Baby Shoggoth [she/her]

Fork bomb is actually a pretty fantastic cat name

“only one person per file”

so we’ve reverted back to the rcs/cvs days?

Did you miss the words “dark pattern”? it is a term for when companies misuse/abuse UX principles to trick people into acting against their own best interests. In this case, the bold “click me” looking button in the screenshots means “yes daddy, spank me and then sell my data to your friends”, which is the option that most people who see that box won’t want to click.

Unfortunately, a large swath of the general population are trained in their brains to “click ok to make it go away”. These UX decisions take advantage of those people.

Assumedly, the grayed out box will also not dismiss the banner, but instead lead to a more complicated experience where you then are forced to drill down into complicated options to decide which of the cookies to set, which will be confusing if you didn’t open the link at top in a new tab to cross reference which of the 27 data brokers “Technology Partners” to decide which.

It’s not UX, it’s abusive UI and the very definition of malicious compliance to EU regulations.

that still contradicts pictrs breaking the thumbnail

i always hated that the us version of this show felt like they needed to say this explicitly, that was one of the best things about the british version is that the points were a cute little joke that didn’t need to be spelled out

General deep dives on random topics:

• secretly incredibly fascinating
• stuff you should know

stuff about the animal world:

• creature feature

linguistics and how we communicate:

• lexicon valley
• lingthusiasm

You just apply anyway.

Usually they’re not willing to pay anywhere close to doctorate money for doctorates anyway, and will end up settling no matter who they pick.

I’m not sure if i’ve ever known any engineer who has met the listed job requirements for their role. They say requirements, but what they mean is “this is my ideal”. Put another way: think of it like a dating app profile. dude may act like he only dates 10s in his profile, but you show him some attention and suddenly you’re just as good as a 10, because he’s lonely and needs affection from someone.

Basically, for most companies, they’re essentially the corporate version of incels. Way too high of standards, but will settle for anyone who is into them regardless of what they think their standards are, because they just need someone ASAP, and their standards disappear quickly once you make yourself available.

I’ve enjoyed a 20+ year long career as a programmer, and I dropped out of college 3 months in because i couldn’t afford it. That’s because early in my career i took a few shitty jobs until i had a decent enough resume that i didn’t have to take shitty jobs anymore. That took study and practice and passion in programming, but i did that for fun years before i even showed up on the university doorstep.

Same except i dropped out of college 3 months in and have enjoyed a healthy career for the last 20 years anyway.

I agree. Take more pictures of yourself out having fun. especially if that fun involves both men and women (assuming you’re a straight man looking for a woman). Show potential partners things you want to do with them, not things you want to do with your bros to get away from them.

Take more pictures of yourself. Have your bro friends take pictures of you while you’re out. Tell them you want them to because it’ll help your dating site profile.

If you don’t have pictures of yourself, you probably won’t have many pictures of either me or us if we were together. Take more pictures. Get friends to take pictures of you. Get pictures of yourself having fun, not just showing off whatever fish you just caught.

You didn’t take that fish pic because you wanted a picture of yourself. You took it because you wanted a picture of the fish. You’re only in the damn pic yourself to prove it was you who caught the fish, there would be no picture of you if there was no fish.

No, not shitting on men. Shitting on people who put a picture of them fishing in their profile, and otherwise don’t care to list any other hobbies in their profile or show them in their pics.

Also, those fishing pics are always (i can’t prove always, but i’ve never seen a counter-example) just them and their dude friends, fishing to get away from their partners and complain about them. I don’t care what your “guys time” is, you deserve time away from me with your friends, just like i deserve time away from you with my friends.

That’s healthy. However, and again i am speaking from my own experiences here, i’ve never gotten a swipe on a dating app from someone who had a fishing pic, where any of the following is true:

1. there are any women there, whether friends or partners of your friends, or anything else
2. they have a picture of them participating in any other hobby
3. they have any other pictures of themselves that aren’t a selfie

If fishing is your hobby, that’s okay. But it shouldn’t be your only hobby. Also, if that hobby doesn’t generally include your partner, you’re not showing off to me what we might do together, you’re showing off to me what you would do to get away from me.

