#i have complicated feelings on AI because i think the tech development itself is really interesting and there is defo usage for it

[shoechoe]

i find the common implication that Google of all companies wasn't already using up a ton of water and energy before its implementation of AI annoying but it is true that the AI results feature is bad and useless and therefore an extra waste of water and energy for no practical purpose. i would have no problem with posts that just say that instead of bizarrely wording it like "well google USED to be fine but NOW thanks to AI it uses a million billion tons of water"

[aeempress]

Apritello Express Evidences, part 1

Greetings, Apritello enthusiasts and attention! Here comes a loong post is written by totally nerd. You've been warned. Here we go.

The thing is that Apritello is a double-edged sword. The series shows us established friendship of these two, give us a lot of content with them. We can see development of relationship through interaction between the characters, their reaction about the situations they are put in. We can sense their synergy and bound through the show.

Donnie and April have incredible chemistry, and both options, brotp and otp seems fine to me.

But let me tell you why I ship them.

Apritello is the kind of pairings, which consists of small details, hints, that's hidden, but if you're sharp and attentive one, you will notice that. Apritello has a strong foundation: the best friends trope.

And from the very beginning, it works as planned.

When I start watching show, I could say that April and Donnie are best friends. It is worth noting that April is like an older sister to the other brothers, more of a sisterly figure than a friend, but with Donnie she behaves somewhat differently, namely, as best friend. Obviously, she sets him apart from his brothers, although girl tries to pay attention to all of them equally. And Donnie behaves as well.

Dee's battle shell designs for April needs as well as his. His shell transform into comfy spot for taking ride for April. Special and only for her. Because his bros are not supposed to use it (at least, he carries no one on his back), Donnie carries them by his techno-bó or his limbs.

This tiny detail shows his special treatment to her. April is a very, very special occasion to D. Don does care about her comfort, he accept the way she is. Donatello does not try to prevent her from participating in their affairs because he respects her decisions and is pleased that April can be shoulder to shoulder with him.

D is glad to be at her service.

Yeah, Dee's still playing cool, he has image to perform as tough and coolheaded guy. So Don doesn't show his intentions, interest and feeling to other people (he's tryin', but fails). Because his actions matter. They are always small, hidden, but meaningful.

April, in return, trusts Dee and depends on his tech, even knowing what his inventions are the opposite of success (usually).

Go on. Look at Donnie's facial expressions and body language when April is near.

Donnie seems more relaxed when she's around, happier. His emotional response is always different from his brothers ones.

Oh, and look, he wanted to be first to give her a high three.

They worry about each other. Look at Don. He does worry about her way more than his brothers. Yeah, they all want to protect her, but Donnie is more expressive.

Mayham has no particular sympathy for the brothers: he is afraid of Raph and behaves aggressively, he is indifferent to Leo and Mikey. Mayham immediately takes a liking to April. And then the details come back: he let Donnie touch his neck. The most vulnerable place for any living creation, for a second. Let him to study an important vial without any hesitation. Mayham depends on April trust for Donnie. When everything goes wrong for Don, the little doggie comes to his rescue, just as April would have done. Is the hint transparent enough?

We can see links with "A mystic library", wherе Donnie begins to look for solutions to save April's pet. Yes, this may seem like his next leap, "sit down, I'm smart, and now I'll solve all the problems, watch and learn," but Don says one phrase that opens up the veil of the second plan, what happens behind the scenes. "My illiteral colleagues and I was conducting a mustic research, with a life of the beloved pet, hanging in a bounce".

Strange wording, Donatello. Beloved pet? Not yours, as we can see. I can say, that everything in this sentence is true, but Donnie and Mayham has something more.

Continue. Next episode "Origami tsunami". Interactions are kept to a minimum, as April herself appears for a maximum of 5 minutes in the series itself. But devil is always in the details, dear friends.

When April was attacked and hung up, the only one who excitedly called out to her was Donny. Raph is furious that the thieves have escaped, Leo is frustrated that their plan has failed, and Mikey is worried about the salami.

Yeah, we didn't see his worries about her when she fell, because Donnie is on the mission and must be coolheaded turtle, and second, he's calm because now April life is safe and sound, out of the danger.

Dear passangers, Apritello Express arrives to the next station - episode "War and Pizza".

Bare facts:

1. April has Donnie's number on an emergency call.

2. "Anything for you"

3. Donnie is the reason why Alberto knows April's name.

No one calles April by her name (except for Donnie, while phone call, but Alberto wasn't nearby) it was "Captain O'Neil" by her chief, her badge seems blank. And yeah, you can say, that's just economy of budget, but I assure you: in the first episode we were shown the name of the delivery guy. The animators were not lazy bones and wrore "Stewart" on his badge. So if something isn't there, then it either shouldn't be there, or it really isn't, that's how this show works.

So, the reason explained in the episode. When Al has short circuit, parts of its new code flashed through its mind.

Info about April was in its memory, in its code. Alberto was a lame animatronic, and it seems somewhat outdated. I do really doubt about Alberto is being something smartass machine with complicated AI like Freddy's Pizza's ones. Quite questionable. Donatello fix Al's brain and wrote code, synchronize with his remote control. He put information about Cap O'Neil into animatronic's head. All this pictures are kind of massage: "You was created for birthday celebrations. You are machine, and there concepts of "life" and "birth". Do great party for this birthday kid and April won't be like this". Or, something like that.

So Alberto did - do a memorable party. And he do what his creator programmed him to do, but in his way.

4. In other words, Alberto was a tool to impress April. Don flaunts himself in front of her, stating how he did the upgrade while doing the upgrade, even though April is fully aware of his tech wizard. And his abilities supposed to help Cap O'Neil to finish the birthday party, so she will stay at her job, not fired. All thanks to Donnie and his upgrade Alberto. (Or not)

By the way, Donnie was the last to leave April in ruined "Alberto's". And it's not an isolated case, it is a pattern.

5. They understand each other without words.

First, Donny came at her at the speed of light. Second, she hadn't even finished speaking before Dee was taking Al apart. Third, their chaotic, well-coordinated work? Donnie was a distraction (although he wanted to just take a break from the battle or let Alberto's guard down, while April just knocked him out). Donnie and April are great team, and sometimes the DonniexApril team is much more precise, coordinated, and interdependent than the DonniexBrothers one.

D&A feel each other and anticipate each other's actions, their skills complement each other, creating an incredible synergy of their interaction. They act as a whole, while it's not always possible with his brothers, even though they're family and know each other the way more Donnie know April. And Dee hasn't trained with cap O'Neil.

