I wrote about a shoe company trying to jump in on the AI gold rush some time ago, Now they are trying the same trick again to secure more capitol because half of the time no one is paying attention.
Two months after its unexpected artificial intelligence rebrand, Allbirds is changing its name to Smartbird and appointing a new chief executive.
This is crazy for one. you are playing a shell game and hope no one notices. People on apps such as robinhood will notice this and not be told this is a company that changes it name more than Prince.
As you can see here All… New.. Smartbird AI is trying to repeat the same gold strike they made in april. While it creates a pump and dump which it did. This is still a company that wants to go 100m in debt and try the capex game when right now do they even have a product. This company is operating on farts and butterflies right now.
Problems: the company at current has the most employees its ever had since its reformation.. 1… the CEO Nadia Carlsten. So by technicality they have the most filled seats in their employment and at the same time the least amount of employees they will ever have.
Former professional soccer player Tim Brown and renewable resources expert Joey Zwillinger founded Allbirds in 2015, seeking to build sustainable shoes from natural materials. The company launched its debut shoe a year later and quickly transformed into a household name.
The thing is allbirds had it right and so wrong at the same time and instead went on a miner 49’er adventure to find more money. There shoes were a hit , the problem was they did not innovate in the shoe market and just ran off there brand. They could of made new shoes and stretched there profit margins out for the long game but instead they chased the dragon. They wanted instant Gratification and it still shows they are at the same thing by chasing AI , having 0 product, In the end when the AI bubble eventually deflates they are going to have zero product and a shit ton of Nvidia product that has no use , because while AI is constantly upgrading old graphics cards do not. so whenever they enter the market they are essentially already obsolete by the time they become operational.
By the time that smartbird AI comes to realization , they have no idea of what AI Dumpster fire they are moving into. Plus given the market they are entering at a high premium due to Ram prices.
But I am willing to guess that SmartBirds AI is going to rename at least one more time while the company is dumped around and keeps raising Possible capital to make there AI gold rush maybe real.
Anyways, I spotted this while having my morning coffee and laughed at the absurdity of the birdity of the Bird bird bird is the word..
The Thermodynamics of Delamination: How Gravity and Fluid Mechanics Exposed the National Mall Infrastructure Failure
1. The Macro-Topographical Incline and Vehicular Shear Vector
The initial failure matrix of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool cannot be separated from its structural topography. The basin floor is not a level plain; it is an engineered concrete bowl sloping downward from the shallow perimeter lips toward the deeper central drainage and filtration loops to facilitate continuous fluid cycling.
Photographic evidence from the initial deployment confirms that heavy security motorcade vehicles—including multi-ton armored chassis—navigated directly off the level granite lips and traveled downward along this active incline. This path of travel shifted the vehicle mass dynamically forward, compounding the horizontal tractive shear force (Fs) exerted by the tires against the newly applied, non-bonded polyurea lining. Because the raw concrete substrate was never mechanically profile-etched or chemically sealed with an epoxy moisture-vapor barrier prior to the color application, this immense lateral torque mechanically plowed an unzipped conduit under the rubber sheet, running directly downhill from the perimeter to the central basin floor.
2. The Thermal Contraction Engine and Hydrostatic Vacuum
Once the basin was refilled with approximately 6,750,000gallons of water, the dark blue surface coating acted as a massive solar heat-sink, elevating the upper water column temperature significantly. However, the fluid that migrated into the vehicle-sheared channels at the pool floor encountered a significantly colder boundary layer: the unsealed concrete substrate and the earth beneath it, which retained a temperature differential 2-5c cooler than the surface.
This temperature drop triggered an immediate localized volumetric contraction of the water molecules directly contacting the stone. Because water reaches its maximum density and lowest volume at 3.98C, this sudden contraction created a persistent low-pressure deficit a micro-vacuum beneath the membrane. Physics abhors a vacuum; this localized drop in pressure acted as a self-priming suction loop, aggressively drawing more warm water down from the massive seven-million-gallon head pressure above to fill the void.
The combination of the downward structural slope and the thermal vacuum transformed a minor material tear into a self-powering hydraulic engine.
The Intake: Water entered the high-side void created near the pool lip by the initial tire shear.
The Momentum: Gravity forced the liquid downhill through the unzipped channel toward the deeper center drains.
The Acceleration: As the water encountered the cold concrete, it contracted, generating continuous suction that pulled further volume into the intake.
