Everything is Shit: Tracking the Great Enshittening

[Incredulity 11532]

That Canva thing will end up being this generation’s Microsoft dance celebration.  
 

 

[HenryJames 65868]

5 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Tech brain is a disease. 

 

This will only work if the AI was trained on Surly.

[Incredulity 11532]

4 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

This will only work if the AI was trained on Surly.

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light

[Bozo_Casanova 26232]

8 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light

It would be bad

[Biff Tannen 45477]

6 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Tech brain is a disease. 

 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4965]

1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

This will only work if the AI was trained on Surly.

We should get our own AI bot/poster that is trained only on this site.

[Incredulity 11532]

12 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

We should get our own AI bot/poster that is trained only on this site.

There is a non zero chance Derka is actually sentient AI

[Parliament 14111]

On 5/26/2024 at 4:56 PM, mdmost said:

I blame Lin Manuel Miranda for this.

 

My God I hate white people.

[HenryJames 65868]

[Biff Tannen 45477]

35 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

What could go wrong?

[staboner 4955]

jfc that canva whatever that was. 

I need to shower

I am the avenging sword of taste and decency 

[Deej 76508]

18 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Tech brain is a disease. 

 

Will they have a replacement for anti-social drinking? Asking for a friend. 

[Deej 76508]

8 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

What could go wrong?

Don't make any furtive movements, or be black, and it should be just fine. 

[HenryJames 65868]

56 minutes ago, Deej said:

Will they have a replacement for anti-social drinking? Asking for a friend. 

Who else likes using AI powered earbuds in their garage alone??

[F250 28658]

5 hours ago, Deej said:

Will they have a replacement for anti-social drinking? Asking for a friend. 

Maybe. The A.I. will quietly whisper to you through your AirPods, "now it's time to tell these fucks what you really think."

Or the A.I. will direct you to Surly late in the evening and tell you what to type so everyone can see that you are having a A.I. alcohol induced meltdown.

[Cody2422 264]

Not sure if this belongs here, but allow my submission for the great enshittening.  Filed a claim with TWIA for recent hail damage.  For everything I can bitch about, they were actually great.  I filed the claim with Farmers, TWIA contacted us within 7 days, had a local inspector/adjuster come out and they were super fair.  Received the report and check within another 7-10 days.  This is where the enshittening starts.  Since we have a mortgage, they're listed as a payee as well.  No problem, I'll just contact the local branch and go down and have it endorsed.  Nope, there are no local branches in our area, but don't worry just call this # and dance through all of our automated prompts.  Finally found the right prompt about insurance claims and "just push '1', we'll text you a link."  Bank texts a link to another website, insuranceclaimchecks.com or some bullshit.  Have to create an account to go through the process.  Need my mortgage #, no problem, back to the mortgage website and on to the document center.  We're sorry, the document center is unavailable at this moment.  Back to the automated bank phone number to finally find a person to talk to and track down my mortgage account #.  Back to the check claim website.  I'm on my mobile phone and creating the account is tedious, so I go to my desktop, create the account and start the claim.  All goes well until I need to take a picture of the check for mobile deposit and there is not an upload an image option, so I try to use my computer to take the picture.  No option to turn off auto capture, so after about 3-4 half images and other blurry images, I log off from my computer, back to my phone.  Still no way to turn off the auto capture feature, so I finally just said fuck it and uploaded shitty images of the check.  Now I wait to see if the funds show up in another 7-10 days via ACH in my personal bank account.

I feel better now, thanks for allowing me to bitch.

[Parliament 14111]

I recently got my MBA.  School charges me $35 for a month paper diploma.

[General Specific 3226]

AI and us…

[Captain Ron 12789]

I went back and looked, given that Spotify and music were topics a few weeks back, I'm shocked this flew under the radar here last week:

 

That went over about as well as a wet fart in an elevator

 

 and 

 

https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero

 

This doesn't make me unhappy I cancelled my Spotify account a few months ago.

[F250 28658]

1 hour ago, Captain Ron said:

I went back and looked, given that Spotify and music were topics a few weeks back, I'm shocked this flew under the radar here last week:

 

That went over about as well as a wet fart in an elevator

 

 and 

 

https://www.loudersound.com/news/spotify-ceo-sparks-backlash-after-social-media-post-that-claimed-the-cost-of-making-content-is-close-to-zero

 

This doesn't make me unhappy I cancelled my Spotify account a few months ago.

lol He pulled a Lucille Bluth "It's one banana" regarding the cost of content creation.

[Parliament 14111]

There will always be timeless music and it will be loved forever.  Mozart, Zeplin, Sturgill Simpson.

And there has always been schlock garbage.  60’s boy bands, bro country, etc.