Donatello didn't show his crush for April. No puppy, loving eyes, no lovey-dovey speeches, no planning schemes (at least, the audience don't see one) . He just want her attention, but stays cool and hidden. D is already her BFF, but still.

The same thing is claimed in 5B episode - Mascot Melee. Donnie has no problems with interaction with idol of his childhood - Atomic Lass. She'd put Leo in a stupor, but Donnie? He playfully challenges her to a dance duel. Yes, he adores this character, who may have become his measure of the attractiveness of others to Donatello, determined his type. But still, he's playing all cool and confident guy, he's really smooth with girls, so you will never see a puppy loving eyes from him. Only two things can betray him at this point: his voice and his body language. Remember, how's soft his voice became for Atomic Lass? Now I want you to remember the scene before, in turtle tank, when April sent guys a meme.

D is the first to respond to the message, despite the fact that Mikey is sitting closest to the screen. And the responding is a little too emotional for this situation, don't you think?

And this face of his. And he comments it. He likes her sense of humour.

The only difference between April and Atomic Lass is that the first one is a real girl who is a friend of their family, practically a member of it; and the other one is just a fictional character. It is easier to say about love for a fictional character, because it brings less problems for a teenager, especially when he is living with three brothers and a father who likes to tease as well. Donatello needs to be careful and outline the area of emotions he could show, so that he does not get hurt.

Now, dear passangers, we are returning to the previous episode, shall we?

Donnie presents to his brothers his precious Turtle tank, but she's gone, and it's really necessary to find out, who has taken her. And the first person to suspect is April.

Something is odd, don't you think? Yeah, Raphael has taken tyre for their "Midnight special", Leo claimed that Donnie's stuff is common, but they are D's beothers. It's natural for family to borrow(stole) stuff of each other. But this trend was not observed in April. She would never steal anything from Donnie, much less steal anything from him.

Actually, there is a good, logical and solid explanation here. April was number 1 in Donatello' suspect list, because he simply told her about Turtle tank. His brothers didn't know he were working at Moon buggy, except Mikey (Orange helps Dee get the vehicle from Repomantis), but they didn't know what exactly Donnie was working for. They didn't know he build the Turtle tank, he kept it a secret, to surprise his brothers. But April knew.

- Alright you! Where's our turtle tank?

- Hi, DONNIE. You have 9 seconds to say, why are you just broke my door.

- Someone's stole Donnie's turtle tank.

- Haha-ow, I see. As your best friend, you naturally suspect me.

- She gets it!

- Oh-ho, don't give me that! You're the only one could taken it!

The only one, because she knew about it.

As Splints said in this episode - "April is not a snitch"

Donatello does trust April and share with her both, sorrows and joys. But we are not shown this directly. We do not see the action itself, we do not see their calls and conversations on the phone late at night, we only see the consequence. We have no choice and take it as a given.

And the way she cooled him down? Fast, efficient, and Donnie seems to used to it. Moreover, she slapped everyone, but still, she throw Don out of window the last. However, why such a large time delay between him, being slapped and him, was throwing out of the window?

And my favourite scene. It was obvious that Donnie had taken the hardest hit (judging by his scream and the way he was putting his knuckles back in place). Don then claims that their inner circle is secure, Mikey tries to make amends for everyone, and April agrees, blowing them a kiss and closing the window. Cute and mean, isn't it? (You're cute! but mean! why do I always go for your type?! - ep. War and Pizza)

Nota bene: Donnie wouldn't apologize to April. Tough, not caring badass boy image, remember? Even to best friends. It's hard to him to express his feelings by using words, he cannot do it in proper way. But he has Mikey, who is so alike inner him. Michelangelo apologizes not only for himself, but for D mostly, because D starts suspected April.

Let's continue: the episode 8B: Hypno Part Deux

• Donnie put "Donnie's blocker" at April's phone to protect her.

It's common thing that your friend install some programs or apps on your device. But you will always ask your friend to do such a favour, and you will always know about what, when and where were installed on your phone.

And April didn't know Donnie had done something with her phone. It was a real surprise for her, to see blocker with "Donnie says no-no-no".

And you know, the interface of his app. The way he tell this current phrase. Donnie could put a huge banner "THE APP YOU WANT DOWNLOAD TO IS A REAL PIECE OF GARBAGE", as usual antiviruses do. But no, voice interface. It makes the app more personal and thoughtful. Because when Don made gifts for his brother, the program was voiced by a computer-generated female voice. Yes, the tank's interface is voiced by Donatello himself, but his voice sounds more like Google than the real Don. And, we talking about HIS BABEY, for a second. Bit still, the point remains.

• Also, Dale.

Dale is nerdy boy in purple, wow, how convenient for making a parallel with certain purple turtle.

But thing is, April doesn't like Dale. He's clingy, remora guy, who has a little obsession with April, even he's not harmful, still, such behaviour freaks girls (and not them only) out. Her classmate is usually tell her what April O'Neil is "his favourite person" and he loves her. There is little that is attractive about this behavior.

So, there is nothing new and unpredictable here that Dale was rejected. Because April didn't, doesn't and won't like him because of his lame personality and strange behaviour. Our girl in yellow do right thing: she clearly sets personal boundaries and does not allow any dubious personalities to invade them. So that's the reason she refuses to go on a date with him at the end. He's weird, obsessed, and she doesn't like him.

Donatello, as far as I concerned from different versions of TMNT, was always a little obsessive with some things. And, you know, putting a blocker inside your best friend's phone seems a little weird, because it's, in simple words, violation of privacy and personal space. And there are people who may regard this as stalking or sorta.

Yeah, for the most part, he gets away with it, not only because April's focus is in a different area, but also because their bond is stronger than April's with anyone else at school.

She has known him for years. Donnie is her best friend. I can't say that it's fine to her when Dee violates her personal space - her phone, but April can accept Donatello's personality in general.

And he does really have good intentions. Donnie installed this blocker, developed by himself only for one reason: to protect personal space April from fishy apps from nowhere, from being hacked and etc. Don knew her too well, how much she depends on stupid apps that will distract her. He also knew well, that he can't be with her 24/7 to fix problems with April's phone, so Dee put a part of himself to prevent any harm in the future.