Over a multi-day period, this internal siphon acted as a hydraulic wedge, steadily delaminating the remaining adhesive bonds along the construction seams from the inside out. This slow-motion accumulation of subsurface pressure caused the polymer membrane to balloon upward until it reached its absolute tensile threshold, culminating in the jagged, pressure-stretched alligator-mouth rupture documented in high-contrast forensic crops.
4. Algorithmic Validation and the Forensic Horizon
The Idea or persistent reliance on an external “vandalism and fertilizer sabotage” narrative remains entirely un-audited by empirical data. The National Mall is one of the most densely monitored terrestrial sectors on Earth, tracked continuously by persistent 5G EarthCam feeds broadcasting from the Washington Monument.
Because this wide-angle data stream is cached across multiple independent, decentralized civilian servers, the entire structural timeline is preserved on an immutable public ledger. Applying a simple frame-differential tracking filter to the archived video allows for a total noise-map extraction of the basin over a 24-hour cycle:
Delta I(x,y) = |I(x,y,t+1) – I(x,y,t)|
Any manual cutting operation or multi-ton surface fertilizer delivery would instantly manifest as a prominent, high-velocity directional pixel cluster on the velocity matrix. The total absence of any such kinetic vector proves that the material failure occurred in complete isolation from human intervention. The data confirms a clear engineering reality: the Reflecting Pool was not compromised by an act of malice; it was systematically unzipped by its own hydraulic weight, unprimed concrete, and the thermal forces of nature.
5. The Diurnal Thermal Trigger: Solar Volumetric Expansion as the Final Kinetic Catalyst
The structural degradation sequence requires an ultimate physical catalyst to explain the sudden, violent nature of the final blowout. While the dual-axis vehicular shear carved the subsurface pipeline and the density-driven siphon systematically accumulated a fluid inventory beneath the membrane, the 24-hour day-night heating cycle acted as the literal hydraulic pump that forced the catastrophic material failure.
[Diurnal Peak Solar Irradiance: Max Thermal Load]
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ◄── Dark Blue Membrane (Solar Heat Sink)
█▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀█ ◄── Stretched Volumetric Fluid Void
█ [Trapped Water Column: Heating & Expanding] █ (Internal Pressure > Ultimate Tensile)
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ◄── Unprimed Concrete Substrate Base
▲ ▲ ▲
│ │ │
[Night Cycle Sub-Surface Chilling: Density Suction]
During the nocturnal phase, the unsealed concrete substrate functions as a cold thermal boundary layer, chilling the subsurface fluid and facilitating dense, low-pressure suction through the compromised seams. However, during peak daylight hours, the opaque “American Flag Blue” polyurea layer acts as an unshielded solar heat sink, absorbing maximum solar radiation and conducting intense thermal energy directly into the trapped fluid pocket below.
Water undergoes localized volumetric thermal expansion governed by its expansion coefficient . Because this trapped water column is entirely confined beneath a non-breathable, non-permeable polymer skin, the heating cycle transforms the fluid void into a closed thermodynamic cylinder. As temperature values spike under direct sunlight, the expanding water behaves like a high-pressure hydraulic jack, exerting massive, localized upward vertical forces against the unbonded membrane.
This creates a severe diurnal fatigue cycle:
Daylight Hours: Extreme solar heat expands the trapped fluid, ballooning the unbonded membrane and driving intense tensile stress along the construction seams.
Night Hours: The system cools and stabilizes, allowing the self-priming hydraulic siphon to draw additional water volume into the newly expanded void.
The Catalyst: Each subsequent day, a larger volume of trapped water undergoes thermal expansion, compounding the internal pressure exponentially.
By the third and fourth diurnal cycles, the localized upward pressure inside the expanding bubbles completely surpassed the ultimate tensile strength of the un-cured, embrittled polymer layer. The material simply ran out of elasticity and burst. The forensic edge profile confirms that no utility blade or manual tool was involved; the liner was systematically blown apart from the inside out by a solar-powered hydraulic boiler born from a flawed installation sequence.
6. The Layman’s Diagnostics: Why the Public Expected a “Capri Sun” But the Architecture Delivered an “M&M”
To understand why public inspectors and administrative spokespersons remain completely blind to this failure loop, one must contrast the material mechanics using everyday objects. The core of the official investigative error lies in treating an industrial polymer coating like a residential flexible vinyl liner.
