#best smartphone in 2007

[spencerreidenjoyer]

insatiable | spencer reid x reader

Spencer learns how amazing sex is with you, but gets caught up with work. You show your boyfriend how good it can feel even if you’re not together physically, and he shows you how much he misses you when he gets back.

part 1 - addicted to you | part 2

wc: 4.6k, rating: 18+/explicit

tags/warnings: established relationship, phone sex/video sex, mutual masturbation, public (bathroom) sex, brief mentions of typical BAU stuff (not in detail), meeting the family (literally reader meets the BAU), brief mentions of alcohol, making out, vaginal sex, getting caught (not in the act but afterward lmao)

a/n: this is what an insane person does when they're sick for two days and have nothing better to do over the summer. this is a second part to addicted to you (you don't have to read the first part but it does provide some context for some details within the fic), with inspiration taken from a lovely comment I got on ao3 that made me feel kinda crazy. i included some textfic elements in this fic as well which i hope reads well (bold text is spencer)! also I know early seasons spencer technically sets this around 2005-2007 but they have smartphones and video calling (aka present day) so please suspend your disbelief for the length of this fic lmao (p.s this fic is also on ao3!)

Your boyfriend gets whisked away for work sooner than you expect. Spencer’s supposed to have time off the rest of this week, but you suppose killers aren’t exactly respectful of an FBI agent’s time off of work. It’s downright cruel when he’s called in to work on a Friday evening, when you have dinner and wine set at the table, having gotten ready to spend a quiet, romantic evening in with Spencer. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says, rushing to change out of his sweatshirt and joggers into his typical work attire. You stand in the doorway of his room, mildly amused while Spencer panics to put an outfit together. “I know you had a whole evening in planned, but–”

“Don’t be, baby,” you assure him. “You have a killer to catch. Oh, that one– the blue cardigan looks good with those pants. It matches your socks.”

Spencer smiles as he looks up at you, reaching for the navy blue cardigan to his left. He tugs it on rather hurriedly, comes up to you and presses a kiss to your forehead. “You’re the best. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

You shake your head. “Just find the bastard quick and come home to me.”

“I know. I will,” Spencer says.

After the both of you found out just how much Spencer liked fucking you, you were really hoping that your weekend together could be spent in his bed, but duty calls. Technically, JJ had called him in, but you’re not concerned about specifics right now.  

You spend the evening alone in Spencer’s apartment, half of the wine finished and his TV playing reruns of some show you haven’t been paying attention to. Your eyelids feel heavy, and Spencer’s bed is so comfortable you can’t bring yourself to leave it. That is, until your phone buzzes on Spencer’s nightstand, and you’re suddenly very alert.

I miss you, darling. > hey, i’m surprised you have the down time to text. i miss you too I’m really sorry I had to leave so suddenly. We’re on the jet right now.  > i told you it’s okay! i’m surprised the jet has wifi lol Taxpayer money, I guess? We land in LA in a couple of hours and we’re heading straight to the PD to work on the case. > my poor boyfriend is working so hard instead of cuddling me in bed :( How you tempt me, lovely. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Are you going to sleep soon? It’s late. > yeah i’m staying at yours for the night and maybe until you get back? really miss you already Okay, that’s good. I know. I’ll call when I’m in the hotel and settled for the day? :-( > yes please. also stop sending emojis with noses they aren’t supposed to look like that!!! They aren’t anatomically correct without them. The way you send them > babe they’re emojis it’s ok if they’re not anatomically correct Hahaha I love you. > lol i love you too! Goodnight, love. > goodnight spence <3 <3

You can imagine, especially from the way Spencer recounts it, how his coworker Derek must be teasing him about smiling at his phone, about how pretty boy’s lucky lady must be one hell of a woman to get Spencer so smitten. 

You would say you’re rather independent, especially in relationships, but Spencer has you acting like a clingy girlfriend. You can’t help but feel an ache in your chest as you long for him while he’s away, feeling like a military wife whose husband is out instead of being normal. To be fair, being with Spencer has never been “normal” – he always has something interesting up his sleeve, or some quirk that makes you even more enamoured with him. 

Your Saturday is relatively uneventful, milling about Spencer’s apartment. You laze around in bed for way too long, enough where Spencer would’ve definitely hauled you out of bed himself an hour ago if he were here. You make yourself breakfast, unsurprised that Spencer only has cereal in his pantry and almond milk in his fridge. You sit down with one of his very sophisticated literature books but you don’t get very far with it, and opt to clean Spencer’s apartment instead. 

It’s when you’re sweeping the floor that you realise just how much you like Spencer, feeling so strongly attached to him already. You’ve said your ‘I love you’s, given him his firsts. You were staying in his apartment even while he was away– hell, you’re even cleaning his apartment for him. 

Just for a moment, you let yourself fantasise about this being your apartment – yours and Spencer’s; about waking up to him every morning, about making breakfast for the both of you that isn’t cereal and almond milk, about coming home to each other instead of an empty apartment. 

You sigh and get back to cleaning.

You’re settled into his bed, surrounded by the comforting scent of him when Spencer finally does call. You almost drop your phone in your excitement to pick up. 

“Hey! Hi, Spence,” you say, unable to help the smile that’s forming on your face. 

“Hello, love,” Spencer answers. He sounds a little tired. You can imagine the little furrow in his brow, obviously exhausted and dissatisfied from a full day’s work of catching some bastard in LA, and you wish you could be there to kiss his frown away. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Spencer. Long day?”

“Absolutely,” Spencer sighs tiredly. “This UnSub is so slippery. No convictions, no paper trail, nothing, and he’s killing every other–” Spencer starts to ramble but he catches himself. “Sorry. I won’t talk about work right now. It’s pretty grim.”

“It’s okay,” you hum. “Do you want to talk about work right now?”

Spencer makes a little noise. “No, no. I don’t want to bring that to you. Let’s talk about you. How are you, honey?”

Honey. The name makes your insides feel all gooey, soft and warm and lovely. “I’m- I’m okay. I stayed at your place, cleaned up around here. I’m thankful it’s not as much of a man cave as I thought.”

Spencer laughs through the phone, a breathy chuckle. “Thank you for cleaning up for me, love. It’s just a lot of nerdy stuff, huh?”

“Yeah. It’s endearing. I tried to read one of your books earlier and could barely get past the first ten pages.” You tell him, garnering another chuckle from Spencer. “I like your place a lot.”

“I miss you,” Spencer says again. “Waking up to you and having you around is so much nicer than this dingy hotel room I’m in.”

“Aw. Taxpayer money couldn’t upgrade you to a better room?” 

Spencer snorts. “No, but I lucked out on getting the room all to myself.”

There’s a pause as you figure out what to say, and Spencer is quick to follow up, “I didn’t mean–”

“Does this have something to do with you missing me, baby?” You can’t help but grin. Spencer makes a distressed little noise over the line.

“Well, I– Maybe, but we don’t have to–” Spencer stammers, unable to find the words. He’s absolutely adorable. 

“I want to, Spence,” you coo. “I miss you so much.”

You hear Spencer exhale shakily. “What– What do I do?”

“A genius like you hasn’t forgotten how to touch himself, has he?” you tease, Spencer whining on the other end at your words. “Does that eidetic memory of yours come with an overactive imagination too?”

“Surprisingly, no. Hyperphantasia is more of being able to visualise different types of situations in one’s mind, and that’s what usually is associated with an overactive imagination. Having an eidetic memory is more about high-precision recall after seeing something even just once. I think having an eidetic memory pretty much ensures you don’t have aphantasia, or the inability to see and create mental images, but yeah.”

Ah, even his nerdy ramblings turn you on. 

“So does that mean you can recall the way I looked in bed a few nights ago?” you prod, and you wish you could see how red Spencer must be by now.

“Well, yes. Of course I can. How could I ever forget how beautiful you looked then?” Spencer’s words are sweet, earnest, and you melt. 

“Then picture that,” you barely get the words out because you’re so smitten. “Imagine I’m right there with you, Spencer.”

You hear the rustling of the sheets, and Spencer’s little telltale whine as he wraps his hand around himself. “O-Oh–”

“I miss you, Spence,” you drawl. “Miss the way your cock fits inside me. You miss my tight cunt, baby?”

“Your mouth is filthy,” Spencer laughs breathily. “But yeah, I do. You always feel so good around me.”

“You’re touching yourself, yeah?” you ask. You get a little whine from him as an affirmative, but your imagination is running wild – you want to see him. “Can you show me?”

“Yeah, I just– Do you wanna switch it over to a video call? I can’t–”

You laugh at your boyfriend’s lack of technical prowess, tapping at your phone screen until the top half of his face comes up. “Hey, I’m just trying to find a good angle–”

“Don’t just flip the camera and show me your dick, please. That would be so unsexy.” You say.

Spencer furrows his brows. “I was not planning on doing that, for the record.” 

