A thread for updates on the various ways the internet is destroying everything and the undying hellsites of social media. Let's all laugh at the abyss.
Veloxi wrote:My consoles are plugged into an old Panny plasma.
Those are old enough to be retro now. How's the overall brightness of that thing holding up?
Absolutely great. Play Motorstorm: Pacific Rift on it regularly and it looks great.
Our primary TV is also a newer Panny plasma that we absolutely love.
I have a CRT TV for my Amiga 500. Just wish I had room to keep it all set up.
I’m surprised that a “CRT filter” isn’t more mainstream.
Well, DeSantis banned them in Florida.
Continuing to be really very off topic, but I worked on a game that leaned hard into the CRT aesthetic.
The plasmas always had bad burn in 
The plasmas always had bad burn in :(
Nah, they eventually solved that with later plasmas.
Chumpy_McChump wrote:I’m surprised that a “CRT filter” isn’t more mainstream.
Well, DeSantis banned them in Florida.
He wants a return to monochrome.
Prederick wrote:Chumpy_McChump wrote:I’m surprised that a “CRT filter” isn’t more mainstream.
Well, DeSantis banned them in Florida.
He wants a return to monochrome.
Pretty sure that would be red in Florida.
I do find it darkly amusing seeing many fo the same people who used to make fun of "YouTube Unviersity" have now started getting all of their information from TikTok.
EDIT: GODDAMMIT NHK. The video is "TikTok videos swamping youth in fake information," click thorugh to see it because they're assholes about embedding for some reason.
YOU PEOPLE HAVE THE COMMENTS TURNED OFF, WHY CAN'T I JUST EMBED?
I remember when Elon announced the whole Bluecheck thing, and everyone was saying "NO MORE QT DUNKS STOP ENGAGING" for like two weeks.
And then it went back to normal, because we just can't resist. People are just constantly QTing the most obvious bait, because clout >>>.
It's truly the achilles heel of the entire internet.
Not linking the original WSJ article because paywall, but:
Elon Musk’s Twitter Buyout Is Officially the Worst Deal Since Financial Crisis
The Twitter loans and other hung deals contributed to some of the banks falling down the ranks in the investment banking league tables, according to the Journal, while some bankers have also seen the loans affect their pay.Top investment bankers on Barclays’ mergers and acquisitions team were told last year their compensation would be cut by a minimum of 40 percent from the prior year. The bank had multiple hung deals that had hit its overall performance, but X was by far the biggest, sources told the Journal.
Okay, if I was a conspiracy weirdo, this would be blowing my goddamn mind:
Deep seas and tight spaces impede search for 6 missing after yacht sinks off Sicily
PORTICELLO, Sicily (AP) — Police divers resumed searching Tuesday for six people believed trapped in the hull of a superyacht that sank in deep seas off Sicily, including British tech magnate Mike Lynch, who was celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges with the people who had defended him at trial.
The luxury sailboat, off Porticello near Palermo, was some 50 meters (164 feet) underwater — far deeper than most recreational divers are certified for and a depth that requires special precautions. Recovery crews could only stay for 12-minute shifts, a measure that slowed efforts to reach the cramped inside of the wreck.
Divers tag-teamed the shifts and were using a remote-controlled underwater vehicle, or ROV, to help in the search. They hadn’t been able to access the below-deck cabins because they were blocked by furniture that shifted during the violent storm that struck the vessel early Monday. Rescue crews said they assume the missing six are in those cabins because the storm struck when most would be sleeping, but the teams haven’t verified their presence there through portholes.
The Bayesian, a 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged yacht, was moored about a kilometer (a half-mile) offshore when a storm rolled in before 4 a.m. Monday. Civil protection officials said they believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout, and sank quickly.
Followed by, just today:
Missing tycoon's co-defendant fatally struck by car
The co-defendant of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch - who is currently missing in Italy - has died after being hit by a car.
Stephen Chamberlain, 52, was Mr Lynch's co-defendant in his US fraud trial in which both men were acquitted following the $11bn (£8.64bn) sale of the software giant Autonomy.
Mr Chamberlain died after being struck by the vehicle while out running in Cambridgeshire on Saturday and his family has now paid tribute to him.
Mr Lynch and his daughter are currently missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday.
There is timing, and then there is timing.
You definitely can't blame orcas for the second one.
You definitely can't blame orcas for the second one.