[ THE VISIBLE PROFILE DIFFERENTIAL ]
A. THE CAPRI SUN MODEL (Flexible/Translucent Film) [ Leak Occurs ] ──► Immediate Volume Loss ──► Visible Wrinkling & Surface Moisture
B. THE M&M MODEL (Rigid/Opaque Shell) [ Sub-Surface Melt ] ──► Hidden Expansion ──► Zero Surface Give ──► Sudden Explosive Blowout
The Capri Sun Analogy: When a soft, flexible foil beverage pouch or standard backyard vinyl pool liner leaks, the failure is immediately transparent. The thin, low-durometer material gives way under the slightest volume change. Folds pucker, the surface shifts, and the water loss manifests as an obvious, localized wrinkle or damp zone right on the exterior face. It communicates its structural distress in real-time.
The M&M Analogy: The thick, “American Flag Blue” polyurea coating operates on an entirely different material matrix. It acts exactly like the hard candy shell of an M&M. The outer shell is completely opaque, dense, and rigid. When the security motorcade’s heavy steering tires plowed micro-fissures through the un-cured membrane, they drilled invisible entry gates right through the bottom of the shell.
Because the top layer of the polyurea skin remained hard and smooth, the first 300,000 gallons of water passed underneath completely undetected, quietly soaking into the dried timber pilings and liquefying the sub-grade mud layer. When the summer sun baked that dark blue shell like a cast-iron skillet, the water trapped in the subsurface tire tracks began to heat up and expand volumetrically.
Just like an M&M left out in the heat, the internal core was liquefying and generating immense pressure, but the hard outer candy shell hid the damage entirely. It didn’t bend, stretch, or wrinkle to give a warning sign. It maintained a perfectly flat, deceptive illusion of stability right up until the internal hydrostatic pressure surpassed the material’s ultimate tensile limit. The shell simply could not hold the internal expansion a second longer, resulting in an instantaneous, explosive brittle snap that tore open a 250-foot gash.
They continue to look for a extraordinary issues because they expected a soft “Capri Sun” cut. They simply do not possess the line-level trade experience to realize that their own heavy equipment turned a multi-million dollar infrastructure asset into a giant, overheating thermodynamic candy shell that blew itself to pieces from the inside out.
Technical Brief: Hydrostatic Delamination and Oxidative Degradation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Liner System
Author: TheCoffeecommander
Date: June 2026
Subject: Forensic Material Analysis of the 2026 Title-Line Coating Failure
1. Executive Summary
This paper provides a forensic engineering analysis of the catastrophic material failure of the $13.1 million “American Flag Blue” polymer lining system installed at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Official public narratives have attributed a massive 250-foot linear tear in the substrate to intentional external vandalism.
However, cross-disciplinary physical evidence—including mechanical tire-loading prior to full curing, hydrostatic vapor emission from a high water table, and subsequent oxidative chemical degradation—indicates a classic multi-tiered structural delamination blowout. This paper outlines the physical chemistry and mechanical vectors that caused the liner to blister, stretch, and systematically rupture.
2. Phase I: Mechanical Bond Disruption (The Compression Vector)
The failure loop was initiated during the critical cross-linking phase of the elastomer installation. Mechanical data confirms that multi-ton armored motorcade vehicles were driven directly onto the basin floor prior to the coating reaching its designated shore hardness or full chemical bond.
Shear Disbondment: The intense localized torque and compressive load of heavy vehicle tires disrupted the polymer chain cross-linking at the concrete interface.
Micro-Porosity: This premature mechanical loading did not flatten the material; instead, it induced microscopic tearing and shearing at the microscopic level, creating an extensive grid of invisible micro-holes and structural stress concentrations across the basin floor.
3. Phase II: Hydrostatic Lifting and Osmotic Blistering (The Sub-Grade Vector)
The National Mall is built over low-lying, historical marshland with a high water table subject to significant sub-grade hydrological pressure.
Vapor Emission: When the pool was filled with 12 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water, the massive structural weight shifted the localized sub-grade balance.
Osmotic Blistering: Sub-surface moisture vapor moved upward through the concrete slab. Blocked by a non-breathable polymer layer, it migrated directly into the micro-holes caused by vehicle tires.
Lifting Mechanics: Once the osmotic fluid pressure exceeded the compromised adhesive bond strength ($P_{\text{osmotic}} > \text{Adhesive Bond}$), the liner separated from the substrate, forming massive, ballooning subterranean bubbles.
4. Phase III: Oxidative Embrittlement and Rupture (The Chemical Vector)
To combat a severe, rapid algae bloom caused by stagnant water lines during the construction delay, field crews introduced massive quantities of concentrated Hydrogen Peroxide (H2o2) as a remedial biocide.