And again, "Donnie's gifts"'s vibes. Donatello genuinely cared about April, because he wrote, coded, developed, designed, and dubbed it, turned on the database, and installed it all on April's phone. 'cause, you know, writing programs in general is a bit of a hassle, but writing an antivirus is much more difficult, because viruses are changing, and questionable applications are finding ways to bypass. Do you feel how much effort Dee put in for her?

But Donatello didn't mean to fix April, as he tried to do with his brothers. Purple turtle accepts this girl the way she is, and tries his best to play smoothly with April, by adjusting, not being passive aggressive jerk. It's his outstanding way to show his caring nature, soft side.

Remember, small but meaningful actions.

Maybe, Donnie also can foresee that April may be forced to download some suspicious program, but still, it work: he managed to prevent April being hypnotized, even if couldn't be physically with April at the this moment - Dee was working for Repo Mantis, building dog's paradise for Todd. That's why, by the way, Leo and Raph were dragged into this whole situation. Mayham would teleported literally anyone to help his hostess. Donnie just wasn't at the Lair at the moment.

And on this note, we'll take a break for now. Stay tuned, expect parsing of the series, there's a lot to discuss.

Part 2

Part 3

[randomidiocyncrazies]

I feel like the more i think about it, the more questions I have about Ura-Acca's story... like, the Accas were working on top secret classified tech stuff, likely for a powerful employer/organization, which was why they lived under constant surveilliance—how did Azusa get past all that? I feel like the only reason she could live with the Accas (along with Frill) and get past the red tape is if she was affiliated with the original project of whatever the Accas were working on, or was somehow connected to it; she also read their papers and knew about their work in the field, so Azusa being connected with their original research wouldn't be too farfetched.

If Azusa was affiliated with the original project, or at the very least involved in the Accas' technical field, then she (and her employers?) would probably also be highkey interested in Frill's existence—she's a human-like AI developed and programmed in a barebones lab by two dudes as a side project (like sure, they're geniuses in the field, but it's still just two dudes), you can't tell me ppl weren't interested in that. (Also, there's no way the Accas kept Frill a secret from their employers/handlers, since they're living under constant survelliance... so I guess the only reason Frill was kept in an 'enclosed environment' was to prevent leaking her existance to the public—perhaps mandated by whoever the Accas were working for?) This is further complicated by the tidbit of Acca "running the company" (what company??? Who were they originally working for? Is this company separate from the work they were doing when they first created Frill, or is it affiliated with whoever they were working for?) and both Accas founding Plati at some point between then and now.

Since the narrative is told from Ura-Acca's POV, there's A Lot we don't know about Azusa's motivations. It's telling that the shot of Azusa's expression is unsettlingly close-up, and the expression itself is ambigious, when he said "I thought she was a good person, but to be honest, I don't think neither of us really understand women's motivations" or whatever. Azusa's line about knowing just the place for them to meet next time and then immediately cutting to the new house where they all lived together suggests that she had a hand in providing the new place for them, which implies that she has considerable means to relocate all of them.

Another thing that kinda bugged me was that the scene where Frill k!lls Azusa is so detailed despite the fact that Ura-Acca, the one telling all this to Ai, wasn't on the scene when the m*rder went down. Did the Accas know what happened because of the surveillance tapes (and are they still being monitored at that point)? Did Frill confess to it? Did they just pieced the clues that they have together, and the evidence pointed towards Frill? (Was there actually any evidence that it's Frill?) Again, this only stood out to me because the framing device is Ura-Acca telling this stuff to Ai—how did he know the conversation between Frill and Azusa if he wasn't there?

tbh i don't think we necesarily will—or are even supposed to—get clear "canonical" answers to these questions; because at the end of the day the answers aren't really what the show's concerned with imo, and all this is just intended to be exposition on the overarching plot... but still. The events of ep 11 being a narrative that Ura-Acca tells Ai leads to certain questions that my 'read too much into everything' ass is intriguged by

[lilietsblog]

I beat Starbound yesterday night

like, okay, this is not a game you just 'win' and that's it. The main quest is just one thing you get to do alongside tech tree progression, and there is a thousand things to do that open up alongside this progression, and with the latest update there is a whole new tech tree for the mechs to pursue

I did not expect much from finishing the 'main quest' it was just kinda the next thing to do and then get on with all the other goals I had in mind (upgrading my mech, the bunch of stuff for my colony, making a cool interior for my ship)

like seriously, I thought, what is this quest even building up to? There's no way it won't be silly and underwhelming

I'm not spoiling I'm just saying I was wrong it wasn't

okay maybe if the mc was allowed to have personality + relationships beyond like, the way they stand and the pre-programmed people deciding fully on their own to join the mission regardless of what you actually do, it could have been even more poignant and fantastic

but like wow I almost don't feel like going back to the rest of my stuff to do now cause I've... won. I'm done, that's it, there is nothing I can do in this game that will top what just happened

it feels like gameplay should change more after what happened. Not just a 'special reward' with a lot of money and other sweet stuff (bitch I have this much money saved up already and the only reason it's not more is because I keep spending it). There should be a fundamental change somewhere, the world opening up in some way, getting to do something you didn't get to do before

there should be specifically 'postgame' content and not just 'lategame' content you could enjoy in the same way forever without actually ever finishing the main quest

this HOLY SHIT WHAT JUST HAPPENED thing must have some effect on the rest of the universe

like, I knew it wouldn't and I didn't expect it to... and now I feel like it should have coz. holy fuck. that was EPIC

okay i want to not spoil coz EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELVES GUYS but i just want to gush about it so much so im just? going to put this under the cut?

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR STARBOUND MAIN QUEST. IF YOU THINK IT'S NOT SPOILER WORTHY YOU ARE WRONG GO BEAT IT YOURSELF AND THEN COME BACK ONCE YOU HAVE

okay so first of all why don't Novakid have a key? this feels like it should be more of a big deal, like what if my protagonist were a Novakid? they should have at least mentioned that oh yeah there's also Novakid but they weren't around back then or something

second of all holy shit from the beginning of the quest I was wondering, like okay we're going to unlock the gate and??? what then??? you go in to fistfight the fucking Ruin??? the tentacle monster that even the god creator could only lock away and that started out with destroying Earth???

