They called the idea nutty, even seedy, but the Copilot mascot turned out to be a seminal piece of marketing that spawned generations to follow. This was a huge release that left a lot of the more conservative viewers clutching their pearl necklaces. Cream of the crop. Busting once and for all the myth that Microsoft isn't a fertile place for breeding marketing innovation. Coming out of nowhere, a climactic moment in the 2025 AI summer. Truly a moment to refract on during the upcoming period. All the money they've splooged on AI is finally coming to fruition and not just blown off and swallowed. The success will surely rub off on the AI industry as a hole or at least jack up Microsoft shares with vigorous excitement. And other semen jokes.
This is why I absolutely cannot fucking stand creative work being referred to as "content". "Content" is how you refer to the stuff on a website when you're designing the layout and don't know what actually goes on the page yet. "Content" is how you refer to the collection of odds and ends in your car's trunk. "Content" is what marketers call the stuff that goes around the ads.
"Content"... is Whatever.
I was going to make a comment on the Stubsack thread about how it kind of ticks me off how "content creator" has permeated its way so deep into the vernacular. I can forgive it when it's used as a clumsy term to talk about creative workers across multiple media, but something like a video essayist calling another video essayist a content creator just gives me the ick. Have some pride and solidarity in your art form, for fuck's sake.
Jesus christ. Not surprised to see yet another dowsing wand being sold for cops, but what kind of a court admits this shit as evidence?
I was reminded of a particular anecdote I need to get out of my system.
There was a time on a particular fiction series' fan forum's IRC channel when I had to convince a very enthusiastic teenage fan that the instructions they found on 4chan to open a portal to a parallel world of that particular work of fantasy fiction was actually a method for synthesizing and inhaling poison gas.
The weird part was that they admitted they knew it was probably just a cruel prank, but were still willing to try just in case it was real. We had to actually find and link articles where the same reaction was exhibited as an actual documented suicide method, if an unreliable one at that, to convince them not to go for it.
By my estimate that person was about high school age, almost certainly over 13 and probably over 15. Mostly their behavior seemed normal for the age, certainly overenthusiastic about the fandom and with obvious signs of teenage ennui, but both of those are typical for someone in their mid-teens. It was just this strange incident of extreme gullibility and self-destructive devotion to a fandom that really stuck with me.
finger curls on the monkey paw
Inspiring! Mom and Pop have started a small business and are now franchisees of Megacorp Robotaxi. After financing and purchasing a fleet of cars, they can enjoy a steady and reliable income while only having to take care of vehicle maintenance, autopilot software license fees, accounting, possible municipal taxi licensing and other legal and clerical duties and liabilities of running a business.
Thanks to Megacorp Robotaxi's excellent reputation and customer loyalty and not at all because Megacorp Robotaxi has a de facto monopoly on taxi business, Mom and Pop are not worried about the competition, save for maybe some friendly and good-natured rivalry with other proud franchisees of the Megacorp Robotaxi family.
Also, I just now realized that Automattic (business model: Uber for not posting female-presenting nipples) is a pun on this guy's name.
Coming soon, my debut light novel I (39M) Was Kicked Out Of My Party And Called A Podcasting Bro Because I Didn't Want To End Homelessness In The United States Fifty Times Over And Still Have More Money Left Than The Entire Continent Of Africa, So Instead I Had Factories Build Me Plagiarism Accelerator Chips So My Company Can Lose Money Even Faster. AITA?
It's an isekai story of a techbro reincarnated in a world that's just like ours except he actually has that much money. Then again, that might become reality sooner than you think. If OpenAI keeps up their pace, they will make that $7,000,000,000,000 in just negative 1400 years!
EDGE (enhanced display for environment)
did not even try
Took me like five minutes of reading to realize this was neant to be a hit piece and not praise.
He's a little confused but he's got the spirit!
Look at me, I'm a philantropist! I non-bindingly pledge to probably promise that if possible and convenient, I can be considered to essentially intend to effectively donate up to half of my arguable net worth to a cause one might consider charitable.
Oh and a legal defence fund for unfairly maligned non-sex offender friends of Jeffrey Epstein counts as a charity, by the way.
bitofhope
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Yea, it's not good of Ars to report the shameless "think of the kids" spin uncritically.