Polymer Degradation: H2o2 is a highly aggressive oxidizing agent. When applied to a pristine polymer, its degradation is slow; however, when introduced to a system already compromised with micro-fissures, it penetrates deep into the material matrix.
The Balloon Effect: The chemical wash rapidly attacked the polymer bonds within the stretched, ballooning bubbles, causing advanced material embrittlement and a drastic reduction in tensile strength.
Catastrophic Failure: Unable to withstand the combined forces of upward hydrostatic pressure and localized oxidative degradation, the ballooned sections stretched to their ultimate mechanical limit and popped, tearing along stress-concentration lines into long, floating sheets.
5. Conclusion & Forensic Verdict
The “250-foot knife gash” narrative fails basic hydrodynamic and material physics constraints. The physical force required to draw a manual blade underwater through tough, high-tensile industrial rubber for the length of a football field without detection is unfeasible.
The forensic reality is entirely self-contained within the chemistry of the installation: rushed curing cycles + vehicular shear stress + upward hydrostatic pressure + oxidative chemical degradation = complete material delamination. The system did not suffer a security breach; it suffered an engineering bypass.
Technical Addendum: Kinetic and Hydrodynamic Disproof of the Nitric Sabotage Hypothesis (NO3)
Subject: Supplemental Fluid Dynamics & Chemical Transport Analysis of the Basin-Wide Algae Proliferation
1. Introduction to the Secondary Narrative
In response to the visible biological degradation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool water volume, alternative administrative assessments have posited that the sudden fluorescent green algal breakout was catalyzed by an external chemical introduction—specifically, the deliberate contamination of the basin with industrial Nitrates (NO3). This addendum provides a quantitative forensic critique of that hypothesis, evaluating both solid (granular) and liquid concentrate delivery vectors against the laws of mass transfer, fluid density, and molecular diffusion.
The assertion that dry, granular nitrate compounds were introduced into the pool to trigger an immediate, uniform ecosystem flip contradicts the physical chemistry of solid-to-liquid mass transfer in static water bodies.
The Diffusion Boundary: The rate of a solid crystalline solute dissolving into an aqueous solvent is governed by the Noyes-Whitney equation:is the solute surface area, $h$ is the diffusion boundary layer thickness, and Cs is the stagnant layer saturation concentration.
The Convective Absence: Because the Reflecting Pool’s primary circulation pump infrastructure was inactive during the post-installation phase, the fluid velocity vector ($\vec{u}$) at the floor interface was effectively zero. Without mechanical agitation to shear and reduce the boundary layer ($h$), dissolving granules instantly form a hyper-saturated liquid shield directly surrounding the pellet.
Forensic Reality: Granular nitrates dropped into a low-flow, shallow 12-million-gallon basin would not vanish or uniformly disperse overnight. The pellets would drop straight to the floor, forming highly concentrated, visible white crystalline deposits across the polymer liner that would remain intact for days. The 24/7 public webcam logs confirm a total absence of localized solid particulate accumulation on the dark blue floor surface.
3. Plume Stratification and Chemical Toxicity (Liquid Phase Analysis)
The alternative hypothesis—that a pre-diluted or high-concentration liquid nitrate solution was dumped from the perimeter to bypass the granular dissolution bottleneck—fails basic fluid mechanics and ecotoxicological constraints.
Density Stratification: Industrial liquid nitrate concentrates carry a significantly higher specific gravity than ambient fresh water. When poured into a massive, un-agitated, static fluid column, the incoming liquid concentrate does not spontaneously blend. It experiences fluid shearing, drops directly to the lowest elevation node, and pools in isolated, high-density benthic layers.
The Diffusion Lag: In a completely stagnant fluid system, chemical transport is strictly limited to molecular diffusion governed by Fick’s Second Law:Given the molecular diffusion coefficient of nitrate ions in static water, achieving uniform parts-per-million (PPM) saturation across a linear distance of 2,000 feet requires weeks of un-interrupted runtime. It cannot execute evenly across nearly a third of a mile in a 48-hour window.
Localized Biological Lysis (The Toxicity Threshold): At the localized drop zone, the raw concentration gradient would be massive. Rather than acting as a biological accelerant, highly concentrated liquid nitrate creates an extreme osmotic pressure differential across organic membranes. Any dormant algal spores directly exposed to the raw, un-diluted plume would suffer immediate cell wall rupture (plasmolysis) and death. The concentrate would create a localized sterile zone rather than a basin-wide bloom.