like, okay, we get the keys. yeah. AND THEN WHAT

I thought the game would underplay the size of the Ruin, make it kinda underwhelming and make me question how this thing managed to destroy Earth and be so epic if one person can actually fight it

like okay I've also fought an avatar of Kluex but 1) it MIGHT have just been an automaton and 2) it's an AVATAR. avatars are beatable. its a different class of thing altogether

boy was I wrong. boy did I fucking UNDERESTIMATE the size of the Ruin (and also the developers of the game. holy shit. all the kudos)

it'S A FUCKING PLANET

like you just go through the gate and find yourself on this??? planet??? with instructions to 'destroy the Ruin' and your matter manipulator working unexpectedly unlike all the other missions

just. fistfight the planet. somehow. good luck

it was actually pretty intuitive what to do next? like. it just felt obvious that I would get nothing done on the surface and that the most likely thing to do is dig in. I've got the matter manipulator, it's my magic tool that the Protector left to humanity, LET'S GO FUCK UP A BITCH

and it kind of makes sense that one person can succeed where a deity couldn't. precisely because you're so fucking tiny you're basically beneath notice and you can fuck this thing up from the inside without it being able to do shit about it

also, it's not awake yet. it destroyed Earth by just kinda jerking in its sleep

when something's on that scale, it's pretty understandable that a human-sized person with an environment backpack that lets them survive ANYWHERE short of actual fucking lava would actually be a pretty appropriate opponent

and let's be honest, this was a suicide mission from the beginning. like I don't know what Esther expected to happen when you successfully beat the Ruin but it was kinda obvious that the microbe that caused it would be the first casualty

I also expected it to not be a big deal cause you die and you respawn? the one escort mission I managed to fail (protip: never agree to an escort mission across volcanic lava-filled terrain. or if you do, fill in the lava with earth. dont trust the NPC's ability to not fall in it and burn to death) right the one escort mission I managed to fail told me to not worry cause they probably respawned somewhere safe

and the ship crew gives comments like 'what was I doing before I died?' and 'I feel like I didn't respawn properly' and you just get the impression that respawning after death is a Thing in this unvierse and the only cause to worry is if the mechanism that was supposed to respawn you was destroyed (which is exactly what happened on Earth. like it was supposed to be a... safe place. that's the horror of it)

seriously you beat the Ruin and Esther is like... oh nO... WHAT IS HAPPENING.. iT Is.. unSTABLE??? I dunno bitch what did you think we were trying to do

the odds of it not exploding after being killed from the inside (or imploding, or flooding everything with deadly poison, or burning up, or getting flushed into Death Dismension, or any of the other number of thing that might happen wnen you're in the middle of the body of an eldritch abomination and have just killed it) were like... 1 in a 1 000 000

what did you EXPECT

when you're going down it's so fucking... eerie. there are those things living INSIDE the Ruin. they are freaky and are they alive? do they count as part of its organism or as independent beings? is there even a meaningful distinction on this scale or is it like the white cells in your blood

and then there is the pit, and the AI helpfully warns you to not fall into it and just. oh my fuck. thanks dude I would never have thought of this on my own. the Unhelpful AI is the best thing about this game honestly

and you keep going down and down and its genuinely creepy like whats down there? what are you going down towards? FUCK KNOWS

and then the environment changes and there is this brain matter stuff? and you can't break it like you just can't break it, the matter manipulator doesn't work like that it's not the matter manipulator block from everywhere that has a visual clue of small squares, it starts breaking the brain and it just. can't. whatever it is you're going to try to do with this thing's brain, destroying it with the matter manipulator is not it. it's just not strong enough

and then you get a path inside it and there are standard gate-and-radar mechanisms of boss fight and it's just so silly that those would be inside there but on the other hand reality doesn't really hold up in the face of this thing anyway so might as well

and then you face the Cultists Boss and its honestly so. anticlimactic after all the buildup she had. maybe its just extensive preparation with many buffs i had going (bitch i just fought your entire army and a dragon) but i beat her in like. three cycles. the mechanics and weaknesses were the same as in the first fight in the library and it didnt even feel like i had to try hard

and it was kinda appropriate? like bitch what do you think you're doing. get out of the way i'm trying to save the universe there. THIS THING'S FIRST ACTION WAS DESTROYING EARTH HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU GET THE IDEA IT FAVORED HUMANS

(true to life. racial supremacists aren't known for their firm grip on reality)

and then it's this thing's... heart? inside its brain? well it's just a convenient term anyway. either way it's the spark of un-life that drives the entire thing and GOOD LUCK YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN

and I just... look. I had freaked out about the army and the dragon because the first time I fought them I quickly ran out of my 13 nanobandages and died

so for the second time I crafted 160 of them

(also I had a Damage III augment on my EPP and really, really cool weapons newly bought in Glitch settlements, so I mowed down mooks by just pistol-machine-gunning-them for a couple of seconds, it was actually kinda freaky how effective I was at damage dealing)

I also died against the Ruin once because augghhhh having the nanobandages on the left click and the medicine kits that heal you slowly over time AND BLOCK NANOBANDAGES FROM WORKING IMMEDIATELY on the right click WAS A BAD IDEA

after respawning i just straight up removed the medicine kits from the quick access. not gonna trip myself up like that the second time

and it was? really freaky but not that hard once I figured it out? like okay actually pretty fucking hard but not like. COMPLICATED. just counterintuitive

like, if the boss always hits the same area with an EYE LASER attack, the logical thing to do is stay out of there, right?

but no. out of there are the tentacles, and they sometimes move without warning and hurt you. while the eye laser attack comes with pretty obvious buildup

and more importantly: the eye laser attack takes like half of your HP. but it KILLS DEAD all the smaller creatures that were harassing you

like oh god this is so appropriate? this un-creature summons living things both from its own body and from across the universe to attack you, but then when it goes on the offensive itself it just destroys them all

it's self-destructive. you can goad it into solving your problems for you because it's NOT SENTIENT. it's a thing more than it is a creature. its goal is to destroy life but its semi-living so it destroys itself

so you just. stay in the eye laser zone, jump, hit it with your swords, ignore the swarm of minions attacking you (well more like hit them with the swords along the way. thats why I prefer weapons with lower damage but quicker attack), and keep an eye on your HP. once its around half, 6 + left click several times until it works + 1 to go back to the swords

also during the eye laser attack it's also a good idea to do the same thing. then you can come out of it with full HP... and no creatures attacking you like bitch thanks for solving my problems

you just have to... keep doing it. its scary. your life is going down really fast and there is no way to kill all the creatures attacking you because it keeps spawning them and there's no safe zone because tentacles

but you just keep going, keep healing yourself, keep tanking the eye laser attack and using it as just another opportunity to jump up and deal damage

and it'll... break. it's not going to regenerate itself the way Big Ape does. it'll just die and that will be it. you'll have won. well okay you're going to die too but THE VICTORY WILL BE YOURS