Recording and distributing music is cheaper and easier than ever and his logic that there will be more and more garbage (“content,” not music) then I agree with him.

If you say, “making good music is easy,” well that’s wrong.  Seems like he’s being interpreted that way.

On a parallel note, the word “content” has a negative connotation in my mind.  It’s just something to fill up Netflix, TikTok and similar for their algo’s to jam on you to drive “engagement” for subscribers to renew and see their ads.

True, quality, music, TV and movies are still out there but seem to be getting swamped over by all the content.  I blame much of that on the streaming wars.  All these streamers need stuff for they library, and the just aren’t enough talented people out there to make all of it.

[Captain Ron 12789]

You want proof of how the internet sucks?

 

https://www.threads.net/@nytimes/post/C7uiOSls-8j < link to the threads video

 

The article (haven't read it yet) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/02/world/americas/starlink-internet-elon-musk-brazil-amazon.html?unlocked_article_code=1.w00.ojLQ.sM0gV5YEDiid&smid=url-share

[Hank Kingsley 20635]

Another great read. 

 

[gofuckyourself 8115]

This made me chuckle/weep.

Could also be posted in the various AI threads.

https://terribleminds.com/ramble/2024/05/30/oh-whatever-everything-is-totally-great-for-writers-right-now/

Quote

What’s cool is, though, you still get to reach the robots. And the robots, they’re fucking everywhere, man, they’re crawling the internet like bugs, and they’re just gobbling up content left and right, just chewing it up like termites. Then everything the robots chew up gets turned into this paste, yeah? Like, a spackle? A content spackle? And they fuckin’ barf it back up in different places, so that’s cool because I guess they call that exposure or something. The molecular material of your writing and art is kind of in everything, then, like how we’re all made of stardust and shit?

 

[Rudiger 1160]

On 12/28/2023 at 11:11 PM, Fudge Nuggets said:

Yeah, but the movies themselves are way shittier. Unless you want to see the 5,000th remake of some stupid ass comic book. 

Not just comic books. I counted the posters at the theater this weekend, and half were for a sequel, prequel, or remake of something. 

[Biff Tannen 45477]

15 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Another great read. 

 

From the comments and my GOD this is horrifyingly true at my company. Product has no clue what most of the shit they come up with actually does to the user experience. Nor do they seem to care. 
 

 

[immamac 42492]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

From the comments and my GOD this is horrifyingly true at my company. Product has no clue what most of the shit they come up with actually does to the user experience. Nor do they seem to care. 
 

 

I used to preach this all the time. Innovation doesn't come from your stupid fucking spreadsheet. 

[Fudge Nuggets 19118]

6 hours ago, immamac said:

I used to preach this all the time. Innovation doesn't come from your stupid fucking spreadsheet. 

Dude, a couple of years ago you were constantly rolling out shit on this board that would break it or make the user experience more shitty.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10134]

8 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Dude, a couple of years ago you were constantly rolling out shit on this board that would break it or make the user experience more shitty.

Sounds like he talked to Surly users.

[troph 24547]

On 5/29/2024 at 9:22 PM, Parliament said:

My God I hate white people.

Me too. 

[troph 24547]

On 6/3/2024 at 12:01 PM, Parliament said:

There will always be timeless music and it will be loved forever.  Mozart, Zeplin, Sturgill Simpson.

And there has always been schlock garbage.  60’s boy bands, bro country, etc.

Recording and distributing music is cheaper and easier than ever and his logic that there will be more and more garbage (“content,” not music) then I agree with him.

If you say, “making good music is easy,” well that’s wrong.  Seems like he’s being interpreted that way.

On a parallel note, the word “content” has a negative connotation in my mind.  It’s just something to fill up Netflix, TikTok and similar for their algo’s to jam on you to drive “engagement” for subscribers to renew and see their ads.

True, quality, music, TV and movies are still out there but seem to be getting swamped over by all the content.  I blame much of that on the streaming wars.  All these streamers need stuff for they library, and the just aren’t enough talented people out there to make all of it.

If he just left out the tone deaf content creation costs next to zero and instead said nothing or said with the democratization of access allowing everyone to create content or art…

I mean shit, I walk into Michael’s, spend $50 and can walk out, go home and paint a 48x36 painting - and actually I’ve done that three dozen times. Is that going to be timeless? 
 

 

but I sat in the Rothko room at the Phillips Collection - a museum in DC - and stare at this and spontaneously cry, so much that a proctor came up and asked if I was okay. Okay? I’m more than ok will you just look at this?? Btw 5 mins of an open mind sitting in front of and staring at a Rothko will do WILD things to you. 

 

I read hot garbage on surly that’s worth a pile of shit, but the writings of Rainer Wilke will make me stop and think and feel alive and connected with a broader sense of humanity. 

