Interesting Links for 19-09-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Labour's plan to jumpstart city building after Rayner's 1.5m homes drive stalls

(tags:housing uk )

2. Chimps consume a pint of lager's worth of alcohol every day in fruit

(tags:alcohol chimpanzees )

3. Man with Covid for over two years became virus incubator, as it evolved into new variants of concern

(tags:pandemic virus evolution )

4. Samsung confirms its $1,800+ fridges will start showing you ads (and so I will never buy one)

(tags:advertising Samsung technology OhForFucksSake )

5. Early dropoff in girls' school sports linked to new gender confirmation forms (in Canada)

(tags:Canada girls sports school LGBT transgender bigotry )

6. Trump Spends Entire U.K. Trip Trying To Figure Out Where He Knows Prince Andrew From

(tags:politics Child_abuse satire usa uk royalty )

7. An "At The Mountains Of Madness" game, where you play as a penguin.

(tags:penguins hplovecraft games wtf )

Comments

[rhythmaning]

Who on earth wants a fridge that plays ads?

On what planet is that even considered a good idea?!

[andrewducker]

It's so ridiculous. And to take something that people already own, in the middle of their home, and then turn it into an advertising hoarding?

[simont]

It would make more sense if it was a cheap fridge. Lots of completely different products and services already offer a choice between "free/cheap with ads" and "expensive without", and plenty of people choose the former.

So, cheap ad-supported fridge or expensive ad-free fridge? It's dystopian, but I could understand it, both from the company's point of view, and from the POV of the people who went for the cheap option.

But an ad-filled fridge at absurdly expensive prices? That I don't understand at all.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, accepting advertising to get things cheaper is something I can understand. But that's something you choose up-front. You don't buy something for your kitchen and then expect to suddenly have it start advertising at you!

[aldabra]

I was wondering whether there was anyone who would consider buying that.

And there obviously is. Landlords. Hotels. Serviced apartments. Companies. Anywhere where the people who are using the fridge aren't the people who are buying the fridge. Generationally, that's an increasingly large segment of the population, because house prices are unaffordable.

I wonder whether the person owning the fridge will get to curate their own ad stream? Imagine you're a private residential home for the rich elderly with dementia: that would be a lucrative market for, for example, donations to donkey sanctuaries.

[rhythmaning]

Of course! I wasn't thinking it through!

[dewline]

Of course.

Surveillance tech built in, as well, I suspect.

[melchar]

Yeah - 'speak into the screen slowly and clearly'. Gack! True home surveillance.

[dewline]

Not I, in answer to your first question!

Ridiculous, and therefore sacred to the Samsung board, I suspect.

[channelpenguin]

All Samsung kitchen gear I have had has failed in less than 2 years (the electronics). I've seen multiple broken ovens on cooking You Tube channels

[magedragonfire]

All of Samsung's home appliances are basically ticking time bombs, and it's been like that for at least five years. When we were building our new home I avoided them like the plague. I've since used a Samsung oven at my in-laws' place, and the controls on the damned thing were obviously made by someone who doesn't bake anything ever. (Like, there's no way to just turn down the oven. You have to turn the oven off and then reset it at a new temperature, and that runs the risk of getting the broiler kicked on as part of the preheat cycle, thus blackening the beautiful fresh cherry pie you were baking. :|||)

We do have a washer and dryer set from them from 2015 or 2016 that have so far held up, but they're old enough that they're dumb, and they were the only thing we could get in a reasonably short time when the antique set in the old house very suddenly died. :P

[flemmings]

Re 5: please note that this gender idiocy is not nation-wide, it's Alberta, our version of Texas and every bit as unhinged.

[magedragonfire]

Smith and the UCP are a fucking disgrace. They wish they were Texas (actually).

[flemmings]

They're certainly doing their best to emulate it.

[dewline]

Doug Ford has a LOT of other flaws, and thankfully, this isn't one of them. Yet.

Saskatchewan, however...

[flemmings]

Yeah, I am not easy about Saskatchewan either.

[movingfinger]

Why would anyone connect a refrigerator to the internet in the first place?

[calimac]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_refrigerator

[andrewducker]

I would be happy if mine would message me to complain that the kids had left it open again.

Other than that, I can't think of a reason why I'd want that.

[juan_gandhi]

I love #6!

[andrewducker]

I could imagine that in a (comedy) dramatisation of the visit.

[calimac]

So let's see. They can't get enough girls with the form that verifies that they're girls to make a full team - so they fill out the extra places with boys. Brilliant.

Also, I did not know that Stanley Tucci was the president of the Alberta Teachers' Association.

[melchar]

So - 'untitled penguin game'? ^_^ [joke]

Penguins at the 'Mountains of Madness' is an interesting idea.

[andrewducker]

Always fun to have a different perspective on things!