MyBrainHurts
@MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca
- Comment on I'm brave enough to say it: Linux is good now, and if you want to feel like you actually own your PC, make 2026 the year of Linux on (your) desktop 2 days ago:
Thanks, I’ll be looking into it this weekend!
- Comment on I'm brave enough to say it: Linux is good now, and if you want to feel like you actually own your PC, make 2026 the year of Linux on (your) desktop 3 days ago:
I took the plunge during the holiday interregnum.
A lot of stuff was stunningly simple, some frustrating hiccups/learning experiences here and there but I think all the games I checked are working.
I still have to do some work to figure out how to get mods working (not usually a dealbreaker but I’ve heard they really improve Fallout NV and I’ve been itching to try it) but goddamn it feels awesome to finally leave windows!
- Comment on How does internet advertising work? Where is all the money coming from? More... 1 week ago:
Okay?
The question was “why does internet advertising work”, how does what does what you’re saying have anything to do with that?
- Comment on How does internet advertising work? Where is all the money coming from? More... 1 week ago:
I mean, showing random ads before or during things is pretty much what sustained most television and radio for a number of decades.
And now they aren’t random.
If you’ve been watching influencers on youtube or tiktok, they know a lot more about what to show you. And whatever they’ve been talking about, they can shoehorn an appropriate ad in.
Then you consider the cost which is a fraction of a penny per eyeball, so even nudging only one in 20,000 targeted views, of an audience who are interested in your type of product is probably going to be profitable.
Think of email phishing scams. It seems insane that anyone has ever fallen for thr Nigerian prince thing but all they need is one success every so often and it’s profitable.
- Comment on How does internet advertising work? Where is all the money coming from? More... 1 week ago:
Oh no, that was an extreme example and it would be impractical to always have that granular level. For other, more mass ads, consider say, the water bottle trend or almost any other tik tok food fad. Maybe it started organically, maybe not, but advertisers absolutely jumped into those, connected with “influencers” to make sure their brands were represented. And for those campaigns, age and location or general demographic of each influencer’s audience would be more than sufficient (and still fairly microtargeted, they’re hitting folks with under 100k subscribers! Almost no other traditional media campaign can slice so finely.)
- Comment on How does internet advertising work? Where is all the money coming from? More... 1 week ago:
My friend’s partner works in online advertising from matching, ugh, “influencers” to brands to more “traditional” targeted online advertising.
I asked her something along these lines and she told me about a campaign she’d just worked on which dropped my jaw and changed my perspective.
Essentially, she was working with some product being sold with or inside some luxury brand of cars. Her firm was able to target people who seemed to work in dealerships for that brand in Canada. The product being expensive as hell meant that even a handful of sales would justify the campaign.
The campaign cost her firm almost no time, the data were available fairly easily and once established could essentially be run automatically.
Hers is an extreme example but combine relatively low costs with unnervingly accurate micro targetting like that… It’s a stupidly efficient means of communicating to prospective clients compared to every other type of advertising.
Reddit is an interesting example. They’re milking the advertising for all they can but I’d be surprised if the bulk of their revenue/stock valuation was from ads versus holding all sorts of AI trainable data.
- Comment on How does internet advertising work? Where is all the money coming from? More... 1 week ago:
There are uhhh, many people who are not you.
- Comment on The richest people in the world are morally bankrupt 3 weeks ago:
Ehhhhhh, some, sure.
But on the flip side, you have folks like Bill Gates who has more or less devoted his life to saving as many lives as possible.
Or Buffett who last I heard had donated some 50 or 60 billion to different foundations.
Even Musk, for all his recent evil got rich trying to reduce our dependence on gas cars. As much as I dislike the man, I imagine the electric car industry would be pretty far back in his absence.
- Comment on Is gold investing a scam? 3 weeks ago:
Complete societal collapse, hard to say what, beyond the basics, would be useful as a medium of barter.
But, in a society facing major issues, e.g., hyper inflation, or say, a US government default, yeah, gold is a pretty decent hedge bet.
The traditional safe haven has been government debt but that’s been seen as an increasingly risky bet where you could lose a lot of money to inflation or worse, government default/intervention.
So, while not ideal, gold at least seems a better bet than most other “safe” places to put one’s money.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
This feels like ragebait or you need to read or watch more modern stuff.
- Comment on U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday 3 weeks ago:
I’ve legit wondered about this and one of the many reasons I don’t want kids is I don’t think it’d be fair to inflict my lifestyle on them, no matter how morally correct I feel.
My basic thought though is that as long as social media is the dominant means by which cultural trends are spread and amplified, anti-consumerism will be hard to spread.
Once modern social media became dominant, social justice pivoted from our own sins (wearing slave made clothes, children losing limbs for our new phones etc) and switched to dunking on public figures and large systemic forces. I think that’s because it’s much easier to share, make jokes about etc evils that you are not currently doing. That is to say, it’s a lot easier to make memes about say, OscarsSoWhite when none of us are in the Academy than say, “my shoes are made by kids who occasionally burn to death” while many folks are wearing those types of shoes.