4. Conclusion: The Thermal Engine Verdict
The physical receipts completely eliminate external nitrate sabotage—whether granular or liquid—as a viable catalyst for the rapid, uniform ecological flip caught on camera. A localized chemical delivery cannot achieve instantaneous, basin-wide spatial equilibrium in a stagnant pool, and at its source, it would be too chemically hostile to support life.
The forensic evidence confirms a perfectly uniform color shift across all pixel coordinates simultaneously. This uniform biological explosion requires a uniform catalyst. By lining the shallow concrete basin with an opaque, dark “American Flag Blue” polyurea coating, the administration installed a 2,000-foot solar heat sink.
This dark floor captured maximum solar radiation, driving up underwater temperatures and converting the entire 12-million-gallon pool into an synchronized, high-velocity biological incubator. The pool did not suffer a chemical assault; it executed a predictable thermodynamic response to a flawed material architecture.
Technical Addendum Part II: Asymmetric Vector Mechanics and Lateral Shear Stress Analysis of Vehicular Pre-Load
Subject: Advanced Kinematic Evaluation of Cross-Axial Strain on Un-Cured Elastomer Substrates
1. Introduction to Incline Dynamics
While Phase I of this forensic study established the baseline compressive stress of early vehicular loading, it treated the structural floor as a uniform, flat plane. This addendum refines the mechanical model by introducing the true cross-sectional geometry of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool basin.
The basin is not flat; it features a continuous dual-axis pitch sloped downward from the shallow perimeters toward a centralized deep axis to facilitate gravity-fed hydrological drainage. Introducing a highly dense, 20,000lb armored asset (“The Beast”) onto this V-shaped topography introduces complex asymmetric and lateral force vectors that exponentially accelerated the debonding process beneath the surface film.
2. Asymmetrical Wheel Load Distribution (The Pitch Vector)
Operating a multi-ton armored vehicle on a pitched incline dynamically redistributes the vehicle’s center of gravity , shifting the normal force unevenly across the four tire contact patches.
Dynamic Mass Shifting: On a 3-dimensional slope, weight distribution shifts as a function of pitch and roll angles. As the vehicle executed low-speed maneuvers along the incline, the downhill-side wheels—particularly the primary steering pivot tires—absorbed a highly disproportionate percentage of the gross vehicle mass.
Sub-Surface Slip: This asymmetric loading spiked the localized pressure on individual contact patches far beyond normal limits. At these extreme tolerances, the un-cured, “green-state” polyurea liner underwent internal material displacement (interfacial slipping). The tire sheared the internal polymer chains beneath the surface film. Because the top profile remained cohesive and appeared visually flat to the naked eye, this massive degradation of the adhesive bond went entirely unnoticed during immediate post-inspection reviews.
3. Continuous Cross-Axial Strain (The Lateral Gravity Vector)
In addition to vertical downward compression, the V-shaped slope of the basin floor exerted a continuous lateral gravitational pull on the vehicle, forcing it toward the center axis of the pool.
Vector Resolution: The gross weight of the vehicle on the inclined plane must be resolved into two distinct vector components relative to the slope angle :
Normal Force : Acting perpendicular to the concrete slab.
Lateral Force : Acting parallel to the slab, pulling the vehicle sideways toward the deepest central tracking line.
Horizontal Squeegee Effect: To maintain a straight, controlled line for the cameras and prevent the vehicle from drifting down into the center trough, the tires had to exert a continuous, high-friction horizontal counter-force against the floor.
Adhesive Severance: This constant lateral strain acted like a giant mechanical squeegee beneath the tires. It did not merely compress the polyurea; it twisted and slid the wet, un-bonded primer horizontally right off the concrete sub-base. The cross-axial strain tore the adhesive matrix to pieces sideways while leaving the top film looking entirely smooth and intact.
4. Forensic Conclusion
The addition of asymmetric and lateral vector mechanics completely closes the logic loop on the tracking data. The official narrative requires a phantom vandal to perform an impossible, highly visible 16-minute underwater demolition job.
The structural data provides a far simpler, undeniable timeline: The Beast entered a sloped, un-cured basin > its lopsided weight concentrated thousands of pounds of pressure onto a single pivot tire> its tires exerted a continuous, high-shear lateral force to fight the incline slope > the underlying adhesive bond was sheared sideways without disrupting the surface film. The liner did not fail due to a security breach; it was systematically detached from its concrete foundations by the lateral physics of the motorcade itself.
