'm more inclined to buy it. The cats out of the bag, so pet him.
It can tell you about authors, books, useful techniques, etc. If it cites references, that can generate page views on their site ir sales. It can also replace that, though, with AI supplier benefiting commercially.
Watching the last of the WWII veterans pass away brings me great sadness. Growing up they were always these men and women of such great legend it felt like they would be around forever.
One time when I was in the Bay Area, an old, short Asian man wearing a "World War II Veteran" cap boarded the BART. I silently wondered to myself if, due to his very short height, he had sat in the ball turret of a B-17.
Year or two later, there's a blurb on the national news about a man with a Japanese last name from about the right part of California, who died at the age of 95. Turns out, he was indeed a rear gunner on a B-17 crew.
Thank you for your service, old stranger. We met only briefly and never talked, but I'm glad our paths crossed.
This was how I felt when my grandfather passed in 2021. He was always my hero since he was first a Holocaust survivor and then was drafted at 16 to go back to Germany on D-day, where he almost drowned (his lander didn’t fully make it to shore and he couldn’t swim), and then was later caught by the Nazis. Just an insane story and connection to that period in time and once it’s gone, it’s gone. This is why i try to encourage everyone to keep chatting with your older folks before their time comes.
If you have the opportunity, I'd suggest go and visit the beach where your late grandfather landed.
Normandy is beautiful even without its rich history, but enriched with the Bayeux tapestry and the D-Day landing it's an amazing region.
After reading several by the minute historic acounts, I visited there. We were joined by a U.S.-American couple and our guide was a young French lady who pointed out many French were angry about the number of French people killed by the allied bombs that prepared the invation (in error, due to bad weather).
My late German grandfather was working as a prisoner-of-war for a nearby farm after the war, and spoke very fondly of a baby girl called "Francine" that he would sometimes babysit after his work; sadly, he could not recall the name of the village or the family (we tried to get in contact by phone in the 1990s), as he never spoke French. The farmers were very good to him, treated him like a family member, and later even funded his train ticket home.
And you are right, talking to seniors in order to preserve their memories good and bad is important and highly interesting. (Nodwadays, I'd recommend recording such conversations to secure the ability to transcribe the treasure stories provided of course folks consent.)
The difference is that China has a dictator who needs to continually prove to the Chinese people why they shouldn't overthrow him, while the US has a dictator whose democratic election gives him the permission to do whatever the hell he wants to for 4 years.
> The difference is that China has a dictator who needs to continually prove to the Chinese people why they shouldn't overthrow him, while the US has a dictator whose democratic election gives him the permission to do whatever the hell he wants to for 4 years.
Do you remember that China only allowed its dictator to rule for 10 years and that the current dictator/sycophants removed that term limit?
Do you think America is on the same trajectory where the 4 year term limit could be amended via politics and coups? Like the one attempted on Jan 2021?
Why does the Chinese leader need to continually prove himself or else the population will overthrow him? Why do you think the Chinese people are just waiting to press the trigger on revolution? You can get to awful conditions and people still won't revolt.
People not in the USA also have the power to affect this.
The American electorate has decided that their wallets are the only thing they care about when voting, so we can hit them right there. I'll be doing everything I can to no longer purchase or support US products whenever possible.
I've also sold all the stocks I hold in US corporations.
Probably a good number are scalpers, but also some really disorganized people too. You can get stuck with extra theme camp tickets if you're not careful.
If you're part of a theme camp you normally buy as many tickets as youre allotted during the theme camp sale. This sale happens before the public one and the reason you buy as many as you can is because for the last 10 years getting a ticket in the public sale is a lottery. After the public sale you normally redistribute your extra tickets to people who want to camp with you.
The public sale this year was probably pretty easy to get tickets, so people might be stuck with theme camp tickets. Also, BM delayed mailing physical tickets this year to try and boost sales during their final OMG sale. BM did their best to try and screw people too.
I'm specifically saying that some of the people moved to the suburbs for racist reasons. See for example "blockbusting", as a way to profit off from fearmongering to white homeowners, and encouraging movement to the suburbs.
These racist reasons included ones the new suburbia dwellers would have described as "wanted peace", making that quoted phrase one which requires additional scrutiny.
It is a classical logical fallacy to go from the reality that millions of people moved to Levitown-like suburbs for the perceived peace of its racially restrictive covenants to infer that all people moved to the suburbs for that reason.