I think you’re misunderstanding the point of the whole meme, and by extension, what i have been saying. It may be more common for country dwellers, but it’s also incredibly common for city dwellers.

There is also never a woman in any of these pics. It’s usually a dude with a bunch of other dudes. I understand that it might be your hobby, and there’s nothing wrong with that being your hobby.

But if it’s a hobby you only share with other dudes and not your partners, and it’s the only hobby on your dating profile, and it’s the most common “only hobby i have pictures of myself doing” for men on dating sites, then at least one of the following isnt probably true:

1. you’re not differentiating yourself from any other dude in my inbox
2. you’re showing off to me that, even if you do have other hobbies, you’re probably not going to take pictures of me/us doing them, and i’m not even sure if you have any hobbies that i would be into, if i am not into fishing
3. you don’t think any other hobbies are important enough for a partner to care about, except fishing
4. you don’t take a lot of pictures of yourself having fun in general. the only reason that fish pic was taken is because you were proud of it in a way that your other masculine friends could take a picture of you without making fun of you

again, i’m speaking from experience on dating apps, and from anecdotes from other women i know. It is incredibly common (i would guess, as a city girl, who only matches with other people in my city, and not surrounding rural areas, at least 20-40%) for a picture of you fishing with your guy friends to be the only picture of you doing anything you enjoy.

Even if that’s your primary hobby, there’s dozens of other dudes in my inbox for whom that is their only hobby that they care enough to take pictures of.

Otherwise you’re just showing me 3-4 face (and/or, for some reason, shirtless) pics and a pic of you fishing with your bros. It’s not appealing, and it’s far from unique. You’ve also not shown me anything we can do together, and your profile mentions nothing else either.

And no, i’m not looking for a man to take me to four star restaurants or whatever else you think i’m after. I make good enough money to cover my needs and hobbies and treat both myself and my partner with nice stuff and experiences. I want someone who is going to spend time with me, with whom i share hobbies, interests, and ideals.

I don’t have a general disdain for men. I do have a general disdain for toxic masculinity. There’s a huge difference between the two.

Look, you wanna put your fish pic in your dating profile? Go ahead. but it’s not impressive. Plenty of other men have bigger fish pics on their profile, and they’re equally unimpressive to anyone who isn’t into fishing.

I’ve never met another woman who had anything positive to say about a man on a dating site with fish pictures. Met plenty of other women who are equally as confused as i am about fish pics. Never even anyone saying “look how cute he is being proud of catching some fish of some size, isn’t he cute?”.

fishing isn’t a substitute for a personality.

You’re not “just unattractive”.

For one, there is no such thing as a line above which someone is attractive vs unattractive, at least not in general. Different people find different physical qualities attractive.

For two, physical attraction isn’t as important as you’re trying to pretend it is. Sure, to some people it is super important, possibly the most important aspect. Most people connect emotionally. Being pretty can get your foot in the door, but not much else.what are your standards for attractiveness? Are you willing to date someone who you think is as physically attractive as you see yourself?

Being pretty can get your foot in the door, but that’s it. You don’t build a relationship on “well i’m attractive so that’s why my partner wants to be with me”. Those relationships are empty and meaningless. Stop worrying about how physically attractive you think you are, and focus more on what makes you unique as a person, and what your passions are. You still won’t be guaranteed success, but you’ll be a lot more likely to find someone who vibes with you.

As for the scam bit? These companies often do have shady practices, they make money when people use it to date; they lose money when people find love and stop dating. But you can’t pay a company more to make other humans more attracted to you. If that’s how you see it, it will always be a “scam”. If you treat it as just a way to meet people, it’s a completely different story.

You can pay a dating app more money to make you visible to more people, but it won’t make you more appealing to the people on it.

Sure, you have a house, a job, and a child. Lots of people do. what are your passions? what drives you? what do you do when you have time completely to yourself? What brings you joy outside of dating?

job and life status don’t make us interesting except to superficial people. our passions and the things we love do. follow your passions. share those with the people you want to date. your pictures and how physically attractive you are are practically meaningless.