- Comment on U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday 4 weeks ago:
And I just got a better job after having a bad one.
I’ve also known addicts who’ve quit.
Does that mean “just get a better job” “just quit your addiction” and “reject consumerism” are reasonable answers to people struggling?
- Comment on U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday 4 weeks ago:
This is the same as “I would just have a better job.”
Some normal folks are out there, trying to give their kids as normal a life as they can despite their financial circumstances and not all of them are as enlightened as you claim to be online.
- Comment on U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday 4 weeks ago:
It’s fucked but with a charitable view, I can see some logic.
For all the nonsense, there are a handful of good deals on the Friday/Monday. If I were living paycheque to paycheque, seems like a bnpl scheme could let me budget say, November to February for christmas gifts, interest free unlike a credit card.
That being said, that’s the theory. I imagine a lot of folks end up in over their heads much like credit cards etc.
- Comment on Truth in advertising 4 weeks ago:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hegseth-ssecretary-of-war-name-plate/
I’d guess it’s still ai generated in that someone asked an ai to print their labels.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, this isn’t going to be productive or interesting.
Have a nice day.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 4 weeks ago:
Tenth among European nations in the 60s isn’t particularly good and is not thr standard that makes Norway the model everyone wants to emulate.
Consider how much of Europe was under communism or fascism and there’s really not a lot of competition.
It wasn’t a terrible place but not the high quality with which we currently associated Norway.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 4 weeks ago:
Not every liberal democracy is America.
If you want to understand, you might go to Canada where strict campaign finance laws generally reign in billionaires.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 4 weeks ago:
previously established
In other words, Norway established this stuff pretty quickly when oil was discovered. That’s wildly different from taking over existing private enterprise.
People really don’t like it when you take things away as opposed to having a set of rules before anyone begins.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 4 weeks ago:
Lithium is not nearly as profitable as oil. It costs a huge amount to extract and refine (China has such a chokehold on critical minerals, not because they have so much more but because they’ve built an incredibly efficient set of supply chains.)
And personally, I am very much not in favour of tearing down what little protected land is left in America. But you will be happy to know that trump strongly agrees with you and is opening up a swathe of public land for oil and gas.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 4 weeks ago:
previously established
In other words, Norway established this stuff pretty quickly when oil was discovered. That’s wildly different from taking over existing private enterprise.
People really don’t like it when you take things away as opposed to having a set of rules before anyone begins.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 4 weeks ago:
All of a nations natural resources rightfully belong to the people
Yes and we have a liberal democracy to determine how best to use them. Thankfully, most folks understand that simply nationalizing resources comes with huge reprecussions which greatly outweigh the gains.
Do you have a successful example of your proposal in mind?
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 4 weeks ago:
If you’re going to start nationalizing previously established resources, that’s going to have all sorts of wild reprecussions and is not what Norway did.
But beyond the logistics, which similarly profitable resources are you thinking of?
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 4 weeks ago:
Norway admittedly has gigantic, relatively recent, oil and gas reserves that allow it to fund all sorts of social programs. Not saying those are bad or anything, just not a particularly exportable model.
- Comment on Black Friday, more like buy stupid shit day. 5 weeks ago:
Yeah, I know I’m in the minority in the fediverse on this but for the last few months (for some of what I wanted, about 10 months) I’ve kept glancing at a few things that weren’t urgent but would be needed soonish, and now the prices have all come down a good chunk for Black Friday.
I get if you’re randomly scrolling amazon looking for deals, yeah, that’s garbage. But if you’ve been patient, with actual specific ideas…
- Comment on Norway's lesson for Europe on wealth taxes: let some millionaires go 5 weeks ago:
Fair, though can I ask what if the economists are right?
Around 40% of emigrants are business owners, according to Princeton researcher Christine Blandhol, who estimates, opens new tab the latest tax changes will cut Norway’s output by 1.3% over the long run.
Seems like the expectation is that this will lower government revenues etc. So, is the idea that egalitarianism is of higher value to Norway than some government services?
(Personally, I tend to think this one of those frustrating ones where what is moral and right in the short term smashes into cruel political/economic reality.)
- Comment on A community dedicated to 30+ gamers. 1 month ago:
I like it as a more relaxing version of Slay the Spire. I’m not great at either though, so take what I say with more than a few grains of salt. I feel like I can see the combos Monster Train wants more easily than in Slay the Spire, where I sometimes feel like I’m tricking the system OR the Spire is trying to trick me by offering something remoting that doesn’t quite work with my deck.
- Comment on A community dedicated to 30+ gamers. 1 month ago:
That’s neat! I don’t think many of the games I play (and poorly at that) would count, like Slay the Spire etc.
But, maybe in the Christmas downtime i’ll apply and see what it’s all about! Thanks for sharing!
- Comment on Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out 1 month ago:
Sneaky devils, thanks for sharing!
- Comment on If you own Total War: WARHAMMER I or II you'll soon get Total War: WARHAMMER III Immortal Empires free 1 month ago:
Well that’s pretty dang cool.