You watch the phone move until Spencer comes into frame, the phone likely propped up at the foot of the bed and exposing all of Spencer to you. You might be drooling right now.

“This is… a lot,” Spencer laughs nervously. “I feel so naked.”

“You’re mostly clothed,” you quip. 

“Ha ha,” Spencer laughs dryly. “I’ve just… I’ve never done this before.”

“Phone sex? Or calling your girlfriend so you can jerk off for her?” 

Spencer gives you a deadpan look. “Both, honey.”

You grin. “I’m glad to be your first. Now, show me how you make yourself feel good, baby.”

Spencer’s cheeks are a gorgeous rosy red when he takes his cock into his hand again, his tip leaking as he strokes himself slowly. With his eyes fluttering shut, Spencer’s lips part as he indulges himself in his pleasure. Like this, you indulge yourself in admiring all of Spencer – the flush on his cheeks that runs down to his neck, his breathy panting as he touches himself to the thought of you.

“Spence,” you sigh. “You’re so pretty.”

His eyes shutter open as he looks at you, somehow even redder than he already was. “You’re the pretty one, darling. Are you– Will you touch yourself for me?”

You hold back your moan as you nod. You were already in your underwear when you had slid into Spencer’s bed, but now all it takes is you sliding your fingers past the waistband to feel how wet you already are between your legs. “Oh, Spence.”

“Do you feel good, love?” he hums, voice only a little bit strained from his immense pleasure. 

The embarrassingly loud squelch that results when you sink your fingers into yourself is enough of an answer. Spencer grins, and you’re red in the face as you rock your hips down onto your own fingers. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything, honey,” Spencer laughs. “But I wish I could feel you right now.”

“I know, I miss the way you feel inside me,” you pant. “Please, Spencer–”

“Take off your underwear,” Spencer’s voice is breathy as he pleads with you. “I want to see you.”

You prop your phone up so your angle matches Spencer’s, both of you on full display for each other. You watch the way Spencer’s eyes widen when you slide your panties off, the way his eyes are trained on your figure through the screen. He says, “You’re so wet…”

“All for you, baby,” you sigh, leaning back as you slide two fingers back into yourself. You scissor them rather hastily, craving the hurried way Spencer fucks you. “It’s not the same without you here.”

“I know,” Spencer hums. “You look so good like that. I wish I could make you feel good right now.”

You moan, pushing your fingers into yourself deeper, barely hitting where Spencer reaches easily. The squelch from between your legs is obscene. “You do, baby. You’re making me feel so good, just thinking about you.” 

In practically a whisper, Spencer admits, “I want to fuck you so bad right now.”

You let out a weak cry, impossibly turned on by your boyfriend’s filthy admission because you didn’t even think he had it in him to say it so bluntly. You slide your fingers in and out hurriedly, your palm giving you the friction on your clit that you crave so desperately. “Spencer–”

Spencer lets out a strangled cry, muffled behind his hand, when he comes. It’s sudden, Spencer’s load painting the soft skin of his stomach, his cock twitching. You moan as you follow suit, wetness drenching your hand as you ride out your own orgasm, imagining his cock inside of you. 

“Oh, fuck.” Spencer gasps, head thrown back as you watch his chest rise and fall as he breathes heavily. His forehead and neck are covered in a light sheen of sweat, and his cock out against the rest of his rather soft, innocent looking outfit is making you giggle just a little.

“You look really hot right now,” you say instead, wishing you could be laying next to him while he recovers.

“I think I should be saying that about you,” Spencer laughs. “You’re gorgeous. You’re so stunning.”

“How long are you going to be away?” You pout. “I like it when I can actually kiss you after you compliment me.”

Spencer smiles sympathetically. “I’ll be back soon, my love.”

“I’ll take phone sex with my boyfriend as a consolation, then.” You wink, making Spencer laugh. 

“Remind me not to get too loud, though. I think Emily is in the room next to me and I really hope these walls are thick enough.” He says, sounding vaguely concerned.

You laugh, and stay on the line a little longer just to relish in a peaceful moment with Spencer.

The next day, when you’re out getting groceries to stock up Spencer’s fridge, you get a text from Spencer.

I don’t know how much Emily heard last night, but she’s been looking at me funny all morning. > lol oops? If we call again tonight, we might have to keep it down.  > if? not when? :) I love you so much. > i know and i love you too :) and you should probably apologise to emily about last night Well, if we’re calling again tonight then maybe I should just give her one big apology when all of this is over. > good idea. now go catch your killer so we can go back to having sex irl Okay!

Unfortunately, Spencer gets too busy to call you again that night, the team working overtime to catch their UnSub, whose kills were escalating exponentially. You don’t find yourself bothered by it, by Spencer disappearing for the night with nothing more than a message sent your way, instead relishing in the fact that it’ll feel even more rewarding when he comes home. 

You’ve never felt this way before, craving Spencer so desperately while he’s away at work. While you’ve only been together a couple of months, you respect that Spencer’s work takes up a lot of his time. It doesn’t mean you don’t miss him, though, as much as you enjoy your alone time.

All of the team’s hard work pays off, though, because they’re storming into the UnSub’s lair by Monday afternoon, and Spencer texts you when you’re just clocking out of the office.

Great news! We caught the guy. We’re packing up at the PD and coming home soon. > omg!!! that’s so great The team wants to go out for celebratory drinks.  > you should totally go ahead and celebrate with them spence! you guys worked your asses off on this case We did. But I’m telling you because I want you to join us. I want you to meet the team too.  > oh? i would love to but are you sure they want me there? Of course, sweet girl. Derek wants to know who has me smiling at my phone half the time, and Emily is asking who I’m calling in the middle of the night. > omg so she did hear you … I think so, love. > … i will apologise to her tonight then I’ll send you the address. Love you > love you too spence <3

There’s just enough time for you to get home and change into a nice outfit – a tight, red dress that hits your mid-thigh, your hair curled and your makeup touched-up before you head to the bar Spencer’s sent you the address to. While you know Spencer’s team is lovely, you do want to make a good first impression.

You see Spencer’s gangly form at the bar when you get there, the rest of his team facing away from you as they get their drinks. You see Spencer’s face brighten as he spots you, raising his hand and waving to you excitedly. The rest of his team notices, and turns to look at you too. You would be shy at all the attention, but Spencer’s unabashed adoration of you, especially in front of all his friends, is giving you more than enough confidence to walk up to the group.

“Hello,” you smile, and the warmth you feel from the team makes you feel welcome already. “It’s nice to meet you all.”

You shake hands with Hotch and Rossi as you introduce yourself. While you had heard of Hotch as a rather cold, serious Unit Chief, the way he warmly smiles at you makes you feel at ease. “So, you’re Spencer’s girlfriend. It’s great to finally meet you.”

“It’s great to meet you too, sir,” you answer rather instinctively, making both Rossi and Hotch laugh heartily. 

“Aaron might be Reid’s boss, but he certainly isn’t yours,” Rossi chuckles. 

Before you can feel embarrassed by it, you get pulled into a tight, warm hug by Penelope, and when she lets you go, JJ hands you a drink, and Derek and Emily are regarding you with knowing smirks. 

“Reid, you are one lucky man,” Derek says, after pulling you into a welcoming hug. “Don’t mess this up, lover boy.”

“I know,” Spencer says, his hand reaching for yours. You lace your fingers with Spencer’s, squeezing his hand comfortingly. “And I won’t mess this up.”

“Lover boy is right, considering what I overheard the other night,” Emily says, looking at you and Spencer pointedly. JJ also has a knowing smile on her face, and you feel your cheeks get hot.

“I’m really sorry about that, Emily,” you smile sheepishly. “I hope Spencer’s apologised for it too.”

“Again, I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Spencer says, purposefully avoiding eye contact with Emily. “I would say ‘We won’t do it again’, but…”

You shriek amidst the laughter of Spencer’s coworkers, Spencer laughing along as he holds onto your waist. You feel adored, so readily welcomed by Spencer’s friends, and you feel like you belong, by Spencer’s side.

After you chat with the rest of the team for a little more, they eventually disperse to do their own things, leaving you and Spencer alone. Spencer looks at you with such adoration in his eyes and you feel like you’re going to melt. “Hi,” he says warmly.

“Hi, Spence,” you say. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Spencer smiles. “But I’m here now.”

“You are,” you breathe, giddy with excitement, and lean in to kiss him. It’s a quick peck, but Spencer pulls you back in like you’re the air he needs to breathe. He kisses you deep, eager, pouring every drop of himself into you. His hands cup your face sweetly, kissing you until you feel breathless. 

“Oh my God, Spencer,” you giggle when he finally pulls back, eyes wild as he regards you. “You really missed me, huh?”

“You have no idea,” Spencer laughs. 