Music is no different. 

ART will always be important and while the democratization of access is good it produces a ton of garbage. It used to be a worthy trade off. No more gatekeepers, every one can be an artist and quality will rise to the top.

From an ART perspective, I’m afraid AI will only create more garbage to sift through. I fail to see any redeeming quality from an ARTISTIC perspective.

in large part because ART even when enjoyed “alone” is a social endeavor. When I sit in front of the Rothko or when I listen to Yo-Yo Ma…

 

I am actually listening to their heart expressed through the music (visual art viewing their soul) and wondering about how it was made what was going on in their mind, Bach for that matter too. And in that moment I’m with another human, it’s why we feel like we know artists when we listen to their music. AI will NEVER produce that rich sense of humanity and connection. 

it was a great question, he just had to fuck it up with a billionaire’s monied attitude. 

 

Edited June 5 by troph

[immamac 42492]

46 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Dude, a couple of years ago you were constantly rolling out shit on this board that would break it or make the user experience more shitty.

What? Are you talking about the ezoic fiasco who I literally terminated the contract early and had to pay to get out of because their approach to monetizing the site was enshittifying it? That one? Weird it's almost like I went above and beyond in that situation. Those changes were also rolled out without me being notified and I did a lot of work fixing them asap and gave transparent updates. 

You've also spent a grand total of $0 dollars ever on treefiddy, burnt ends, NIL initiatives or anything monetizable by the entire site while being afforded the status of a legacy user who doesn't see any ads and gets a similar experience to a treefiddy member. This is the exact opposite of enshittification. This website exists as a community on the Internet for people like you and all the others in this thread to discuss stuff, meet up in real life and talk sports and bullshit at tailgates or happy hours or burnt ends dinners etc etc. 

I don't know if your comment was just in jest or if you think this is my full time job (spoiler: it's not and it pays terribly)

[troph 24547]

If you aren’t paying what is it $3 a month to this place you are part of what’s wrong with the world. 

I’ve had a lot of push pull, love hate, U2 with or without you is my surly theme song over the years, but in an ill fated attempt to lean more on instagram for my online fix I learned that it’s all shit and this is the best place to share ideas, share experiences and avoid the great enshitification. I’m currently in the slow detoxification from the hellscape of social media and hoping to leave it all together one day sooner rather than later. 
 

Hell I feel guilty for only paying $3 a month. It’s worth a lot more than that to me. 

Edited June 5 by troph

[Hank Kingsley 20635]

39 minutes ago, troph said:

I am actually listening to their heart expressed through the music (visual art viewing their soul) and wondering about how it was made what was going on in their mind, Bach for that matter too. And in that moment I’m with another human, it’s why we feel like we know artists when we listen to their music. AI will NEVER produce that rich sense of humanity and connection. 

[Captain Ron 12789]

1 hour ago, troph said:

but I sat in the Rothko room at the Phillips Collection - a museum in DC - and stare at this and spontaneously cry, so much that a proctor came up and asked if I was okay. Okay? I’m more than ok will you just look at this?? Btw 5 mins of an open mind sitting in front of and staring at a Rothko will do WILD things to you. 

 

First PROPS, because I fucking love Rothko. When I was at the Tate in London I captured this in the moment of a guy doing what you said, enjoying the beauty of the installation and my picture captured that perfectly.

 

 

1 hour ago, troph said:

Music is no different. 

ART will always be important and while the democratization of access is good it produces a ton of garbage. It used to be a worthy trade off. No more gatekeepers, every one can be an artist and quality will rise to the top.

From an ART perspective, I’m afraid AI will only create more garbage to sift through. I fail to see any redeeming quality from an ARTISTIC perspective.

in large part because ART even when enjoyed “alone” is a social endeavor. When I sit in front of the Rothko or when I listen to Yo-Yo Ma…

 

I am actually listening to their heart expressed through the music (visual art viewing their soul) and wondering about how it was made what was going on in their mind, Bach for that matter too. And in that moment I’m with another human, it’s why we feel like we know artists when we listen to their music. AI will NEVER produce that rich sense of humanity and connection. 

 

 

1 hour ago, troph said:

If he just left out the tone deaf content creation costs next to zero and instead said nothing or said with the democratization of access allowing everyone to create content or art…

...

it was a great question, he just had to fuck it up with a billionaire’s monied attitude. 

 

I don't question that he is truly talking about exactly what you're saying here the democratization of access to the means of production. I just think he can't help himself, with him money is always the initial thought on just about everything and by not taking the time to reflect on what exactly he is saying, it will always just about come out in a very tone deaf way.