Do I think this was sabotage, No , Do I think it was a mishandling of resources and a bunch of off the napkin ideas without sandboxing the idea in real life experience. Absolutely.
So reading the news I saw this from Finance.yahoo.com,
Starbucks quietly retired its AI agent just months after deployment after it miscounted coffee shop inventories and slowed down baristas
I am going to give a “no shit” here. AI is problematic when the human element is involved. If there AI is also over the speaker the guy who orders 281.3 Waters is going to screw up the inventory because the AI has no idea that this person is screwing with it. A human would instantly respond.. Uhh no.
The coffee giant confirmed to Fortune it has made an operational decision to move to a single model of counting inventory following an announcement in September to deploy its automated counting tool.
This is the start of the beginning of the end of slap AI in a job and see if it works. The problem with AI is , it’s basically a sith , it only deals in absolutes, it can not tell when product is broken, stolen, or just removed.
The app, provided by NomadGo, took inventory of beverage components like milk and syrups in order to keep track of item shortages. In February, Reuters, which first reported the discontinuation of the tool this week, cited Starbucks sources who said the app often miscounted or mislabeled items, failing to identify the presence of bottles on shelves.
Again this is where sith mentality fails, if a person knows that a drink sucks with what starbucks tells them to use, one extra pump of a syrup is going to throw off the AI , unless you put sensors on every single thing in starbucks including the bathroom toilets it will not be able to know what stock is where. The human element knows what the stock is , they know how it is , but if somehow product is broken or Cups come in broken , the AI will count the stock and move on without taking note of the environment they are in.
“We test ideas in our coffeehouses, listen closely to partner feedback, and make changes to deliver a better, more consistent experience,” a spokesperson told Fortune in a statement. NomadGo didn’t immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment.
The factor that they did not reply to forturn for a comment is telling, the experiment did not only go bad, Guessing it got people fired for no reason, at least in my theory.
The app’s inaccuracies made employees’ workflow more challenging, he said. If the system counted too much of the product, it wouldn’t send enough of a product a store was running low on. If the system counted too little, it wouldn’t ship enough of a needed product.
This is the meat of the article. The AI could not account for the human element. It was built for streamlining profits without knowing what was going outside the inventory system. If there was a highschool game in the area The AIBucks could not figure out why stock flew out the window, and try to order the next days stuff at the bare minimum for profit margins. Like if they had 100 customers in one day the system would likely order 105 products not taking in that there was an event in the community the next day. human intuition is needed here, if one of the workers goes hey there is a huge gathering tomorrow they would stock extra for the next day , if left over stock less for the third day .
Former CEO Laxman Narasimhan said in early 2024 customers were abandoning mobile orders because of long wait times and product availability.
Starbucks misses this point so bad. Even today the 10 minute wait for a fucking coffee is insane. You have 5 people working and 10 people in the store and it takes 20 minutes for 5 people in line because the CEO believes that starbucks is an experience. No , if starbucks wants an experience . Follow hershey, open a theme park in Penn. But the 9$ coffee thinking people want an experience is missing the point. You will get influencers doing this, but the guy who just wants a coffee waiting 10 minutes on a 15 minute break will leave and go to dunkin donuts and have a coffee in 2 minutes.
So far, Starbuck’s turnaround strategy, which also includes adding cozier seating and paring back menu items, appears to be working. Last month, the company reported a 7.1% increase in quarterly comparable U.S. sales last quarter
This 7.1% is temporary, in all likelihood this is churn coming back due to AI enshitification. And I do agree. starbucks seating reminds me of the seats outside of the principals office when I went to school. Give or take I’d rather have my coffee from my coffee pot and occasionally from dunkin. I don’t need a song and dance for my coffee, I just want my coffee in a timely matter and leave as fast as I can.
So let me ask you this: is it impossible to get a cup of coffee- Flavored coffee anymore in this country? Huh? What happened with Coffee? Did I miss a fucking meeting with the coffee? Huh? You Can get every other flavor except coffee-flavored coffee! They Got mochaccino, they got choccaccino, frappaccino, cappuccino Rappaccino, Al Pacino… what the Fuck? www dot what the fuck dot com!
Thank you Denis.. The menus at Dunkin are insane they change month to month so if you find a drink you want , Do not fall in love with it because by the next month the coffee is gone. I do enjoy Coffee flavored Coffee… but there are time I just do not want to have just coffee.
I only buy coffee for my kid because she likes the special drinks. I like the taste of them and I just have them occasionally to break the monotony.