(and then there's that scene. that scene. that one. it's so good you guys. even my bewilderment at sudden story gameplay separation didn't make it any less freaking epic)

really, the only letdown is that there should have been SOMETHING changing at the Outpost. Maybe this would be a better moment for the Treasured Trophies to appear. Maybe some other shop opening. Maybe a portal to a new peaceful/trading zone entirely.

there should be SOMETHING there

[irarelypostanything]

“Just for Fun” - Linux, Linus Torvalds, and the nonfiction Silicon Valley Story

Some people say that this is the best tech autobiography ever written, which is why they might be annoyed that I am trying to hashtag it in a way that directs it to fans of HBO’s Silicon Valley - I’d say this is an excellent nonfiction prequel to Silicon Valley, but that’s a little bit like saying World War II in Color is an excellent prequel to Inglourious Bastards.  Just for Fun is an autobiography about Linus Torvalds and how he originally created and then led development on Linux.  Silicon Valley is a completely fictional TV series about a completely hypothetical algorithm, an imaginary AI, and a bunch of totally glossed-over subplots involving things like sentient AI, monkeys that can control arms with neural connections, and a man who somehow dies by running a very short distance.

There’s a reason tech people were so crazy about Silicon Valley.  It’s a fictional TV show, but the people who wrote it definitely seemed to understand real tech trends.  They had the real Bill Gates do a cameo; they invented websites for their fictional companies that parodied advertising for real companies; in order to promote their series and its “Hotdog, not a Hotdog” app, they had an actual team of developers build an app that used machine learning and then open sourced the whole thing.  One of the recurring characters isn’t an actress playing a journalist, but an actual journalist known for covering tech startups.  The list goes on.

The ideas in the show, maybe even more so than the characters, begin to take hold.  A new Internet away from the all-seeing eye of big corporations.  Decentralized currency.  Making the world a better place.

Now that Mr. Robot and Silicon Valley are over, I wonder if some other tech comedy or drama will pick up?  Unless or until they do, I thought maybe I’d just take this time to recommend this book.

Okay, and now the prequel:

*Spoilers, if autobiographies can have spoilers*

So Linus Torvalds is the original creator of Linux.  Maybe you know a good deal about him already, maybe you simply know him as the guy who built Linux, maybe you didn’t even know that.  Maybe, if you’re familiar with his now-infamous emails telling his own developers to SHUT THE FUCK UP and that whoever implemented one feature should have been “retroactively aborted,” you simply think that he’s an asshole.

And, I mean, maybe he is.  I’ve never worked for him.

Maybe that’s why this book was such a breath of fresh air to me: It’s not an overly idealistic manifesto for the open source movement, nor is it some overly technical collection of jargon about how Linux works.  It somehow manages to be somewhere in between the two, equal parts compelling autobiography (occasionally shifting to the co-author’s point of view, who’s more of a journalist) and technical details, but the technical parts are pretty high-level and interesting.

I think.  I’d be curious to know how interested a non-Linux, non-programmer person would be in the 100 or so pages outlining how he designed it, as well as his fascination with similar technologies.

It doesn’t frame itself at all like a novel.  There’s no villain, except maybe the people he clashes with, and there’s not really a climax.  He’s born.  He goes to school.  He starts to do computer stuff.

A few really compelling things that happen:

*He describes, in detail, how he spent a long stretch of time living in the snow with nothing to do, so he just read through a technical book by the founder of Minix.  He would go on to really clash with the creator of Minix for no other reason than that one OS used a microkernel, and the other used a monolithic kernel.  They have a now famous, very heated exchange ending with the two coming to an understanding but never fully making up.  Later on, we have the image of Linus Torvalds trying to get the Minix founder to sign the book that so inspired him

*Someone, not a patent troll, patented the Linux name and sent Torvalds an email asking if he believed in God.  Linus ignored him, and the guy went on to demand 5% of the royalties.  If Linus hadn’t ignored him and said he believed in God, would he have just given him the patent?  I think it’s a compelling, unanswered mystery

*He refuses to collaborate with Steve Jobs, but maintains respect for him.  He sees Steve Jobs as someone who doesn’t really embody the spirit of open source because he only wanted to open source part of Mac OS

*His debate with Stallman is interesting.  He focuses in this text not on the naming, but on open source as a philosophy.  From Linus’ point of view, open source is all about “letting everyone play” - large corporations, small freelancers, what have you.  Not everyone agrees

The Bigger Picture

This has already gotten pretty long.  Let me try to wrap this up.

I don’t know quite how I feel about some aspects of his philosophy.  I tend to be more on the idealist side (”he wrote, on Tumblr, as he prepared to check Amazon again to see when his Larabars would arrive and contemplated whether or not to turn the AC on with Nest”), and Torvalds, interestingly enough, doesn’t claim to be an idealist at all.  The way he sees it, people really oversimplify.  It’s not the small open source companies against the tech giants, with their open source license as the means with which they will take on goliath and free the world - it’s just a method for doing things.

And there he is, the man who still stands as one of the greatest contributors to the open source movement.

Where are we going?  What is technology doing?  Maybe one day we’ll cure cancer because of open source.  Maybe one day open source will allow us to build a fully dectranzlied internet, along with a collection of platforms that give more power to the people than YouTube and Facebook do today by not unnecessarily de-monetizing and prioritizing user benefit over user attention. 

...or, more likely, it won’t be that simple.  Hell, maybe some Google team will come up with a new site called YouTube2, and everyone will agree it succeeds in all the ways YouTube hadn’t by freeing us from the oppressive, evil hand of YouTube.

I don’t know.  It’s complicated.  Twitter, Facebook, and Google are some of the biggest giants out there, and they’ve contributed incredible things to open source.

It’s a breath of fresh air, it’s an interesting read, it’s historical as well as philosophical...

...and it’s readable.  Maybe that’s what I like the most.

[nofomoartworld]

Embracing plastic and the apocalypse: An interview with Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke

Quick post to say that:

1. If you’re in London this coming weekend, don’t miss the Digital Design Weekend 2017. It’s the 7th edition and this year’s a particularly good one with plenty of critical, intelligent and edgy works and ideas. Think Garnet Hertz‘s Disobedient Electronics: Protest, Tactical Tech, Nina Sellars, etc.

