Life is but a pipedream

Hello Humans. Have you seen a cat!? I have 2!!

[junewild]

incredible innovations on the beverage front

[starlightomatic]

i’ve invented a new microwave its called microwave 2. it randomly makes your food colder 9% of the time. don’t worry i’ve already entered your home and replaced your old microwave with it. im very good at technology

[starlightomatic]

this is about google’s ai overview

[exeggcute]

one of my favorite this american life segments of late is about the people who played orchestra pit for phantom of the opera on broadway and how, like, a sizeable majority of them had literally been playing the show since it opened in 1988 (on broadway. I know it opened in 86 on the west end, you random pedants, but I am specifically talking about broadway musicians) because their contracts stipulated that they'd have jobs throughout the show's entire run... but nobody anticipated that phantom would become the longest-running broadway show of all time.

and none of these people wanted to walk away from a guaranteed job, so very few of them ever quit. they just kept doing the same show eight nights a week... for twenty or thirty years... and by the time it finally closed last year most of these musicians (who had been working together for DECADES) hated each other and really really fucking loathed phantom. I can't stop thinking about it. it's indescribably hellish to imagine but also the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life.

[exeggcute]

can you imagine.

[bisexualshakespeare]

[ID: excerpt from an article reading: One of my favorite stories, which should drive anyone who has every played in a band crazy-- there’s this bassoon player who has sat next to the same clarinet player since 1988. She’s convinced he plays half a note4 flat on every note he’s every played. He denies this. /]

[cleverlittlefox]

[cleverlittlefox]

[cleverlittlefox]

[free-my-mindd]

[kingbedlam]

[calidotgov-deactivated20240108]

congratulations piracy

[livefromtheloam]

Ad agency: Please don't steal the King's potatoes, no matter how easy it is.

Regular people: Wait, the King has easily stolen potatoes? How do I get in on this?

Internet users who have been stealing potatoes for years: We made a machine that picks so many potatoes and also that machine is free. Enjoy!

[commandtower-solring-go]

Ad agency: you wouldn't steal a movie?

10 year old me with 0 income and no movie: YOU CAN STEAL MOVIES????

[can-i-make-image-descriptions]

[Image ID: Headline from IFLScience reading: "You Wouldn't Steal a Movie" Advert May Have Led To More People Stealing Movies /End ID]

[geekysteven]

[teaboot]

Fun fact! Both the music and the font in that ad were incorrectly sourced and did not provide compensation to the creators

[6qubed]

less fun fact: the temptation to perform the forbidden action is the sole reason that tobacco companies fund anti-smoking/vaping PSAs

[catchymemes]

[orlyofhousesnark]

[leashamariel]

Do people know this is the husband of the prime minister of New Zealand

[creekfiend]

And who is the guy burying him in the sand

[animentality]

[shinynewmemories]

The Hunger Games has the FUNNIEST arranged marriage of all time btw. Katniss realizes she'll have to marry Peeta and she's obviously upset so Haymitch tries to comfort her by saying "you could do a lot worse" and Katniss is like "well DUH of course I could do worse than Peeta he's the best & handsomest person on the face of the planet but that's not the POINT I want to be able to choose for MYSELF". Then she goes and chooses Peeta anyway lol. Comedy gold I tell you

[chriscrosswallflower-blog]

Must memorialize the tags

[titsay]

let's hunt with mama

[whosaidjames]

Looks like the kittens I have in my yard.

[deadpowol]

[tahthetrickster]

[digitaldiscipline]

This is the 85 year old creator of Roger Rabbit:

[killersandqueens]

Would being called big dog fix me? Who knows?

[boydykedevo]

Mixed reviews

[hobgoblinhero]

"What's up, big dog; I'm ratsmacker" is going to live rent free in my head for a little while

[hobgoblinhero]

Boys who up smacking they rat?

[wetchickenbreast]

my coffin shaped locket is the perfect size to fit one singular ibuprofen

[wetchickenbreast]

this is surprisingly useful actually

[arcaneavarice]

stop wasting space and add another

[wetchickenbreast]

tres ibuprofenitos

[cipheramnesia]

¿En este economía?

[anais-ninja-bitch]

girl, ESPECIALLY en este economía

[animentality]

[wizard-loving-wizard]

new reaction meme just dropped

[apjvff]

this site ain't so bad. it's something to do in the mornings while ur bread toasts, right? ^_^

[keatxu]

abandonware should be public domain. force companies to actively support and provide products if they don't wanna lose the rights to them

[omikronsoul]

Game companies hate emulation, but none of them seem to understand that a lot of us would just buy ROMs from them directly if we could. I don't want a fifth remake of Final Fantasy IV, I want to pay five bucks for the 3MB file you already made bank with thirty years ago. Nobody who wants to play something for the purpose of retro gaming is going to consider a $40 remake as the alternative option, and we're certainly not going to let the original dissappear. They're crying about opportunity cost for a product they're not even selling.

[justletmeremember]

op i know you're probably talking about like, video games, etc, but this is also critical for research science - my lab has so much abandonware, either because the company's out of business, or the company decided to not maintain it, and it's a fucking nightmare. we have two windows 95 computers that are CRITICAL for performing experiments/data analysis because the software needed is abandonware. one of the main roles for a guy in my lab is to maintain these little dinosaurs because if they go out, we lose access to ~20 years of raw data for research. part of why is that these companies also make their own file types, and make it difficult-to-impossible to convert those file types without their specific software. by habit, i convert all research files to more generic versions (txt, pdf, tif, etc) so that i minimize risk of losing my shit, but some stuff can't be converted.

for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.

so like, i know a lot of people look at the original post here and go "well op just wants old video games to play" (which is valid! games companies should not be able to push shit to abandonware and then close it off) but also this is critical for like. biomedical research. if y'all had any idea how much basic infrastructure built on science relies on shit that is technically abandonware, you would probably be horrified.

[jollysunflora]

#there is so much abandonware just...out there being used and carefully maintained#because nothing quite replicates the functionality