“Do we need to pretend to keep our hands off each other or do you just want to go and make out in the bathroom?” You say simply. You don’t expect Spencer to be down, considering how quickly he’d rattle off the statistics about the germs in a public bathroom, but Spencer smiles at you and pulls you toward the single stall.

You’re thankful it’s a relatively big, clean-looking single stall bathroom, Spencer locking the door behind you as you lean back against the sink. Spencer’s taller figure crowds you in with ease, and you feel swallowed up by him as he kisses you again. He’s desperate, eager as his tongue slips into your mouth, his little noises so deliciously sinful as you kiss him back.

“Spence–” you gasp, in between kissing Spencer back. “Oh, baby–”

“What we did over the phone wasn’t enough,” he murmurs, eyes unblinking as he gazes at you. “I need you right now.”

Sure enough, Spencer’s hard in his pants. He pushes his hips forward, pressing his erection against your thigh. You whimper, drawing your lower lip between your teeth. “Please, Spence. You can take me right here, right now.”

You feel just as desperate as Spencer seems, his hands eager as they roam up your body. He’s eager to touch and squeeze and grope whatever he can get his hands on, and you relish in the way his large, sturdy hands grab your thighs, your waist, your breasts.

“You look so good tonight, my love,” Spencer grunts as he presses his face to your neck, his lips kissing up the column of your neck hurriedly. “So gorgeous. Letting me show you off to all my friends too– Thank you, you’re so perfect–”

“Spencer,” you gasp, hand sliding down to rub at his hard-on. You’re so turned on by how aroused Spencer is already, from just kissing you, from just touching you. “Fuck me, please?”

Spencer exhales shakily, lifting you up slightly so you can sit back on the countertop, your legs spread to accommodate Spencer between them. You’re soaked through your underwear, and you watch Spencer marvel at the sight. His hands are shaking slightly as he undoes his belt, pushing his pants down just enough to get his cock out. He’s hard and heavy and leaking, and you find yourself drooling as he strokes himself momentarily.

Spencer’s biting his lower lip in utter concentration, pushing your dress up and out of the way. You expect his hands to slide your panties off, but instead his fingers push the fabric aside, revealing your slick, wet entrance that he presses the head of his cock to. “Oh–”

“Like this,” Spencer says, breathless, his sentence not even fully coherent but you understand, especially when Spencer pushes the tip of his cock into you. You muffle a sob into your hand, feeling so on edge as you accommodate Spencer’s length. 

The burn is perfect, the slow drag of his cock inside of you teetering between pain and pleasure. It’s a primal urge the both of you desperately need to fulfil, and the way he presses into you satiates you so perfectly. Your arms slung around Spencer’s neck, you cry out weakly as he rocks his hips into you, already brutal and hurried with the pace. 

You’ve never felt this undone, so desperate that you’d let yourself get fucked in a bathroom stall. You barely have any alcohol in your system, for you to feel reckless enough to do something like this. Hell, Spencer hadn’t even taken your panties off before he’d started fucking you. The fact that prim and proper Spencer of all people is making you like this makes your head spin. 

“Oh, fuck, baby,” you whimper into his shoulder. “So good, Spence, oh–”

“You feel so good,” Spencer groans, hips stuttering as he tells you just that. “You’re so perfect. I love you.”

“I love you so much,” you hiccup, feeling Spencer drill into you, the muffled slap of his thrusts hitting the back of your thighs. You’re so overwhelmed, pleasure zipping through you from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, as Spencer fucks you like you’re the only person in the world that matters right now. 

“I’m close,” Spencer gasps, pace growing uneven, hurried, as he chases his pleasure while trying so hard to make you feel good too. “Please, I–”

You cry out as your orgasm hits you, too sudden, too quick. You clench around Spencer as your body shakes, Spencer fucking you through it with desperation. You don’t expect to come so quickly, but you suppose missing Spencer has an effect on you. 

You squelch obscenely with your release as Spencer continues to fuck you, needy and hurried, moaning in your ear as he stumbles into his orgasm too, wracking through his body like he has no control over it. You feel his load spill inside of you, hot and messy, his hands trembling as his thrusts slow.

“Oh, fuck,” you say, laughing slightly. “Holy shit, Spencer. We just had sex in a public bathroom, this is crazy.”

“We just had sex in a public bathroom,” Spencer echoes, sounding mildly panicked. “Oh, my God.”

“It was very fucking hot.” You assure him, holding his face in your hands to look him in the eyes, stopping him from overthinking. “But we should probably go home, because I’m a fucking mess between my legs right now.”

“I might need to take a shower,” Spencer says, his voice wavering slightly. “The sink is technically the most germ-ridden surface in a public bathroom, the damp environment makes it a–”

“Spencer, I love you so much, but for your sake and mine, let’s not talk about germs right now.” You shudder at the thought. “I think I need to take a shower after that too.”

“Let me clean you up, and we can go home.” Spencer, despite his germ anxieties, is rather sweet in cleaning you up. Your panties are ruined with fluids, and you’re starting to feel Spencer’s load trickling out of you when you stand back up, but you relish in the fact that you’re going to be back at his apartment soon enough. 

(The fact that Spencer hadn’t corrected you when you called his place home, makes your heart sing.)

You clean up your makeup and make your hair look as presentable as it can be, especially after your boyfriend has literally fucked you in a public bathroom, and when you both look presentable enough, you try to slip out of the bathroom casually.

Unfortunately, Derek and Emily are right there, catching you in the act of leaving, obviously noting the way you and Spencer look absolutely dishevelled. 

Derek raises his eyebrows, grinning. “Damn, lover boy.”

“Shut up,” Spencer retaliates weakly, his voice slightly shaky. 

“We’re heading home first,” you say with all the confidence you can muster, trying very hard not to feel extremely embarrassed in front of Spencer’s very smug friends. You’re still holding Spencer’s hand, and you feel a little less afraid. “It was fun getting to meet you guys.”

Emily shakes her head playfully, smiling. “We’d love to hang out more with you another time. Maybe when Reid isn’t so desperate to get alone with you?”

Spencer makes a displeased noise, but you smile and nod at her. “Definitely.”

Derek and Emily let you slip out of the bar without saying much else, and you hope that the rest of Spencer’s team doesn’t hear about it. 

As you and Spencer step out of the bar and into the cool, evening air, you kiss his cheek once more. “I love you. Now, let’s get home so we can shower. And then we can have sex again in the comfort of your bed?”

Spencer grins, any earlier embarrassment seeming to melt away. “That sounds perfect. God, I love you.”

[gaysheep]

Touching is Good: A Retrospective

My trusty Nintendo 3DS, which has held out since I was gifted it for my 15th birthday, has turned one decade old with my 25th birthday this past November. Given new life with custom firmware and nds-bootstrap via TWiLightMenu, the 3DS is stellar for visiting any past handheld title or console title up to (and somewhat including) the N64. (Quick plug for the CFW/hacking community for the less popular PS Vita, too, which has accomplished some pretty crazy-cool stuff this last year.) I use my 3DS more often than I use my Nintendo Switch most weeks.

The Nintendo DS (minus the three) launched in late 2004. The second display and stylus support were novel tools for developers to experiment with, and the NDS is best remembered for its robust catalogue of RPGs and visual novels. Where it lacked in power, narrative-focused games flourished under its technical limitations.

That being said, while browsing the ROM archives on Vimm's Lair to pick up some titles, I was reminded of what an interesting era the mid-to-late 2000s were for games. While Sony and Microsoft were fighting over the "core gamer" demographic, who had outgrown Nintendo mascots, Nintendo led a series of wildly successful marketing campaigns for its hardware after the light failure of the Gamecube, where the Nintendo DS and then the Wii were targeted at...everyone else.

[Image source. Image description in alt text.]

If you look at ads for the DS and the Wii, you'll see that adults are featured much more prominently than children, especially women and seniors. (This did not go unnoticed, as I found this ancient relic of misogyny while looking for images for this post.) A Nintendo handheld was already an easy sell to parents with small children (though I think it's also notable that ads which do focus on children often prominently feature girls. Munchlax is pretty hot...), but Nintendo's angle for the DS and Wii was that their hardware wasn't just for children. The Wii was a way to get up off the couch and to play board games with grandma. The DS was a great gadget for a working woman to keep in her pocketbook.

This worked. The Wii and DS were two of the best-selling consoles of all time. In particular, the DS's marketing campaign only worked because it came out in the perfect window of time. PDA-phone hybrids had been around since the 90s, and the Blackberry had been kicking around for a few years, but the iPhone wouldn't be introduced until 2007, and the 4G LTE standard wouldn't be released until 2009. While the Blackberry was popular with businesspeople and the PDA was out of style, smartphones were luxury toys for several years; they wouldn't become near-ubiquious until the mid-2010s. I didn't get my own smartphone until probably around the same time I got my 3DS, a full handheld generation later.