[troph 24547]

that Rothko at the Tate gives me chills I would probably lose my shit in front of that one. like an ugly sobbing cry. the stark barrier between the two spaces of light and the turmoil as the dark and light meld all around. pictures don't do his work justice, you gotta get up real close and stare at the smallest of spaces, widen your lens and see the whole, see parts, see the brush strokes and the action. whoa man. gotta be ready for that one.

Edited June 5 by troph

[choripan 790]

Wait, people actually like Rothko, et al?

I thought doing so was some sort of performance art from within the visual arts community. HERE is art:

Notice how the artist paid homage to the impressionists both through brush strokes and the piece in the background. The mischievous artist speaks to our human conceit through the concept of dogs playing poker, an activity which requires a certain intelligence not found below humans. Why is it that these beasts -- that species being our best friend, no less -- can play poker? Are we no better, despite conceiving of ourselves as apart from animals? And what of the bulldog passing the ace of spades? We see here, that no one is to be trusted, represented both through the act of passing the card and the mistrusting glances from the dogs across the table. Shall we trust?

I could go on. I have contemplated this work countless times -- it has given me hope and contentment, thrown me into despair, and -- yet! -- what have I given it? Nothing. Or nothing that could ever compare to what it has given me.

For shame.

[Incredulity 11532]

4 minutes ago, choripan said:

Wait, people actually like Rothko, et al?

I thought doing so was some sort of performance art from within the visual arts community. HERE is art:

Notice how the artist paid homage to the impressionists both through brush strokes and the piece in the background. The mischievous artist speaks to our human conceit through the concept of dogs playing poker, an activity which requires a certain intelligence not found below humans. Why is it that these beasts -- that species being our best friend, no less -- can play poker? Are we no better, despite conceiving of ourselves as apart from animals? And what of the bulldog passing the ace of spades? We see here, that no one is to be trusted, represented both through the act of passing the card and the mistrusting glances from the dogs across the table. Shall we trust?

I could go on. I have contemplated this work countless times -- it has given me hope and contentment, thrown me into despair, and -- yet! -- what have I given it? Nothing. Or nothing that could ever compare to what it has given me.

For shame.

I like this one. One dog goes one way and the other goes the other.

[Brisketexan 104462]

The fact that both of you give a pass to that cheating bastard bulldog says volumes about your lack of character.

[Incredulity 11532]

4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The fact that both of you give a pass to that cheating bastard bulldog says volumes about your lack of character.

 

12 minutes ago, choripan said:

We see here, that no one is to be trusted, represented both through the act of passing the card and the mistrusting glances from the dogs across the table. Shall we trust?

Reading is fundamental.

[Brisketexan 104462]

1 minute ago, Incredulity said:

 

Reading is fundamental.

Goddammit.  Self-negged.

[Deej 76508]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

Goddammit.  Self-negged.

 

[troph 24547]

okay the respite from the great enshitification was nice, but it's over. back to your regularly scheduled programming. but shout out to @Captain Ron and @Hank Kingsley for trying. lol.

[Captain Ron 12789]

51 minutes ago, troph said:

okay the respite from the great enshitification was nice, but it's over. back to your regularly scheduled programming. but shout out to @Captain Ron and @Hank Kingsley for trying. lol.

Dang, I didn't even get to mention seeing the Rothko Harvard Murals in their natural color!

[safe sex 11659]

Rothko owns

Twombly owns 

Wiley owns 

Jean Smith owns 

Kandinsky owns 

Turrell owns 

Art owns. This should be an art thread from now on. Everything is art

Edited June 5 by safe sex

[troph 24547]

agree with the sentiment but AI is not art it's shit. ergo not everything is art. some things are shit.

Edited June 5 by troph

[Brisketexan 104462]

2 minutes ago, troph said:

agree with the sentiment but AI is not art it's shit. ergo not everything is art. some things are shit.

Perhaps you missed this timeline.  EVERYTHING is shit.

[safe sex 11659]

La-di-dah, lawdogs.

Everything is art (except AI bullshit) isn't as pithy. 

Post more art

[troph 24547]

16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Perhaps you missed this timeline.  EVERYTHING is shit.

love, touch, art, music, the sound of a lone cello in a concert hall, the sound of my kids laughing, the sound of the cicadas in the summer, the smell of the water at this certain point in the evening at this one spot on lake Travis, the smell of life in Monterrey Bay, the view of the purple shade the hills take way off in the distance, the taste of a hearty homeade italian meatball and the sound of the crack of the bat.

These are beautiful and I could fill 10 pages with things that are beautiful.

We must fight back.

Art is everything (that matters).

Beauty is everything (that matters).

[safe sex 11659]

This is my favorite painting in the entire Smithsonian museum system. I must have stared at it for over an hour. Some fukkin' anonymous early American rando painted this fukkin' gorgeous stag that stares so deeply into my soul that I want to weep.