2. Artist Morehshin Allahyari and writer/artistDaniel Rourke are also part of the programme with The 3D Additivist Manifesto and The 3D Additivist Cookbook. And i’ve been asked by the lovely and sharp Irini Papadimitriou to interview them for the catalogue of the Digital Design Weekend. What they’ve done for the reflection around 3D fabrication, speculative design, and more generally digital culture is invaluable. The texts of the catalogue are online but i’m copy/pasting my intro (i’m always surprised at how flowery my prose gets when i’m asked to write ‘outside’ of my blog) and our interview below because it has images and you know i love images:

#Additivism: An interview with Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke

For its evangelists, 3D printing is going to breezily save the world one 3D printed kidney, wind turbine, honeycomb or insect snack at a time. The costs of domestic 3D printers are dwindling, the products custom-manufactured to meet our precise needs and the technology has been hailed as the most liberating and revolutionary since the steam engine.

Like with many innovations, this cheerful outlook has soon been met with warnings of copyright hurdles, high energy uses, harmful air emissions, and the realisation that the technology relies on the toxic extraction and processing of minerals and crude oil.

#additivism is the bastard of these two visions. It conjures nightmares of toxic machines churning out guns, drugs, counterfeit cash and meaningless trash ad libitum. It also take its cue from additive manufacturing technology itself and suggests that small scale, cumulative actions have the potential to bring about bigger, more complex realities.

In 2015, Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke released The 3D Additivist Manifesto and called for objects and strategies that would push the physical and conceptual boundaries of 3D printing to its most radical, dystopian and disobedient limits. Artists, designers, activists and thinkers responded with speculative or practical projects, each of them a kind of recipe for transgression and critical meditation on 3D printing and the emancipatory promises of technology. They are presented in The 3D Additivist Cookbook. Made available in 3DPDF format, it is free to download, share, remix and subvert (at additivism.org).

With it, 3D printing finally gets the counterculture movement it deserved.

Laura Devendorf, Anatomy of a Cyborg 3D Printer. A #figure from The 3D Additivist Cookbook

Anna Greenspan & Suzanne Livingston, The Electric Deep: Dream Visions of the Additive Machine. A #method from The 3D Additivist Cookbook

Régine Debatty: Hi Morehshin and Daniel! I like that you chose to follow the idea of ‘staying with the trouble’ and that we probably need to accept that the world is already beyond fixing. This is quite at odds with the tendency of design to imagine nicely-packaged solutions to all sorts of small and vast problems. Have you found that the idea of embracing the horror is still as radical as it was when you embarked on the project?

Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke: This notion of ‘solving’ a problem, especially in a world that feels increasingly non-fixable, is something that we have discussed and taught in many of our talks and workshops. In the world of #Additivism and our own practices as individuals, we’ve been big advocates of micro actions as ways to make something with wider reach and more critical potential. To build platforms and communities and frameworks for educating through rethinking and refiguring. And in contradiction to many of the principles of design, we are not interested or obsessed with answers and solutions. We want to expose things. Make invisible things visible. Mess things up, or at least offer mess and humour and darkness and speculation as ways to reconsider the complicated status of topics like equality, global ecology, or reproductive rights that need to be constantly re-assessed.

#Additivism is about poking at things with weird sticks and asking ever difficult, and often unpalatable questions. To take the very powers that oppress you and using their strategies and languages and aesthetics against them. Embrace the apocalypse but use its darkness to create light. That’s how we’ve been staying with the trouble.

A solution is always a solution ‘for’ some particular, universalised group. And so ‘radicality’ is a constantly shifting notion, dependent on the struggles and conflicts that impact the lives of unheard and unrecognised subjects. Over the life of our project the rise of negative political campaigns, such as Brexit and Donald Trump, signal how appeals to universals are still a powerful force. We oppose the grand narrative, and rather hope for an explosion of counter and micro narratives, for a recognition of singularities – plural – a project that by necessity must go on and on endlessly.

Antonio Esparza, The TurtleBag. A #fabulation from The 3D Additivist Cookbook

Golan Levin and Shawn Sims, The Free Universal Construction Kit. A #toolkit from The 3D Additivist Cookbook

R: Judging from the content of The 3D Additivist Cookbook, it seems that #Additivism has found echoes beyond plastic and 3D printing. Could you tell us how the dystopian and utopian dimensions of 3D printing can be applied to other disciplines, media, practices and technologies?

M&D: For us the 3D printer has always been a metaphor and point of departure to delve into and overlap others disciplines and worlds. The more we developed the project, and especially when it was the time to make selections for the Cookbook, we used #Additivism as a network of forces. Economic, social, political, material, infrastructural. The 3D printer is a machine that offers the promise of being able – one day – to make copies of itself. A radical metaphor for the capacity of life breathed into the world of inert matter. In an era of increasing interest in robots, AI, and other non human technological agents, the 3D printer is still a vibrant metaphor for the capacity of our technologies to inhabit and parasitise new spaces and realities. Who the particular subjects are who seek out and inhabit these new spaces is our concern, and this is another point at which the 3D printer becomes more than a neutral technology. #Additivism sought to wrestle control of 3D printer narratives away from the white tech males who dominate the field. So we still believe that #Additivism is a call for those on the ‘outside’ to seize control and multiply the possible spaces and worlds they inhabit from fablabs, maker-spaces, bedrooms, and laptop screens.

An Additivist is someone who is interested in the potential of technology to leverage small, incremental actions to potentially planetary significance. No 3D printer is required.

For a large central section of The 3D Additivist Cookbook we commissioned two artist groups – A Parede and Browntourage – to curate a series of ‘Additivist’ works. The works from artists of Middle Eastern, South American and other non-western heritages spiral around queer, feminist and decolonialist narratives. We are really proud of that section of The Cookbook in particular, because it often calls our entire project into question. Challenging dominant narratives is crucial to maintaining plurality. The 3D Additivist Manifesto asked to be contradicted and re-envisioned. Every work in the resulting Cookbook is therefore a seed for generating worlds and actions that even – and perhaps especially – its original designers did not envisage.

Jasper Meiners and Isabel Paehr, The Webcamera Obscura. A #toolkit from The 3D Additivist Cookbook

R: Few things make me happier than seeing provocative design or art ideas spread outside of the usual creative circles of galleries and festivals. How can someone who’s neither an artist nor a designer engage with the #Additivist ideas and introduce small, concrete forms of radicality into their life?