Browsing the software library for the Nintendo DS and DSi with that in mind is really interesting. Many titles released for the platform serve the same purposes that would be fulfilled by simple smartphone apps less than a decade later: planners and diaries, fitness trackers, calculators, language learning and SAT prep software, even a guide to the then-most-recent version of the driver's test in the UK. These proliferated with the release of the DSi's virtual store, but they existed even with the base model. You could go to a brick-and-mortar store and buy them on physical cartridges. (You might be wondering, "Why would you bother carrying those around over just buying a Blackberry?" You can't underestimate how expensive the service bills for a smartphone were before companies realized they were the most powerful spyware tool in history.)

There was never a time where every single businesswoman in New York carried a DS Lite, but adults did buy and use them, and a not insignificant portion of the DS's software library is aimed at a casual adult audience. Another niche covered mostly by smartphone games these days—games designed to be picked up and played in short sessions on-the-go, in places like waiting rooms and subway commutes.

Nintendo made crazy bank in the seventh console generation. Publications of the time talked about a console war between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, but the real battle was between the PS3 and the Xbox 360 over the gamer demographic. Nintendo was producing hardware for a niche who would quietly disappear once smartphone sales began ballooning by hundreds of millions per year over the course of the early 2010s.

After the failure of the Wii U, Nintendo's marketing strategy pivoted again, though I doubt they'll ever completely abandon their family-friendly image. Currently beat out only by the PS2 and the DS, the Nintendo Switch may very well climb to a status as the best-selling console of all time before the end of its lifespan, but the "gamer" demographic is much bigger than it was two decades ago at the dawn of the DS. As more and more devices become consolidated into the Swiss army knife the smartphone has become, consoles can only carve out a role as dedicated gaming machines.

I'm not sure we'll ever see anything like the Nintendo DS or the Wii again. I think they're worth looking back on for their uniqueness in that way as much as they are for the more celebrated parts of their libraries.

[morvantmortuary]

my buddy @bigtiddythanos asked a while ago about what our OCs’ Top 4 on Letterboxd would be, and I needed something to do with my hands while I finally got around to watching maxxxine last night, so I actually went ahead and made them! and here they are, bc why not!

Necromancer Top 4s:

(eta: this is rae from the future, I had to come back and swap this .gif out, you’ll see why lmao)

Maxi -

Candyman (1992), Harold and Maude (1971), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), and yes, Phantom of the Opera (2004), which just narrowly beat out Silence of the Lambs and the Vincent Price House on Haunted Hill. He’ll never say no to a rewatch of the Final Destination series, either — they’re his version of the Fast and the Furious. the way he giggles at some parts is somehow both unsettling and endearing at the same time.

(‘is hex being shirtless relevant’ yes. it’s the only way he watches movies. ‘really?’ ssssh.)

Hex -

El Espinazo del Diablo/The Devil’s Backbone (2001), The Sixth Sense (1999), Peeping Tom (1960), and El Orfanto/The Orphange (2007), which just edged out Talk to Me (2022) and Savageland (2015). He will happily tell you why the latter is deeply underrated if you finally agree to watch it with him, but it will take about an hour after the movie ends for him to finish. (He’s not wrong though, imo 👀)

(here, rora’s shirtless-ish too look she’s very all or nothing this was the best I could do, we’re equal opportunity shirtless enjoyers!)

Rora -

she wore out her VHS of the original Carrie (1976) when she was alive, so that’s at the top of her list. the rest are The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), and Black Swan (2010), which she thankfully only would’ve discovered after she came back to life, otherwise it would’ve been her whole personality in high school. She also would love May (2002) and Excision (2012), both of which might hit a little too close to home in different ways :’D

(these necromancers just can’t watch movies with their shirts on! for real!!)

Seth -

The Wizard of Oz (1939), Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932), Singin’ in the Rain (1952), and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). He also loves the high drama and spectacle of DeMille’s Cleopatra (1934) and Lang’s Metropolis (1927). If you jokingly ask him if he’s seen any movies in the last century or so, he’ll just blink at you, thinking, then be like “…I thought the 1989 interpretive dance remake of Dr. Caligari was good? :D” or ask if you want to watch the Cabaret with Liza Minelli in it. (He would go absolutely bonkers for the X trilogy, though, relating way too hard with Maxine Minx and Pearl.)

(does anyone in greymoon own a shirt?? who’s to say)

Bonus! Leon -

…he doesn’t know what Letterboxd is. :’D baby doll still has the most minimal version of a smartphone possible. as for movies, he’s happy to watch just about anything with you, but he’s impossible to watch either westerns or vampire movies with, as he usually points out what they’re getting wrong while chewing on what look like some home-made red vines he pulls out of his freezer. (Don’t ask.) He also talks like Lestat is a real person he actually knows and actively has beef with whenever you watch the Tom Cruise ‘90s version of Interview with the Vampire. you can’t tell if he’s doing a bit or not and you’re too afraid to ask, tbh??

anyway! thanks for humoring me! definitely google some of these before you watch them solo, bc they can be pretty scary or pretty bleak, depending or just. Not the Best Version of the Phantom, but Fine :’D

if anyone does their own OCs’ Top 4, I’d love to see it :3c

[artbychelcie]

Murder on the Dancefloor: The Chokehold of Oliver Quick

'Saltburn' has catapulted leading actor Barry Keoghan into our daydreams, revitalised music careers stagnant since 2007, and ensured we never look at a bathtub the same way ever again. It's delicious darkness has amassed a huge audience, some revelling in its lurid glory and others questioning what the f*** they just watched. There’s so much to say about this film, so many parallels and Easter eggs that tickle the brain notice - for today, I’m focusing on why Oliver Quick intrigued me the most.

As a devoted horror fan, some of the more controversial scenes served to stimulate rather than disturb… The vampire scene? That's just an average Tuesday night for some. The grave scene? Nothing compared to the visual impact Patrick Bateman’s hobbies. But what did succeed to unnerve me was the turning point of the film, when Felix suprised Oliver with a trip home for his birthday. You watch with stunned panic as she says his dad has been pacing all day waiting for him - in real time the web was unravelled and Oliver's traumatic background was quickly proven to be a façade. For me this scene positioned the 'real' Oliver to the audience, realising the person we thought we knew isn’t real at the same time his friend does. And this is where my interest peaked. For me, this film suddenly turned from a critique of the upper class, to a mythological study of a sociopath, and the subsequent events demonstrate how someone with an apathetic disposition could easily infiltrate and dominate a household of such wealth and status.

On a second watch, I couldn't help but laugh at Felix's naiveity as he pulled into the driveway of this enormous house, and noted that it looked as though his mother 'had really turned things around'. Anyone watching this would immediately question how someone allegedly suffering with severe mental illness and drug abuse issues manages to, in the space of less than 6 months, become the owner of a property of that scale. This small observation highlights just how out of touch Felix is anyone outside of his social class, and how Felix's pity towards Oliver, be it through kindness or ego or a convenient blend of the two, blinded him to the manipulation.

Another incredibly successful aspect of the film is the iconic soundtrack. It has brought some early 2000 musical classics back into the spotlight (we all know the best one) and I can admit I have listened to 'Loneliness' more times in the past two weeks than ever in my 26 years of life. The soubdtrack embodies the nostalgic and romanticised qualities of the film, set in 2006 before smartphones dictated every aspect of daily life, especially as a fresher. I may have been only 10 when Oliver Quick started university, it still made me long for the simplicity of this era of my life, when getting to know another person was fundamentally down to face to face interaction.

The choice to turn back time to the mid 2000s contributes to maintaining the mystery of Oliver's identity, depriving the characters of the ability stalk his social media profiles and forcing them to take his personality at face value. His manipulation, and eventual dismantling of the Catton family, was arguably possible through his ability to present himself without the hinderance of a digital footprint. There was no evidence available to anyone in Oliver's immediate circle of the sisters we found out he had, of the father that had infact not died, nor been an alcoholic drug dealer. So why did he lie?

In analysis I've seen online, many people contribute his deception to a need to be noticed by Felix, or in Oliver's own words, to 'perform' for his attention and friendship.

Revisiting the film, I picked up on certain phrases Oliver used to describe his home life, describing it as 'dirty' and proclaiming he could 'never go back'. To us, this sounds like the way you would describe his chaotic home life he described. But when the reveal comes, you can’t help but question why he’s adamant to distance himself from a seemingly stable, and privileged background.

During the scene, his parents also mention how he is the top scholar at Oxford, a member of the rowing team, participating in the school play... his chronic deception extends beyond the Catton family to his own. They also share with Felix that he was 'such a loner' and was 'so clever' that he struggled to make friends, both earmark characteristics of someone with sociopathic tendencies. This illustrates an individual who has never been satisfied, who always saw himself as superior, and who's fixation with Felix was just a desire to climb up and out of all the menial and average and into a position of absolute control.