There was no description of the driver given, so the jury is still out.
J.K. Rowling has deleted 27 tweets since being named in a lawsuit brought by Olympic Women’s Boxing Gold Medalist Imane Khelif. Rowling has also not tweeted in 13 days.
Coward. Stand on business, Joanne.
....to temporarily shut the f*ck up, if I don't miss my guess.
....to temporarily shut the f*ck up, if I don't miss my guess.
Until Musk sues her to start posting again.
J.K. Rowling has deleted 27 tweets since being named in a lawsuit brought by Olympic Women’s Boxing Gold Medalist Imane Khelif. Rowling has also not tweeted in 13 days.Coward. Stand on business, Joanne.
And do they think deleting the tweet just makes it go away? Are they so stupid?
Shein sues Temu over copyright infringements as the legal feud between the two companies heats up
Online fast-fashion giant Shein has filed another lawsuit against competitor Temu, accusing the China-founded shopping platform of stealing its designs, copying its product images and engaging in other types of fraud.
The complaint filed in a Washington federal court this week alleges that Temu, which has grown in popularity in the U.S, has subsidized its low prices by encouraging sellers to offer counterfeited items, stolen designs and sub-standard products.
The allegations come as Shein itself is the target of lawsuits from brands and designers that have accused the company of stealing their designs and selling copycat items on its e-commerce site.
Asked for comment about the new lawsuit, a Temu spokesperson said in a prepared statement that Shein’s “audacity is unbelievable.”
“Shein, buried under its own mountain of IP lawsuits, has the nerve to fabricate accusations against others for the very misconduct they’re repeatedly sued for,” the spokesperson said.
Weird things happening over a FurAffinity this week (Twitter thread).
Furaffinity was taken offline this week and briefly hosted a spoofed version of the site meant to steal user information. As the owners of Furaffinity tried to regain control over the domain, the hackers then got into the official Furaffinity X account and used it to accuse the site’s founder, who died earlier this month, of being a pedophile. The hackers posted that they were affiliated with the notorious troll site Kiwi Farms, but weirdly enough, Kiwi Farms actually put out statement saying they had nothing to do with it and even shut down registrations to curb some of the activity around it. The hackers also got into the personal X accounts of Furaffinity mods, including site’s late founder. And, as of this morning, the site is still down.
This was a fun writeup here, that definitely gets to how I feel about modern fandom.
Chappell Roan Confronts The Sickness Of Modern Fandom
Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly hesitant to identify as a fan of any living artist. There are plenty of artists whose work I like, or even love, but the entire concept of being a fan, and what the act of fandom entails, has shifted in ways I find both alienating and disturbing. What was once a straightforward expression of admiration—I’m such a fan!—has lately become more like a claim of obsessive entitlement.
Fans do not simply enjoy an album; they are in love with the person who created the work. Fans follow the celebrity object of their affection on Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and watch their every move. Fans join forums with other fans, who all believe that the celebrity is communicating with them via a series of riddles and hidden messages, which sometimes they really are.
I’m not the only one made uncomfortable by this situation. Artists, unsurprisingly, are expressing their distaste for the consequences of modern fan culture. Indie pop darling Chappell Roan posted two videos to TikTok yesterday that went megaviral. In the two videos, which combined have more than 15 million views, Roan speaks straight to the camera, imploring her fans to realize that she is not an object for them to play with, and more importantly, that they do not actually know her at all.
“I don’t care that abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever, is a normal thing to do to people who are famous or a little famous or whatever,” Roan says. “It’s weird how people think that you know a person just 'cause you see them online, and you listen to the art they make. That’s f*cking weird!”
A number of the comments on these videos were from people replying to this plea for privacy with the exact sort of behavior that prompted it. It’s the cost of being famous, they said. Cry me a river, they said. We made you, they said. Maybe that’s because it is rare for a celebrity to set a firm boundary on how their fans interact with them. She is refreshingly direct—there’s no perfunctory hedging about how of course she is grateful for the attention, no self-effacing asides where she explains how she knows what a privilege this all is. She is not going on Oprah, teary-eyed, to explain how she has been hurt. She is looking her fans right in their eyes and telling them to knock it off.
The comments for the videos have since been turned off. The boundary is clear. The question is whether or not the fans will be able to respect it.