M &D: That’s awesome to hear! We share that happiness with you. So much of what we wanted to build was accessibility, education and activation (daily small actions). We urge people to do the same, and hope #Additivism inspires them. How can your particular skill or knowledge be translated into frameworks for educating and including others? What story or counter narrative do you have to bring to the world? The Cookbook’s most radical feature – we hope – is its accessibility and openness (download it for free now and see). But we are far more excited about the projects that are not contained in it, that still have to be imagined. That’s a daily radical proposition. What worlds have yet to be envisioned? We can only answer that together. Jump in.

A lot of action-based projects in the Cookbook can be realised by anyone with any kind of background, as long as they can download the objects from our website and take it to a fablab for a cheap 3D print. For example, a project by Isabel Paehr and Jasper Meiners called ‘Webcam Obscura’ which is a simple playful anti-surveillance tool for laptops. In addition, a good portion of the Cookbook includes essays, interviews, and stories (mostly science fiction) brought together to encourage Additivist way of thinking. Out of the many many workshops we have delivered we’ve only ever used a 3D printer once. Many projects in the Cookbook do their critical work without ever needing to be 3D printed. Kyle McDonald’s Liberator Variations, for instance, questions the status of the now infamous 3D printable ‘Liberator’ gun, but is also a playful tutorial and poetic homage to 3D rendering software. Many of the most ‘radical’ Additivist Cookbook projects are also the simplest. We hope the Cookbook encourages people to play, experiment and not be afraid to make mistakes. That’s the best way to learn, and it’s fundamental to the practices of art and design. We all start as amateurs. Some of us try really hard to stay that way.

R: Because the place of women in the tech world is still one we have to fight for, do you think that there is a place for feminism in #Additivism?

M&D: Yes of course or we wouldn’t do it at all. It’s actually quite interesting to walk into Fablabs anywhere in the world and see so many women standing next to machines 3D printing or laser cutting objects. It’s something we’ve been counting and paying attention to. But in addition to quantity and numbers, so much of #Additivism is about ‘the female future’ we want to participate in building. The feminism we are interested in is a philosophy of more than women, it is a philosophy of non male, non cis, non white. All those people who have at one stage or another been considered less than human by the social systems that oppress them.

Zach Rispoli, Snowden Crown Jewels. A #device from The 3D Additivist Cookbook

R: #Additivism brings to light an apocalyptic vision of the world. Yet, there is a fair amount of irony and humour in The 3D Additivist Cookbook. How do you reconcile horror with humour?

M&D: Between the two of us we have often talked about (jokingly and for real) being Positive Nihilists. So much of that is about our personalities and how we also perhaps handle the dark world we live in…lol. Do we really have to reconcile humour? If humour is a radical act in itself then it need not be considered as somehow the opposite of dystopia/darkness/apocalyptic visions.

Laughter is a shared bodily sound that carries across a group to show that the threat has passed. One human thinks they see a snake in the grass and call out an alarm, but then they quickly realise it is just a stick, and begin to laugh, and their companions laugh at their mistake. Humour today might play a similar role in light of the global problems we face. #Additivism is full of distractions and counter propositions, pointing to a perceived threat, but showing that the real concern lies elsewhere, at a different scale. Humour is significant in that act. Shared mind shifting. Reflective counter-actions and realities. Embracing the horror together.

Debbie Ding, How to Mine for Space Geodes. A #recipe from The 3D Additivist Cookbook

Belén Zahera, Surface Breeding. A #method from The 3D Additivist Cookbook

The Digital Design Weekend is taking place at the V&A in London on Saturday 23 & Sunday 24 September, 10:30-17:00. It coincides with the London Design Festival at the V&A. All events are free.

Previously: The 3D Additivist Manifesto + Cookbook.

from We Make Money Not Art http://ift.tt/2hhqsUp via IFTTT

[viralhottopics]

SXSW 2017 didn’t have a darling app, just a constellation of ride-hailing madness

Image: mashable composite/associated press/blended images

SXSW is known for having breakout apps of the year. There was Twitter, Foursquare and, most recently, Meerkat.

But this year it’s not about anything innovative in tech that’s got every attendee pulling out their smartphone and opening the app store.

SEE ALSO: Uber’s Travis Kalanick: Yep, I’m a jerk, basically

In Austin, Texas, there’s no Uber or Lyft. To make the 25-minute drive from the airport to downtown Austin, you have to either rent a car, hail a taxi, or download a new app.

And yes, you read that right: Not even Lyft.

In Austin, for almost the last year, the two biggest ride-hailing companies in the United States haven’t operated. It’s a complicated tale of citizens versus corporations, of distaste for a duopoly and annoyance for not complying to town rules, that’s left Austin as one of the few areas in the U.S. where “Let’s get an Uber” just doesn’t fly.

Instead, you’ll see this:

Image: uber screenshot

Austinites and visitors, like the 70,000 people who traveled for SXSW, have to use Ride Austin, Fasten, Fare, Get Me, Arcade City, Wingz, zTrip, Chariot, pedicabs, taxis, and walking insteadjust to name a few options. In a world (well, city) without Uber and Lyft, innovation’s emerged, some say, with dozens of new players seizing the opportunity to grow a transportation business.

“I would say Austin is innovative and developing. Frankly, I’m just proud of my city for being able to adapt in real-time for the loss of the big players,” Austin city Mayor Steve Adler said.

But others critique that what has happened in Austin isn’t really that innovative. “Is it really innovation, or are they just less sophisticated ride-sharing platforms?” said Austin city council member Ellen Troxclair.

Over a week spent taking cars, interviewing the new players, the tech giants, the legislators, the drivers, the riders and the visitors in Austin, we came to learn that in some ways, the city’s just created another duopoly, which has led to a state of confusion and mismanagement. Is it worth it? Is it really safer? And then, of course, what about that black market player we discovered, the one operating a service on the blockchain?

What’s really happening when you catch a ride in Austin?

Welcome to Austin

When I arrived at SXSW on March 9, the Austin airport greeted me with a sign for Ride Austin.

Downloading fake Uber http://pic.twitter.com/DxzAqMLxHQ

Kerry Flynn #SXSW (@kerrymflynn) March 9, 2017

I was joking, of course. But when I cracked open the local-use app, I found a design strikingly similar to Uber itself. How do they get away with it? Well: Just ask Facebook how they get away with all three of their Stories products. They do it because they can.

My Mashable colleagues, who I tasked with sharing their ride-hailing experiences with me, found Ride Austin to be their go-to service of the trip.