The grandiose and self-absorbed lifestyle of the Saltburn estate allowed for someone like Oliver, whatever his original or developed intentions, to blend in without being truly seen until, both before and after death came knocking. The need to stifle emotional expression (We don't want to hear your American feelings, Farleigh!) and the uncomfortable obligation to uphold the British sentiment to 'Keep Calm and Carry On' gave him an invisibility cloak, blending in with his surroundings. It reframed Oliver's awkward disposition as one of politeness, and his manipulative sexual deviancy was guarded by members of the household behind a wall of upper class social etiquette.

I can safely say I have fallen into the deliciously depraved world of Saltburn, so much so I’ve felt like I had to write this. I love experiencing and analysing media, but this one really had me captivated. This is a maze will happily lose myself for weeks to come, especially when it comes to the complex and captivating portrayal of Oliver Quick - I would definetly sign my estate over to that beautiful crazy bastard.

[aerodaltonimperial]

share some personal lore you never posted about before

is this, like, lore about me??? i can't tell from the original post so we are going for it and if you didn't actually want to know about me I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE what could i share that's lore-worthy lmao...

back in 2007, i dated a famous cosplayer. if you were anywhere on the scene at that point, you knew who he was. he was on the cover of, like, cosplay magazines. hosted shit at conventions. and he broke up with me by completely ghosting me on the RSVP for a friend's wedding and never answering another phone/text/message again. IT WAS VERY HORRIBLE LMAO.

the first summer i was in japan, my sister was in osaka (i was in tokyo). i went down to visit her for a week, and did a solo hike in the middle of july with no smartphone. the heat index was like 115 degrees. i was climbing up ROCKS. i did NOT have enough water. i got to the top and promptly ran into an entire nest of murder hornets (suzumebachi). you need to know that these fucking hornets kill more people in japan every year than anything else lmao. i was so fucking PANICKED that i was going to DIE alone on this mountain in osaka that i SPRINTED THE ENTIRE WAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, followed some random people to the station, and promptly collapsed with heat stroke once i was back.

uh.... i was accepted into the university of pennsylvania graduate school of education (ivy league, one of the best education grad schools in the country) and didn't get offered enough financial aid to go, so turned down the offer of a spot in the program. however, i saved and printed my acceptance email so i could always remember that i had gotten in!

that's the three genres of lore about me - gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss hahahaha

[my2klife]

Forward my mail and calls to: c/o the decade 1998-2008

As I was thinking about how my neighbors have been on a 2 week vacation in both Hawaii and Alaska (best of both worlds I guess??) this past week, a feeling welled up from inside of me. Mourning. I was saddened by the realization that my next door neighbors were living my dream life; steady dual incomes, regular weeks long vacations (I think this is like their second one this year and it's only July), going out to brunch weekly, etc. A very "normal" life.

Now, let's not forget the famous words from one Aunt Frances Owens:

"My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage!"

And who could forget the wonderful Aggie Cromwell's magical quote on the matter!

This emotion wasn't directed towards the "normalcy" they had so seemingly acquired more easily than I had. It was more directed towards how I was less disciplined in making it for myself. I'd also like to note that it also did not have a twinge of jealousy in it (I'd know, I personify my emotions like Inside Out taught us to).

It was definitely and exclusively mourning. Mourning for a life in a world so different from the reality we're living in. Non-politically, but is anything these days "non-political", I was raised and prepared for a life where home phones were a thing and cellphones were only for emergencies. Where the internet was a tool for learning and relaxation, like computer games and search engines. Where MySpace was the only social media network and even then we weren't posting pics of our food, posting videos of ourselves navigating life, or posting death threats to strangers (at least my friends and I weren't doing that). I remember never being bored because if that thought ever entered my mind, it quickly supplied it with an activity: playing outside, reading a book, doing arts and crafts, playing with barbie dolls, etc.

Now if I'm even the slightest bit "bored" (bc usually I'm really not), TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or X(Twitter), are there for a good disassociating doom scroll, that makes you think and feel like you're doing something but when you finally get free from its claws you feel even more bored and empty than when you began! Also, remember watching TV and movies without also scrolling on your phone? Yea that was a thing and it was marvelous.

I was not built, nor prepared, to participate in a world where a screen, or two!, is constantly in your face or at your fingertips. Even when I was in high school and the iPhone had just come out (circa 2007), it was just an all-in-one device: a phone you could take pictures on and listen to your music with. Youtube was on there but that too was still in its infancy and we weren't all having a channel and watching it all the time. Similarly, we had computers and laptops but for me I used it for Google and then in 2007/8 for Facebook bumper stickers and flare posts to my friends. Computer time had a curfew just like video game time did, because don't think that I wasn't slaying at Ocarina of Time on the Cube constantly because I was! But everything was in moderation.

Well, WHY CAN'T I LIVE LIKE THAT NOW?

*ahem* Sorry, I got a bit heated there.

All I mean is, why can't I choose to turn back the clock in my daily life? Like, go back to when smartphones post iPhone had 16ish basic apps?

Or how about using a site like Tumblr as the "new" Myspace, Xanga, or Wordpress ("" because all of those sites are still around, just different), to post my thoughts without worrying about monetization or vitality?

(omg this was a thing?! ^ 😅 what a time)

And what about taking videos and photos with actual cameras and camcorders? Then uploading and editing them on a different day than when you took the photo or video? OR EVEN....Posting them to your blog space DAYS later! *GASP*!

I think I may just do that...

Live as authentically close to how I was raised between the years of 1998-2008 (give or take a year or two on either end).

I've already begun the purge on my phone of all apps that I can access via my computer (minus of course the REALLY on the go important ones like banking, health, and wallet apps). I also am weening myself off of TikTok and Instagram. I've deactivated my accounts for X (Twitter), Snapchat, and Reddit. In the coming weeks I'll get up the courage to deactivate TikTok and Instagram when my brain doesn't freak the f*ck out at the idea lol. (and no I will not be downloading the Tumblr app, because that wasn't a thing until 2009 and I choose not to use my phone that way even if it is within the outer bands of the range I'm going for)

I can't claim all the credit for the idea. I was inspired by Sarah A. Chrisman and her husband who live an "authentic" Victorian life and blog about it. (Sarah gets as authentic as she can without cutting herself off from society and the outside world).

I recommend checking her blog out ^, their life is pretty fascinating and her book is good too!

I'll make another post on how I will be implementing a lifestyle reminiscent of the decade spanning 98-08. So far I'm excited at the prospect of reverting back to a time when my hand didn't automatically reach for my cell phone and automatically click an app to scroll through, seemingly on its own (we all know we do it and its spooky as hell).

I'm also excited to talk about it on here because I would be a hypocrite if I said that I didn't want to post about this experiment somewhere for the communal connectivity. I am also a product of the infancy of the social network, so I still have a longing to be seen and connected with others on the world wide web (I just don't want to feel pressured to monetize it or consume it constantly).

So this blog will be my chronicle of implementing a more 2k lifestyle! I hope you'll follow along and join in the fun of the nostalgia!

xoxo,

Faethy

[bunysliper]

Questions 11 and 17 please!

11.what’s something neat you’ve learned while doing research for something you were writing? also, how much do you worry about doing research in general?

This is a throwback, but I learned while writing What Happens In AC/Best IWWOC Ever that Atlantic City actually doesn't have the same quickie-marriage set up that Vegas does; there's typically a waiting period to get the marriage license, which obviously was not going to work for my story, so I needed to find a loophole for that to make the fic work.

I tend to walk a line between researching a ton and waving my hand and declaring fuck it, we ball. It really depends how confident I am that I can speak to something without needing to confirm or learn everything, or if I can dance around some of the details and offer up valid explanations/justifications, and if I'm not confident, then I research the crap out of things. For instance, for a fic I still haven't finished, I spent an insane amount of time looking up when the dorms at various colleges got ethernet in the individual rooms vs only having internet access in a computer lab or main school buildings - because I could guesstimate that, but I am a technology nerd so I wanted to get the details right (hence why nobody's ever using an iphone/modern smartphone in any fic set before 2007 - authenticity babeee).

17. what is your favorite line you’ve ever written?

I honestly don't have one. I have lines that I've loved as I wrote them because they were punchy or fun or made me go oooo, but I don't have one anymore that just like sticks out as being my absolute favorite. (And like, not to toot my own horn - except I'll totally toot my own horn - I've written a lot of fic, haha. I sometimes reread ficlets and don't even remember writing them. Not because they're not good or because they're not special, but because of the sheer volume of fic I've written.)

Thanks Anon!