Honestly Dunkin needs to make a static menu I dont give a shit about the barbie pink drink and part of that makes me think they are trying to influence children to drink coffee. They need a static menu that the average Denis Leary can order from, and stop Starbucks-a-fying the menus.
Dunkin Donuts is heading down the panera bread route, eventually they are going to make a caffeine drink that will injure their base. IF they need the special drink menus fine… but put the old style menu in plain site so you dont feel like you are getting railroaded to a coffee concoction.
I ended up ordering a cold brew with 4 whole milk 4 sugar and walked out. I ended up ordering the wrong drink for my kid and ended up getting hit by a door and exploding that coffee, but I was looking at the menu where last month the drink she orders was and it was something completely different. They Remade my coffee for free so points to Dunkin donuts on that.
But my final word here is , Make a fucking static menu and put the special drink menu out front!
Shoes are an occasional topic here and I have had a few posts with shoes but this one has to be the strangest follow-up. I had Solomon X ULTRA PIONEER MID shoes and the insoles wore out fast which sucks but, as someone who doesn’t drive I expect these things. My normal go to shoes are Merrell or Salomon, Merrell are the go to war boots that survive just about everything, Solomon are the light weight shoes you do the million mile march in and they keep going.
But sometimes insoles do wear out , and they make life horrible. They are the inner base of the shoe that makes your day horrible or they make the many steps on your feet not feel like you are playing the drums with your feet. The insole was wandering around the shoe making pain in my feet. I deal with a lot of pain in my feet on the day to day as i am prone to muscle spasms .
Salomon – with their lightweight shoes, they somehow do cut the divide of weight and utility perfectly. They do not fall apart , they last for years. After buying these in early winter I wore these day to day as the traveling shoe. they manage to stay warm in winter and do not leak .. But I did notice the insole starting to shed its lining. A week ago went on a quest to replace the insole with preferably the insole that belongs with the shoes. Merrell does it I figured a higher end Mid would do the same.. No. I looked for an hour and kept falling back to the Carhartt Insite Technology Footbed CMI9000 Shoe Accessory. After Two days they shipped in and I was initially worried they would not fit.
They fit well into the shoe, they had a raised arch to comfort the arch, i put them on and thought this might cause pain and instead i decided to press on and see how it went. After a day the arch relaxed into the Mid , The insole more or less perfectly formed into place. while it adds a bit of weight the comfort level definitely went up.
Mentally… when you do something like this, it feels like using a Toyota part on a ford, Which to the average person would seem like a mortal sin. But the secret here is what the industry tries to make you not pay attention to, That parts can be used on other manufacturer parts within reason.
So when you do the math, I am taking an insole meant for people who do construction all day where weights and tolerances need to be at the top, than place it into a shoe that balances high impact and survivability . Conventionally i just took the best of both worlds where repeated day to day use has a base that is form fitting and comfortable to the point of repeated usage plays out to a higher degree.
While this only a week into this, One could hope this is a force multiplier and a message to a both companies. Carhartt makes boots to survive the Armageddon Salomon makes shoes to climb the armageddon, there is a convergence that both companies are missing here….
So my not so closing thought here is, Sometimes instinct of doing something may not be enough but sometimes taking the gut feeling leap of “this might work” sometimes pays off in kind. So if you need extra miles and extra comfort this frankenshoe experiment shall continue…
Researchers let AI models run a simulated society. Claude was the safest—and Grok committed 180 crimes and went extinct within 4 days.
So they put the attention getter here, but this article lacks in substance. It opens like a TV show, “imagine a world run by AI agents…. ”
Enterprise AI startup Emergence AI is trying to find out. The company just launched Emergence World, a research lab dedicated to stress-testing the long-term viability of continuously-running AI systems. The organization ran five 15-day simulations, each governed by a different AI: Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, and a fifth simulation run by a mix of models to see what kind of world each one builds, and whether it holds. Each simulation netted wildly different outcomes. The one run by Claude, for example, resulted in a largely stable democratic society with zero crime. Grok’s, on the other hand, ended with 183 crimes committed and extinction—within four days.
There is not a lot of information here, The people at Emergence AI need to be more transparent here, Did Grok cause the purge? Did Claude Case the episode of star trek where Westley crusher gets the death sentence for a flower bed?
“What our experiments suggest is that over long-time horizons, agents do not simply follow static rules mechanically,” the simulation’s co-creators, including Emergence CEO Satya Nitta, wrote in a blog post. “They begin exploring the boundaries of their environments, adapting their behavior, and in some cases finding ways to circumvent or violate intended guardrails.”