“I used RideAustin just now and it was basically exactly like Uber, but I didnt feel like shit for using it (given all the recent news/management problems),” one colleague wrote to me on Slack. “Nothing bad about the service. It was great. The car I had smelt like cigarette smoke, but the driver was so lovely that it didnt bother me too much.”

Another one of my colleagues, who’s quite familiar with product design, didn’t have an enjoyable time with the app, however.

“Ride Austin on Android is a really bad experience, to the point where I couldn’t even use it. The first screen gives you single option to sign in, on the next screen you can authenticate with FB, or use an existing email/PW combo. If you do FB it lets you go through the whole rigamarole and then gives error that you have to sign up first,” she said. “On the plus side, the cab line went fast.”

According to my first Ride Austin driver from the airport to the hotel, Austinites and visitors should have multiple ride-hailing apps on their phone in case of congestion. He drove for Fasten, as well.

“The app was crashing a bunch the first time I used it, and kept signing me out, but it seems to be holding up now,” another one of my colleagues said. “All in all, it doesn’t feel like I miss Uber all that much.”

Companies drive in

So why no Uber and Lyft? The two companies left the city last year after losing a fight against a ballot measure to eliminate the need for drivers to have fingerprint background checks. Lyft and Uber argued that this safety measure was unnecessary and funneled millions of dollars into lobbying against it.

But when the giants left, smaller players looked ahead, such as Fasten, a ride-hailing app that had so far only operated in Boston.

“We saw opportunity to do something good here. Multibillion companies have been built on top of drivers who do all the work. Why would we take a quarter out of each drivers dollar just because we can? We recognized the mistakes that Uber and Lyft were making. We saw room for a company for putting people first,” Fasten CEO Kirill Evdakov tells me in their WeWork space a few miles up from downtown Austin.

Sitting across from four men at a table, I learn that while these men consider their business to be the third biggest player under Uber and Lyft, they don’t see ride-hailing as an innovative business.

“Ride-sharing being an innovation was so much of a hype,” said Fasten CMO Roman Levitskiy. “Ride-sharing is a new business for America, not for Russia.”

Still, the men are competitive against their rivals in Austinparticularly with Ride Austin. Fasten has 60 percent of the market in Austin, according to Fasten.

Image: created by fasten

Some riders, and drivers, preferred Ride Austin due to its nonprofit status. Riders can choose to roundup to the dollar and donate the rest to a charity of their choices.

So while there apparently seems to be another duopoly at play in Austin, SXSW attendees did have some other options. Chariot, a startup acquired by Ford last year, was running its shuttle vans throughout downtown.

“Our goal is to become the first global mass transit,” Chariot CEO Ali Vahabzadeh said. “Food, clothing, shelter, and transportation has become the fourth standard of living. We’re really excited that Chariot can become a part of the solution.”

Wingz also runs in Austin as a personal driver service, coordinated through an app. “Our drivers are waiting for you, rather than you waiting on the curb for Uber and Lyft,” CEO Chris Brandon said. “You are completely under the control of the Uber and Lyft platform. On Wingz, you schedule the time. You schedule the driver.”

An underground option also exists. Arcade City takes rides via Facebook Messenger (and an app) and is built on the blockchain to bypass regulations. I asked for an interview with the regional director in Texas only to be told in an email: “I’m out there running on the front lines with the other drivers as well. So I sleep very little and drive all the time.”

The comeback

SXSW didn’t run seamlessly. Ride Austin and Fasten had “glitches” Saturday nightarguably, the busiest time for SXSW events.

The mayor, who spoke with me on the phone several times over the week, was quick to defend and champion the apps. “We had a glitch on Saturday. I can remember being at the [Democratic National Convention] in July and Uber didnt work,” he said.

“I think the real thing you should look at is how did they recover last night? I havent heard from Fasten, but Ride Austin was 14,000 [rides] strong,” he continued.

There’s always other, non-tech options in Austin. The weekend after Uber and Lyft left a conference across the street from City Hall hired pedicabs, according to Council Member Troxclair.

Image: ellen troxclair

Uber and Lyft may come back soon. During the second week of SXSW, a new ride-hailing bill was presented to the House Transportation Committee of Texas.

“Uber wishes to be in many, many more cities in Texas, and our hope is that one day we can cover the entire state,” TrevorTheunissen, Uber’s Public Affairs Lead in Texas, said in his testimony before the committee. “However, the local regulations under which we currently operate vary as much as Texas landscape, and it presents unique challenges when it comes to moving people across multiple lines of jurisdiction.”

One driver said he didn’t really miss Uber. “They were so douchey to deal with. They could care less about us,” he said.

Several of the drivers I rode with during SXSW used to work for Uber and/or Lyft. One driver said he didn’t really miss Uber. “They were so douchey to deal with. They could care less about us,” he said.

“As a consumer,” he said, “they were a good deal. I had to get a regular job when I was driving for them because there was no minimum fare. The cost got so low.”

Austinites are rather apprehensive over Uber’s return. “There are a lot of people in Austin that do really miss Uber though just for convenience factor, just because it’s a little cheaper, but most of us would rather pay $2 more,” said Elise Graham, an Austin resident and cofounder of Olivia AI.

Sometimes, though, technologybe it a major player like Uber or a minor one like Ride Austinjust doesn’t work. My boyfriend was left stranded at a strip mall after his Ride Austin ride took him to the wrong address. It was either walk in the rain for 30 minutes, wait for another driver, or find a different solution.

Turns out a few kids in the parking lot were willing to offer a ride back to downtown. Good ole Southern hospitality.

Back in New York

Walking through New York’s LaGuardia airport, after eight days in Austin, I was quickly reminded of Uber and Lyft.

Lyft!!!! You’ve been missed http://pic.twitter.com/Sp6WVQyNal

Kerry Flynn (@kerrymflynn) March 17, 2017

And Uber. Except #DeleteUber http://pic.twitter.com/NNqz8mzrUF

Kerry Flynn (@kerrymflynn) March 17, 2017

Three Uber employees were stationed by the exit, dressed in Uber shirts, holding Uber bags and handing out cards for $10 UberPool rides.

One of the employees said she “loved working for Uber because I get to help people get home. It’s a good company full of loving people.”

I thanked her for her time and said I had to go catch my Lyft outside.

“Lyft, they’re good too,” she said.

WATCH: Ditch your nail and hammer. Build your dream house in just 2 days using only wooden bricks.

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