[marketkar]

mobile phone

NEW GENERATION 5G MOBILE PHONE WITH BEST DEALS

4 minutes, 10 seconds Read 

EASY WAY TO CHOOSE PHONE 

POCO has finally confirmed a date on screen for its new phone , it carries screen-to-body ratio of 93.3% at it as minimal possible art . It will carry a 7.69mm slim body. The company has confirmed LED screen for the PREMIUM ART . The TEAM confirms 108MP rear camera for the phone, blue and golden colours, but we can expect more colours possible and wish for our choice. Based on earlier news the phone will be renamed, the phone will be a rebranded version of the Redmi Note 13R Pro 5G which was launched in China last year, so we can expect a 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen, Dimensity 6080 SoC (Rebranded Dimensity 810) SoC, 108MP + 2MP rear cameras, 16MP front camera, Side-mounted fingerprint sensor, Infrared sensor, 3.5mm audio jack, and a 5000mAh (typical) battery with 33W fast charging. The phone will be sold on Flipkart, similar to other POCO phones. Since the phone will compete with realme 12, it is expected to be priced in Rs. 17,000 range. A Mobile Phone in this day and age of this running era are far more than just tools for communication on the move, not for only calling or messaging it contains our world in it The MARKETKAR.IN is just one click away from you table we take you to the new mono world of best category mobile phone timeline its where about issues relevant to you and your mobile.…let me take you to know whenever new launch with new camera features on any Web pages will get you notified on this website telling you about mobile relevant information and news some of which could save time and money. Ever wondered how the Apple name came to be and why? Well here is how it all began. Who new Jobs was on one of his “mid full days ” and had just come back from an apple farm and thought the name sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating in anyway. That’s how it work choice of your thought your choice matters . Chose it wisely from latest mobile series’s from MARKETAR.IN The very first iPhone was personally announced in early 2007 by Steve Jobs himself from the ground up suffice to say that they have not only led the whole SmartPhone industry but have also revolutionised the mobile phone into SmartPhones that we see today, to put it quite simply they more or less shrunk a Mac laptop computer to fit into the palm of your hand coupled with great aesthetics in terms of design, with their great desktop and laptop computers they produced. A natural transition for Apple

Apple’s latest iPhone 15 series is still fresh in the market, which means that the best Apple iPhone 15 prices far off the original retail price. We’ll likely see some worthy price cuts during this year’s Black Friday sale son but the more significant savings will be record-low iPhone 14 prices instead, as part of the early Apple Black Friday deals. The standard iPhone 15 has a starting price of 80k, with the iPhone 15 Plus sitting at 90 k and the iPhone 15 Pro at 99. Only the iPhone 15 Pro Max was given a higher starting price than the previous year , but it now has 256GB of storage at a minimum, instead of the original 128GB, making it more on par with the original iPhone 14 Pro Max price. The best iPhone 15 deals are usually found through new contract offers and by trading in your old handset. If you’re not on fussed choosing and owning the latest Apple smartphone, or one of the best iPhones for photography at all, then take a look at our guides to the best camera phones in 2023, as well as the best Samsung Galaxy S23 prices for Android fans

DEPENDING ON YOUR BRAND CHOICE AND PRICE RANGE AT LOW COST AND EMI OPTIONS ALSO AVAILABLE

Pre booking of upcoming variety of phone’s available at MARKETKAR.IN in today’s rapidly growing world in tech landscape staying updated is the most demanding thing today. Know your latest smart gadget at very cost friendly part With it’s essentials. The wide variety and range choices in latest mobile phone what set apart the competition in best price market with latest design at the effective cost with warranty Key features like 5g connectivity advance camera systems revolutiozing mobile photography with multiple mode added with advance technology.

[beansonbread2]

BEANSONBREAD AWARDS 2023 - BEST SONG

AWARD NO.5 - BEST SONG OF 2023

PAST WINNERS

2022 > Jockstrap 'Concrete Over Water' (see full list HERE)

2021 > Self Esteem ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ (see full list HERE)

2020 > Jockstrap ‘Acid’ (see full list HERE)

2019 > Weyes Blood ‘Andromeda’ (see full list HERE)

2018 >Let’s Eat Grandma ‘It’s Not Just Me’ (see full list HERE)

2017 > Richard Dawson ‘Ogre’ (see full list HERE)

2016 > Solange ‘Cranes In the Sky’ (see full list HERE)

2015 > Kendrick Lamar ‘The Blacker The Berry’ (see full list HERE)

2014 > FKA Twigs ‘Two Weeks’ (see full list HERE)

2013 > Oliver Wilde ‘Perrett’s Brook’ (see full list HERE)

2010 > Untold ‘Stop What You’re Doing (James Blake Remix) (see full list HERE)

2009 > Joker - ‘Digidesign’ (see full list HERE)

2008 > Lil’ Wayne - ‘A Milli’ (see full list HERE)

2007 > Panda Bear - ‘Bros’ (see full list HERE)

2006 > Hot Chip - ‘Over And Over’ (see full list HERE)

-

RULES - A maximum of THREE tracks from any one artist. Songs can be tied in the same position.

-

THE RUNNERS UP (in alphabetical order)

100 Gecs ‘Hollywood Baby’

Alabaster DePlume ‘Did You Know’

Animal Collective ‘Soul Capturer’ / ‘Defeat’

Aphex Twin ‘Blackbox Life Recorder 21f’

Avey Tare ‘The Musical’

Bar Italia ‘Nurse!’ / ‘My Little Tony’  

Bas Jan ‘No More Swamp’

BC Camplight ‘The Last Rotation Of Earth’

Beabadoobee & Clairo ‘Glue Song’

Beck & Phoenix ‘Odyssey’

Benjamin Spike Saunders ‘I Can’t Impress You’

Big Thief ‘Vampire Empire’

Biig Piig ‘In The Dark’

Blur ‘The Narcissist’

Danny Brown ‘Tantor’ / ‘Jenn’s Terrific Vacation’

Das Koolies ‘Pain Down The Drain’

Dean Blunt & TYSON ‘Rinsed’

Divorce ‘Scratch Your Metal’

Django Django ‘Don’t Touch That Dial’ / ‘Black Cadillac’

Dorian Electra ‘Puppet’

English Teacher ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’

Feist ‘Borrow Trouble’

Felicita ‘Spalarkle (Alys)'

Firestations ‘Undercover’

Hannah Diamond ‘Affirmations’ / ‘Twisted’

H. Hawkline ‘Plastic Man’

Janelle Monae, Seun Kuti, Egypt 80 ‘Float’

Jessy Lanza ‘Limbo’

Jockstrap ‘Sexy 2’

John Cale ‘Noise Of You’

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown ‘Scaring The Hoes’ / ‘Lean Beef Patty’

Kara Jackson ‘Dickhead Blues’

Katy J Pearson ‘Willow’s Song’

Kelela ‘Contact’

King Krule ‘Seaforth’

The Lemon Twigs ‘Any Time of Day’

Lil Yachty ‘Drive Me Crazy!’

Liz Lawrence & Steve Mason ‘I Was There’

Magdalena Bay ‘Top Dog’

Martha Ffion ‘The Wringer’

MAY ‘Phone Me’

Memotone ‘Door To The Sky’

MGMT ‘Bubblegum Dog’ / ‘Mother Nature’

Minor Conflict ‘Second-Hand Time / ‘Living Statue’

Mitski ‘Bug Like An Angel’

Mun Sing ‘Waiting In The Car’

Nadine Shah ‘Topless Mother’

Nourished By Time ‘Daddy’ / ‘The Fields’

Oneohtrix Point Never ‘On An Axis’

One True Pairing ‘Frozen Food Centre’

Overmono ‘Good Lies’

Panda Bear, Sonic Boom, Adrian Sherwood ‘Whirlpool Dub’

Patten ‘Walk With U’

Pinkpantheress & Ice Spice ‘Boy’s A Liar Pt.2’

Pozi ‘Failing’ / ‘Pest Control’

Quade ‘Streching Out’

Roisin Murphy 'CooCool'

Rozi Plain ‘Complicated’ / ‘Painted The Room’

Seamus Fogarty ‘They Recognised Him’

Shabazz Palaces ‘Binoculars’

Sierra Manhattan ‘Smartphones’

Slauson Malone 1 ‘New Joy’

Sleaford Mods ‘UK Grim’ / ‘Force 10 From Navarone’

The Smile ‘Wall Of Eyes’

Squid ‘Siphon Song’ / ‘Undergrowth’

Steve Mason ‘The People Say’

Tapeworms ‘IRL’

Terry ‘Gold Duck’

Tirzah ‘No Limit’

Trust Fund ‘London’

Vagabon ‘Carpenter’

Warmduscher ‘Love Strong’

Weird Wave ‘Unrecognise!’