There's more after this, but yeah, if people could be normal about shit, it wouldn't be a problem. But fandom culture on the internet, to me, has so thoroughly normalized, even valorized not being normal about stuff. The more unhinged and entitled, the better!
Weird things happening over a FurAffinity this week (Twitter thread).
The hackers posted that they were affiliated with the notorious troll site Kiwi Farms, but weirdly enough, Kiwi Farms actually put out statement saying they had nothing to do with it and even shut down registrations to curb some of the activity around it.
This actually does not strike me as a weird thing for Kiwi Farms to do. It's basically a desperate plea for the large overlap in the venn diagram of hackers and furries (like SiegedSec, the group that hacked the Heritage Foundation last month) to not wreck their shit in retaliation.
This was a fun writeup here, that definitely gets to how I feel about modern fandom.
Chappell Roan Confronts The Sickness Of Modern Fandom
Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly hesitant to identify as a fan of any living artist. There are plenty of artists whose work I like, or even love, but the entire concept of being a fan, and what the act of fandom entails, has shifted in ways I find both alienating and disturbing. What was once a straightforward expression of admiration—I’m such a fan!—has lately become more like a claim of obsessive entitlement.
Fans do not simply enjoy an album; they are in love with the person who created the work. Fans follow the celebrity object of their affection on Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and watch their every move. Fans join forums with other fans, who all believe that the celebrity is communicating with them via a series of riddles and hidden messages, which sometimes they really are.
I’m not the only one made uncomfortable by this situation. Artists, unsurprisingly, are expressing their distaste for the consequences of modern fan culture. Indie pop darling Chappell Roan posted two videos to TikTok yesterday that went megaviral. In the two videos, which combined have more than 15 million views, Roan speaks straight to the camera, imploring her fans to realize that she is not an object for them to play with, and more importantly, that they do not actually know her at all.
“I don’t care that abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever, is a normal thing to do to people who are famous or a little famous or whatever,” Roan says. “It’s weird how people think that you know a person just 'cause you see them online, and you listen to the art they make. That’s f*cking weird!”
A number of the comments on these videos were from people replying to this plea for privacy with the exact sort of behavior that prompted it. It’s the cost of being famous, they said. Cry me a river, they said. We made you, they said. Maybe that’s because it is rare for a celebrity to set a firm boundary on how their fans interact with them. She is refreshingly direct—there’s no perfunctory hedging about how of course she is grateful for the attention, no self-effacing asides where she explains how she knows what a privilege this all is. She is not going on Oprah, teary-eyed, to explain how she has been hurt. She is looking her fans right in their eyes and telling them to knock it off.
The comments for the videos have since been turned off. The boundary is clear. The question is whether or not the fans will be able to respect it.
There's more after this, but yeah, if people could be normal about shit, it wouldn't be a problem. But fandom culture on the internet, to me, has so thoroughly normalized, even valorized not being normal about stuff. The more unhinged and entitled, the better!
Whoa, whoa, whoa. There is a cost to fame?
As someone that's been around the furry fandom but never really fully in it I have uh, mixed feelings on FurAffinity. I won't get into the details as I don't have them on hand and I could be conflating it with a half dozen other sites that fracture off of it, and I'm not doing that research at work. And frankly you can both guess what they might be and can also guess they are hardly unique to furries anyways. I've seen worse on Tumblr a site that is extremely mainstream by comparison. But this is almost pure tragedy regardless. The owner died most likely due to having been unable to afford healthcare, this attack is almost certainly due to pure homophobia, and it all shows how wildly fragile communities not approved by the corporations really are. The sad truth is this could happen as easily here as it could to Fur Affinity. And hell it sort of did when the Discord got hacked and a majority of it was wiped away before anyone could notice.
I don’t have a clip of it but Alex Jones just announced that Infowars is officially up for sale.
Anyone got some pocket change for a poison brand?
(unfortunately I’m pretty certain that his father will just buy everything and let him continue as normal, but it’s a small victory nonetheless)
Putting $20 down now that Elon buys it and funds it.
I think lenders are going be more cautious considering how well their loans for Twitter have panned out so if he tries I think he will have to spend a lot of his own money.
Jone’s father is wealthy and has been helping fund and run Infowars since its inception. He has multiple shell companies that are just legally distinct enough to have avoided the bankruptcy litigation despite Alex openly funneling money into them, I definitely think his dad bailing him out is the likeliest outcome.
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