Honestly i think it’s much more realistic that most cishet men don’t take pictures of themselves often. But they do when they catch a fish, because that’s what fishy people do. It’s a dick-measuring contest amongst men where the dick being measured is “how big of a fish can i catch?”.

So it’s one of the only pictures you have of yourself, because men don’t tend to just take pictures of themselves just hanging out, there has to be a manly reason for men to take pictures of each other.

Also, often, men go out and fish together to get away from and complain about their partners, and usually, these fish pics come with a bunch of your friends going 👀😍🤯 at your fish.

And even if you’re not all of those negative things, it makes you far from unique. every boring cookie-cutter dude has a fish pic. look, i caught a fish, i am manly so i can provide for you with some average trout i found in a lake.

also, if this many men think “fishing is my most dating-profile worthy passion”, it says a lot. It doesn’t make you special because a good third of men on dating apps share that passion, and it honestly makes me expect a dick pic from you if i even bother matching with you. Maybe try showing off your other passions too?

Yes, the meme is referring to something else.

For some reason, cishet american men on dating apps love to put a picture of themselves holding up a fish they caught while fishing as one of their dating profile pics.

Nobody really knows why that’s supposed to attract a potential dating partner, but it’s really common.

So don’t work at your job either if you’re also a wage slave? Maybe take your own advice?

oh go fuck yourself. i make decent money normally, but i’ve also been in the position where im scraping by, and right now im much closer to the latter category, having been recently laid off.

I tip well when I can afford it, but if i can’t afford to do so, i don’t fucking go out. I’m not going to fuck over someone who makes a few bucks an hour before tip so that i can eat cheap food someone else made, im cooking from home now that im unemployed, and even once i have a job again it will be a while before i can indulge in that.

a lot of people seem to be missing my point in this thread, which is that you have a few choices here:

• tip well, to support employees, because US tax laws allow you to pay someone a fraction of minimum wage if you can say they’re a tip-based worker, and even if you can’t just put up a tip jar and pay minimum wage
• don’t go to places which rely on underpaying workers to give you cheap prices, because the cruelty is what makes it cheap
• you live in an area where tipping is weird because everyone is paid well
• don’t tip, because you can’t afford to
• don’t tip, pay 100% of the employer’s asking price, and go brag on the internet about how you don’t tip and you’re sticking it to capitalism, while the only person you’re hurting is the employee.

Most of the above are fine. The second from last, if you have empathy for others, you’ll probably at least realize who you’re hurting, even if you can’t help it.

That last one though just makes you a certifiable piece of shit. You’re not cool for fucking over the little guy and calling it sticking it to the man.

My solution is to tip well, because not tipping is hurting the employee, not the employer. If they were paying the employees a fair wage, the prices would be higher anyway.

“can’t solve the problem as long as capitalism exists, so may as well contribute to capitalism while patting myself on the back and pretending i’m sticking it to the man by helping them exploit workers” is such fucking bullshit. “i can’t change the world so may as well contribute to the fucked up” is exactly what keeps the practice sustainable.

you are only contributing to wage theft by deciding you’re a hero for not tipping.

if you want to try in other ways to make effective change in society? go for it. do that too. but don’t hit no tip and then go jerk off publicly over how sexy you are for fighting capitalism.

Research the company.

Or just don’t pretend you’re sticking it to capitalism by helping them stiff their workers. You’re directly supporting the practice. You’re no fucking hero for not tipping, and the only people you’re sticking it to are the underpaid employees.

Trust me, as a vegan, i know how hard it is to research everything you consume or buy or purchase. You give up convenience to support a cause you care about or believe in, because those conveniences are exactly what feeds the problem. And trying to find stuff that isn’t contributing to the problem is way more expensive, because cruelty to animals or cruelty to your human minimum wage workers are exactly what makes your food so quick and easy and cheap.

As a general rule, i’d guess that if you don’t want to tip, but don’t want to support companies that don’t pay their wages well: give up cheap fast food. give up most large national or international chains. you’re probably looking at a lot more cooking for yourself from home, probably buying your food at a local small co-op. It’s not going to be easy.

That or tip well because the person taking your order is the person you’re fucking over by not tipping, not the people profiting.

Either way don’t pretend you’re doing anything other than supporting the problem.