Wesley Gonzalez ‘Dress Rehearsal’ / ‘When I Rot’

Yaeji ‘For Granted’ / ‘Done (Let’s Get It)’

-

THE TOP 25 SONGS OF 2023

25. Bjork & Rosalia ‘Oral’

24. MF Tomlinson ‘We Are Still Wild Horses’

23. Fever Ray ‘Even It Out’

22. Dorian Electra ‘Freak Mode’

21. Nourished By Time ‘Shed The Fear’

20. ANOHNI & The Johnsons ‘It Must Change’

19. Young Fathers ‘Rice’

18. Kwes, Sampha, Tirzah ‘Open Up’

17. Max Tundra ‘Lights 2023’

16. Squid ‘Undergrowth’

15. Tara Clerkin Trio ‘Marble Walls’

14. Rozi Plain ‘Help’

13. The Lemon Twigs ‘When Winter Comes Around’ / ‘Corner Of My Eye’

12. Animal Collective ‘Gem & I’

11. Max Tundra ‘This Woman’s Work’

10. Water From Your Eyes ‘Barley’

9. Django Django & Self Esteem ‘Complete Me’

8. JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown ‘Burfict!’

7. Bill Ryder-Jones ‘This Can’t Go On’

6. Squid ‘Swing (In A Dream)’

5. Tara Clerkin Trio ‘The Turning Ground’

4. Lana Del Rey ‘A&W’

3. Steve Mason ‘Brixton Fish Fry’

2. Caroline Polachek ‘Dang’

1. Oneohtrix Point Never ‘A Barely Lit Path’

[quickscaleup]

Best Ecommerce Website Designing Company in Patna

The website design is a really important tool for creating an appealing website that attracts users and customers. These ecommerce website designs represent your product, and what you are selling.

Thus, you need to make sure your website is relevant to the services you’re providing and can make a lasting impression.

Now, being said that, are you looking for some inspiration for your website designs? If yes, you’ve stumbled into the perfect solution, the website designing company in Patna, Quick Scaleup is your one-way stop. 

Ecommerce website designs 

The best ecommerce website design examples are those that can benefit you in boosting your sales and communicating with the brand and products. Some of the ecommerce website examples are the following,

Theseus is an online shoe store that promises customers the best online shopping experience. It has options such as shopping and return policy and even gives the users the opportunity to pay in installments.

Welly is a band aid campaign and website supplying catchy, funky, and aesthetic band aids. Children die for such cute band-aids and it comes with cute packaging too.  

Hebe’s website is mind blowing in terms of beauty. Its photography stands out compared to other websites. The high-quality photos ensure grabbing the customer’s attention and increasing the sales. 

Now, the ecommerce website examples in India are 

Amazon tops the ecommerce website list considering it is one of the country’s best ecommerce players since it rolled out in 2013. It has grown its market by covering everything from groceries to toys to furniture. 

Flipkart comes second on the list, always competing with Amazon in terms of quality and prices. It was founded in 2007, and is now acquired by Walmart. 

Meesho is a social commerce platform wherein the small business or merchants can deal with the users directly showcasing their products. 

Myntra is the one-stop online fashion destination that supplies with all the brands like Mango, H&M, Chemistry, Allen Solly etc. Myntra was acquired by Walmart making it a live commerce site with a lot of Indians depending on the site. 

OLX has products from cars to electronic goods and even real estate. People can buy or sell on this website according to their preferences. 

Snapdeal was a sinking company ready to be acquired by Flipkart in 2017. But, they did the needful surviving the takeover, and now focuses on products for fashion and home and personal care. 

Jio Mart is an online player that launched in 2020. It became known quickly in over 200 cities in India. 

Shopsy is a social commerce platform launched by flipkart. It’s a marketplace selling jewelry, grocery and home goods. 

Realme store is an online shopping site of the chinese smartphone brand realme. It even sells other electronic accessories.  

Mi store is another chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi selling mobile phones and other products. 

FirstCry is India’s shopping platform for baby products such as diapers, tous, cribs etc. Everything that can be termed a baby is being sold by them. 

Top 10 ecommerce websites 

The best ecommerce website design 2023 comprises of the following ecommerce website list and companies like 

Amazon tops as the world's best retailer and website designs. 

Ebay is the best marketplace with all the best features and products available. 

Aliexpress is the site offering the funkiest and catchy products with cheap prices. 

Walmart consists of an unlimited supply of organic products.

Wildberries is a popular Russian site known for clothes and household products. 

Ozon is like Russia’s Amazon, offering all kinds of products. 

Flipkart is an Indian ecommerce site dealing with all products like clothes, furniture, electronic devices. 

Samsung is the world's leader when it comes to electronics.

Etsy is another one of the popular sites specializing in handmade, vintage and unique goods. 

Rakuten is another one of the ecommerce sites dealing with cashback programmes.

The ecommerce website design templates that work well with any kind of website design such as apparel, fashion, jewelry or other ecommerce products. These templates create responsive, flexible and retainable online stores. Following is the list of best ecommerce website templates 

Pillowmart can be used for business purposes.

Capitalshop for fashion and accessories.

Fashi’s templates are available for fashion 

The Coza store is for business and ecommerce. 

eCommerce websites are the people’s go to sites for business and online shopping. People don’t like going around comparing products from shop to shop.

For such individuals, these websites are a piece of heaven.

To make sure that your website designs and products are appealing enough to the customers, you can take help from the website designing company, Quick Scaleup.

They have one of the best services available tailored to your customer’s needs.

[auroramizutani]

London, England in the ’90s

London in the 90s was a fun-filled, Godforsaken place for the displaced.

The highlights of life in London could be summed up in a few yearly social events and popular landmarks. Namely: The London Notting Hill Carnival, New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square, Guy Fawkes Night on November 5th, and one of the best gathering spots in Camden Town, the noteworthy ‘Compendium Books’ store. Founded by Diana Gravill, (a direct descendant of Captain John Gravill of the Diana Whaler, and my late mother-in-law), and Nicholas Rochford, Compendium Books was a bookshop frequented by everyone and anyone, from celebrities to hippies. In an era without the internet and the technology that accompanies it, Compendium thrived.

Aurora Mizutani’s late uncle Solomon in Camden town, London, 2007

The London Notting Hill Carnival, a location featured in the Hollywood blockbuster movie ‘Notting Hill’, starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, is a yearly phenomenon worth mentioning. Attended by hundreds of thousands of people from different walks of life Notting Hill Carnival was “the place to be seen”. During the 90s the Notting Hill Carnival was nothing short of a peasant’s colourful, music-fuelled promenade in the heart of London. The Notting Hill Carnival is not however an event to be enjoyed alone. On the contrary, it is highly recommended that the Notting Hill Carnival not unlike Glastonbury be enjoyed with friends or siblings.

Aurora Mizutani with younger sister at the Notting Hill Carnival, London, year 2000

Notting Hill Carnival is perhaps one of the only functions where you can expect to find a police officer dancing along to the music with the crowds. The Notting Hill Carnival movement coincided with the advent of Loaded Magazine, a racy publication that epitomized the vibrant London lifestyle of the 90s.

Aurora Mizutani (Lola Dupe) in the 1996 and 1997 issues of Loaded Magazine, London.

Many of us would join the Notting Hill Carnival proceedings with the sole aim of being spotted by talent scouts. I am bound to admit to having appeared in the 1996 and 1997 issues of Loaded magazine at the height of its notoriety. The Notting Hill Carnival is a place of merriment and restrained debauchery, if only for a day.

‘Tremendous’ is the word that comes to mind when wanting to describe Guy Fawkes’s Night in London. The British in general see Guy Fawkes Night as a night for subversive anarchy, where mock vandalism may be enacted without fear of repercussion. That said, the true meaning of remembering and celebrating the execution of a would-be liberalist continues to elude me.

New Year’s Eve in London’s Trafalgar Square was almost discontinued sometime during the 90s, due to an apparent increase in fatal injuries. From my recollection of the celebratory happenings, one went to Trafalgar square on the night of New Year’s Eve at one’s own risk. The crowds would mercilessly cram against one another almost to the point of suffocation. Frequented mainly by young Italian emigrants, nondescript foreigners, hippies, drug addicts, and those homeless who happen to get caught up in the revelries against their will, New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square is an experience most intelligent people rarely feel the need to repeat.

Reminiscing about life in London in the 1990s is all very well, but such musings inevitably confront us with a question. When and why did it all change? Some might argue that the year 2000 was the turning point. With the advent of the internet becoming accessible to the masses, coupled with gadgets such as pagers, video games, cellular phones and later smartphones, people felt less inclined to risk life and limb in search of entertainment in crowded places brimming with strangers.

In the current post-pandemic era one thing is undeniable, 90s London was an unforgettable time bound to be erased from our memories with the death of what is now the elder generation.

[fishmech]

yknow it's wrong to say that investment "cooled" through the whole 2000s. It returned strongly in late 2002, it kept getting stronger up til 2008 collapsing all sorts of things temporarily, and THEN its things kicking back up around 2010. In part because tech investments had done better than the general market through the 2008 crisis.

Because the big story of the 2000s was that consumer adoption skyrocketed. Broadband, real computers, phones and smartphones in particular.