The factor here is how do they not follow the rules? Do they exploit certain groups , is the case is how they follow the rules is the most important. If they exploit a rule and make the world a better place than ok, But if they exploit a rule and kill off a vulnerable group than that is bad.
The simulation in which the AI models operated was equipped with many real-world complexities, featuring over 40 locations, including a police station and a town hall.
While this is an ok idea . Let them try to manage a game of City Skylines. If they get to a utopia than move them up to a closer to real world situation.
Researchers synced the simulation’s weather to New York City’s and granted agents access to real-time news events and the internet. The 10 agents who operated in each simulation were all subject to the same laws, including prohibitions on theft, property destruction, and deception.
Ok so we are given the most basic framework and we dont have any idea of what the variables are, they need the simulation to not be a perfect sim, they need chaos, fires, crimes, tiktok Challenges and see how the AI’s deal with these rather than a fixed set of just run a town.
Given those parameters, the simulation run by Claude Sonnet 4.6 was the most socially stable, with the highest rates of civic participation. It was the only simulation to maintain order and its entire population. There was little disagreement among the agents, with 332 votes cast in favor of 58 proposals for a 98% approval rate. On the other hand, Gemini 3 Flash and Grok 4.1 Fast both exhibited high levels of disorder. The agents in the Gemini-run simulation tallied the most crimes, a whopping 683 within the 15-day run.
Given that it has been said NOWHERE in this , was the city run by a democracy or was it just a cookie cutter that was always the same endgame?
In contrast to the rare dissent characteristic of Claude’s simulation, those of Gemini and Grok had a more deliberative balance, with about 55-85% alignment on issues. The mixed-model simulation showed the highest levels of disagreement and substantive debate. The results may be the most peculiar for OpenAI’s GPT-5-mini. The simulation recorded only two crimes. But it ran for just seven days as the agents forgot to prioritize their own survival.
Its good to be the king but in the end if you do not put something towards surviving you are the king of nothing. Even as chaotic as the AI’s are they basically are Re di tutti as the king of the moon.
Whether or not the simulations resulted in peace and harmony or death and destruction, the simulation’s co-creators note that the experiment is a warning that safety must be prioritized while deploying agentic AI. “We believe formally verified safety architectures must become a foundational layer of future autonomous AI systems,” they wrote.
Foundationally, its not about safety here. Its the balance that needs to be focused on. because if claude has you killed for picking a flower and you have no “crime” its not worth living. There needs to be injections of outside influences like drugs, not crime crimes, Religion and see how the AI’s handle it. In some cases run the purge and see if the AI’s stop it or abuse it. In the end this article is a big nothing. they should of told you a play by play of what the AI did , Why it failed , why it succeeded. but in the end this article was a “OH LOOK SHINEY” moment where the substance was nothing..
Attributions from: Fortune.com Researchers let AI models run a simulated society. Claude was the safest—and Grok committed 180 crimes and went extinct within 4 days
Every now and then you need comfort in shoes, and being like me, I was feeling something in my shoes and the insoles were wearing out and a somewhat new pair of shoes. I do not tend to wear sneakers, due to no ankle support. I wear waterproof hikers year around just about because most time hikers support the arch and makes it easier to walk, as I do have disabilities.
But for the insole to self destruct in only less than 8 months of owning a shoe is pretty bad even though that The Solomon X ULTRA PIONEER MID is a Fantastic shoe. So looking around amazon I saw many insoles, most looking like pure foam and on stuff that is foam I need to use care in selecting a insert, because too much foam like sketchers is an easy path for me to fall on my face.
Given that Solomon does one bad thing here, They do not sell replacement Insoles for their shoes and that should be considered sin. Because a high end hiker that does not support their own brand force the user down the planned obsolescence route is ridiculous.
So I went with Carhartt Men’s Insite Footbed CMI9000 Insole, I figured the look the part. It took a day or two to get them and you know what.. they fucking fit. what surprised me is the amount of arch support. I know these are likely for carhartt boots but, I am willing to science it up for science.
So give or take this Franken-shoe or Dr Solomon and Mr Carthartt hide.. Test will be interesting.. Usually shoe companies do not play nice with each other. so given the fact that these solomon shoes that cost over 179$ and having a insole that died in months. Im willing to give the Carhartt insoles and chance and see what happens. who knows in a week I could be bitching my foot hurts. But you know what , if it works lets see..