User growth at all costs quickly reasserted itself because of this: a wildly successful user count in like 2000 for an internet service as the bubble started to pop was something that quickly became routine when it got to like 2005 and you had internet users globally hitting the 1 billion vs ~0.36 billion in 2000 - and far more of them had broadband. This really increased the potential market for things highly constrained by dialup, like high photo social media (say MySpace, started in 2003 and bought for $580 million by Fox in 2005 with not much in the way of viable revenue) or fuckin YouTube (started 2005, bought for $1.65 billion in 2006 with absolutely 0 plan for profitability).

This very website is an expensive mid-2000s vc funded company. Same with Twitter, etc. Neither had any actual profitability expected or projected for years and years. They were pure user base size plays.

Frankly it's just wrong to say the 2000s were a low investment time with minimal big corporation influence online? You had all the big ptre-bubble companies like Microsoft controlling vast empires. You had all the big players who were formed in the dotcom bubble and survived and to substantial effect thrived in pretty safe niches with bubble damage having taken out their best competition - like Google or Amazon or even still things like AOL and Yahoo who'd fucked some shit up bad but still had huge resources. You had all the quickly growing stuff that is still around today. Most of these splashed their cash to acquihire employees and technology from various startups which had been funded in the first place by VCs who now expected "get bought by other company" a much more reliable goal than piling in with IPOs in the wake of the dotcom crash.

You treat Club Penguin as an example of small scale independent business, but in reality they got bought out by Disney within 2 years of launch (2005 launch, 2007 purchase) for over $350 million!

Even Cheezburger Network went from 1 guy on a small scale site without ads in the beginning of 2007 at founding to a multi contributor monetized blog to an investor controlled site by September the same year for a 2 million dollar payout and a rapid purchase of rival and similar sites to form an advertising driven network with it! Sure it's no billions but it was already being staked out for vc control

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

[famoussandwichtyphoon]

Is the iPhone Still the Best Smartphone on the Market?

The iPhone's Popularity Through the Years

The iPhone has led the smartphone race. Since 2007, it set the gold standard. Its clean design and smooth software wowed users. Apple made updates simple and fast. Each year brought better cameras and speed. Many say it’s still the best phone. Others now think rivals have caught up.

Samsung and Google have strong contenders. Samsung’s Galaxy series boasts big screens. Google’s Pixel phones take sharp photos. Users now ask, “Is the iPhone worth it?” Price plays a big role. The latest iPhones cost over $1,000. Are they too expensive for what you get?

iPhones Are Great but Not Perfect

iPhones offer strong performance and long updates. Users love the iOS ecosystem. It syncs with iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches. AirDrop and iMessage make life easier. Many enjoy how user-friendly iPhones feel. They’re less confusing than Android for some.

Still, there are some downsides. iPhones lack certain features. No always-on display until recent models. Limited customization compared to Android. Many users miss the headphone jack. Battery life is better but not the best. Some Android phones last longer.

Price is another factor. Samsung’s Galaxy S series and Google Pixel are cheaper. For example, the Pixel 8 Pro offers flagship specs for less. iPhone fans argue it’s worth the price. But others wonder if cheaper options do the job just as well.

Personal Experiences Make the Choice

Real-world use tells the story best. Longtime iPhone users love its simplicity. Sarah, a college student, says her iPhone 13 runs smoothly. She uses FaceTime daily to connect with family. She’s happy with her purchase.

On the other hand, Tom switched to Android. He wanted a bigger screen for gaming. His Samsung Galaxy phone has an S Pen. He draws and takes notes for work. Tom says it fits his needs better.

Each phone fits a lifestyle. The iPhone shines for its ecosystem. Android offers variety and price options. The "best" smartphone depends on personal needs. Ask yourself: What do you value most? Performance, price, or features? This will guide your decision.

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[legendarypiratedefendor]

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, few product releases generate as much anticipation and excitement as Apple’s new iPhones. It has become a tradition, almost a ritual, for tech enthusiasts and consumers worldwide to eagerly await the latest iteration of Apple’s iconic smartphone.

With each passing year, Apple consistently manages to push a new iPhone model out, and the frequency of these releases has become a hallmark of the company.

Amidst the anticipated launch of the new iPhone 15, a man shared a stunning calculation based on the cost of buying new smartphones

The most recent Apple smartphone model release featured a presentation showcasing individuals explaining how subtle feature enhancements on the phone transformed it into an irresistible purchase.

“These are the best and most capable iPhones we’ve ever made,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the new iPhone’s launch.

During Apple’s new iPhone unveiling, which took place at the Steve Jobs theater in Cupertino, California on Tuesday (September 12), a puzzling cameo by ‘Mother Nature’ unfolded as the audience eagerly anticipated the announcement that the iPhone would henceforth adopt a USB-C port.

Steve Jobs revolutionized Apple when he introduced the first iPhone in 2007

Whilst the price of Apple stock has witnessed a remarkable ascent since the debut of the initial iPhone, Apple’s stock was available for slightly over $3 prior to Steve Jobs’ unveiling of the first iPhone in 2007. But today, it commands a price of over $170 per share.

Nonetheless, certain individuals did highlight the fact that opting for Apple stock purchases instead of buying iPhones on each occasion would leave you without a smartphone, and smartphones have undeniably grown in significance over the years.

[fromdevcom]

Have you ever wondered how cool it would be, if you have your own chauffer and a car with you wherever you go, even for the offshore vacations? Now, it is possible, thanks to the amazing service of ridesharing apps. Ridesharing apps are available for all major mobile platforms including android. They make use of the GPS data of a person making request to hail a ride from the nearest location. Although, it is a fairly nascent concept but, it’s taking over the smartphone world with a storm and more of such apps are mushrooming around the globe every day. If you ever feel the need to try ridesharing, here is our list of five best ridesharing apps available on android to help you reaching a decision. Uber Uber is the flag bearer of ridesharing industry. Established in 2009, it’s the fastest tech startup to the reach top of the billion dollar club with a $62.2 valuation. The San-Francisco based ridesharing company operates in more than 500 cities across 68 countries. It offers simple car sharing, parcel delivery, Chopper service and even private jet sharing among its eminent services. Uber is currently working on driver-less cars and also collaborating with car manufacturers like Hyundai and KIA. Lyft Lyft is the biggest rival of Uber, particularly in U.S. It started operations with the name of ZimRide in 2007 and expanded its service from inter-city ridesharing to real-time ridesharing along with a change in the name in 2012. Lyft currently operates in 65 cities within the U.S; however, they’re planning to expand, especially, after a $500 million investment by General Motors. Lyft is also known to have a better legal compliance compared to Uber. Bla Bla Car The Paris based ridesharing giant is among the handful of European tech startups to become a billion dollar unicorn. It focuses its operations more on inter-city ridesharing with a huge customer base of 20million members across 20 countries. Didi Kuaidi Didi is the toughest competitor to Uber in China. Didi Kuaidi holds 87.2 percent of the private car-hailing market in the world’s most populated country and claims to have booked 1.43 billion rides in 2015 alone. Didi is valued at $16.5 billion. It provides various transport services like private cars, taxis, carpooling, buses, and corporate services. Get Around Get Around is a peer to peer car sharing and rental service. It works on the community principle where the members of the same vicinity offer their spare or less used cars for use in exchange for a side earning. Any member looking for a car could see the cars available for rent in his area, on the map and tap on the one he likes. All of above are the market leaders in current ridesharing scene but domestic heroes like Ola Cabs in India or Carma in Ireland also take off a good chunk off the pie from ridesharing menu. Moreover, a top three contender in the ridesharing industry, Side car just closed its operation on the last day of 2015, but it has been taken over by Ford motors who may reinvent it with a new strategy. Finally, we urge you its high time to hail a ride from you smartphone, since it is certain that ridesharing is the future of assistive commuting and the taxi as we know it is getting crushed by the ridesharing as illustrated in the following infographic: Muhammad Umair Azam is a law graduate and a savvy tech blogger who loves to read and write about trends in tech, gadget reviews and DIYs. He also writes for http://www.digitalmarketingroi.co.uk/ and curates content for

[aquietwhyme]

The internet's bad enough with pop up and script blockers, especially when things randomly don't work. I keep a separate browser installation for when I have to do things that just aren't going to work with blockers, and it's nightmarishly difficult.

I literally get the urge to replicate the guy from that old gif just hurling the crt monitor at work.

I think things were best around 2007-2012, when social media was still pretty new, search was fast and free, and companies were bending over backwards trying to figure out how best to help their customers, because that's what led to more success in general. Now with SEO and the proliferation of smartphones (especially Iphones) that has normalized locked down environments, search is even harder than it was at the turn of the century.

It's one of the things that makes me nervous about Reddit potentially being ruined as well.

Anon visits webpages in 2022