Logbook: Random
Kiwibank Learns the Streisand Effect: For Once, Scotland Is Off the Hook
For the first time since the Act of Union in 1707, Scotland is officially off the hook and I’m writing about sheep shagging, That’s a hell of a combo. A Bank has learned the hard way that the Streisand effect is a real and detrimental thing.
Kiwibank says it wants to ‘protect others from harmful content’, but for every lustful post killed by a legal threat, another 10 take its place.
Kiwibank in a case of running no focus groups nor even researching historical considerations have run themselves face first into a a sheep.. specifically a “sexy” sheep. Kiwibank in there new advertising wanted to come up with a new tagline for their ads and made their sheep a little too… “sexy” for some and as expected the masses of the internet replied and replied fast and hard about their attraction for said mascot.
Kiwibank has not learned the most important lesson of the internet, If you keep trying to hide it the internet will keep posting it. This has gone as far as a mention on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Kiwibank trying to use DMCA type takedowns on sheep.
as Kiwibank tries hard to lock up their new mascot unfortunately for them they are now a permanent Meme in the space of the internet.
Sure, their campaign may be reinvigorating New Zealand’s reputation as a nation of sheep shaggers. But for these posters, it’s worth incurring reputational damage to defeat, or at least roundly mock, a legal endeavour to suppress what are, for the vast majority of them, jokes. Come join us in posting about wanting to fuck Buck, they say. It may be weird, but the cause is righteous, so let your shame fall to the floor like so much sexy hair tumbling from a sheep’s head.
Given that the spinoff is right here. Kiwibank has an out on this and they could ride the peak of this humor and actually gain product recognition and laugh it off instead they are going to be known as sheepshagger bank if they keep it up. As long as they do not post another commercial with the sheep with a ukulele they could ride the humor into the sunset and this would of been forgotten in no time. Kmart knows how to do advertising with “ship my pants” and ” Big gas prices” Kiwibank should call them and do something.
Attributions from:
The Spinoff NZ – Kiwibank is desperately trying to stop people saying they want to fuck its sheep mascot
The High Cost of a 25-Cent Tantrum, Why Coldstuff Ice Cream Broke the Golden Retail Rule
A Cold Stuff Iced cream manager figured out that the customer is not always right. He started his business in August and after dealing with customers for months he finally posted what he was thinking and it is something corporate managers should pay attention to.
Coldstuff Ice Cream, owned by brothers Dave and Kevin Miller, just opened in August. But they told WBZ-TV they had enough after a customer was unkind and disrespectful to a 16-year-old worker over a 25-cent price discrepancy.
Dave and Kevin took to Facebook after an incident over 25 cents took place. Given that it was 25 cents you could of asked nicely and got an answer and instead this person likely took offence and yelled at a high schooler over a quarter.
More than 275,000 people have liked the post as of Wednesday morning and it’s been shared over 8,000 times. “This can all be fixed with a smile and a positive attitude. It’s ice cream for crying out loud. Grow up and act your age,” the shop wrote, adding in the comments, “And NOBODY gives a s— if you don’t come back. We’d prefer it that way.”
Dave and Kev have a point here, for decades there has been one mantra in businesses that has been a major loss leader for businesses and common decency.
The customer is always right! Which if that were the case no store would ever be able to stay open but corporate stores even went as far as having actors that could be fired at will, Marshall Fields had professional “fired men” to which the manager would berate and fire them for a lack of care and send the man packing, meanwhile in the back he would just go back out and do his thing and be fired again when the next loud customer came through.
The brothers were worried about backlash at first, but they’ve received thousands of supportive comments and even a bump in business. “I wish I had a boss that had my back when I was a screw up of a teenager at my first job,” one person wrote. “Looks like a trip to Massachusetts for some ice cream is in order,” another said.
If you really think about it, you are not just costing the store money by being loud and yelling until you get your way, the cost is kind of astounding to be honest. If we assign a value to time such as the Massachusetts Min wage and use that for our baseline. You spend 10 minutes yelling at some poor 16 year old trying his or her hand at their first job, The 10 minutes over 25 cents costed you an astounding $2.51 if you are a family of 4 you are Now up to $10.04 for your ten minutes, if you gets get stressed out and they go to bed an hour later add another 60$ to that, If you go to bed later than that add another 30$. for your ten minutes it just had a cost of $100.04, You go to bed and 3 of you wake up an hour late the next morning add another 45$, we are barely 12 hours past the inception of yelling over a quarter and you are up to $145.04 in personal costs.
You next in a bad mood decide to rush through your work that day and you don’t know that your district manager is there you end up costing yourself a possible premotion. The domino for a single quarter is astounding when you start thinking if you just simply took two minutes to ask “hey the price is off by a quarter, what is up with that?” .
Business owners should have a sign that says “if you have a bad attitude or generally act entitled we reserve the right to ask you to leave” . it would solve so much bullshit. Dave and Kevin deserve a medal here, Backing your employees who are entering the workforce will have lasting effects on these kids. Customers can make or break a first time worker in retail because of how much that customers are willing to yell and berate people.
If I had a store, I’d have a fee to file a complaint at Min Wage with a sign that says “money for complaint fees are used in worker training”. I bet the store would have next to zero complaints and it would give a solid rebuttal on review sites. Customer: Rant! Business: This person never let us know they had a problem and here is the video of the incident. I would make sure the customer got a receipt and have the worker have a tick box that asked do you understand the policy on the wall on the window and would you like a 1 time compliance or a 1 year compliance with our policies. Given that over register cameras have facial recognition it would show that the person agreed and you would have almost Zero PII to get hacked other than a face No card, No id’s needed, just a Face to go with the complaint.
While stores are always going to have problems, save the complaints for when they are valid, being served a coffee with soured milk for example, I have gotten a few of them in my life and its gross. But when it comes to small problems being proportional to the issue goes far. While I was not civilized when I got my 5th soured Milk coffee over 2 months from a business and they said it was not their problem I ended to being a bit uncivilized. I ended up throwing the coffee opened on the outside window of the establishment not to break the window but as a show of if you are going to be a jerk I can be a jerk. the payload of my coffee was a brownish window with white chunky bits all over the window after it being claimed it was my issue that the coffee was bad. This was before the time of Major on line review sites, But boy did it gain the managers attention when it was realized what I was served and it was slowly slipping down the window. The manager wholeheartedly apologized and I did as well… in the end the manager gave me a gift card and I helped clean down his window.
When the retail space is mobbed with adults screaming over fractional things, real health hazards like spoiled milk get brushed off as ‘not our problem.’ A functional store helps a customer actually has curdled chunks in their cup, both sides can fix it, clean the glass, and move on.
CBS news – Massachusetts ice cream shop goes viral for profane Facebook post defending teen employees
Unexplained bulge has CBP flighty.
A man in a Miami airport seemed to want to achieve unheard of levels of flight by having a big bulge. No, he was not happy to see you. Nor did he have an idea to build a new thing called tweeter.
A would-be smuggler at Miami International Airport was caught with his pants down but not out on Sunday after he allegedly tried to smuggle 10 live birds in his underwear, according to PEOPLE. Alberto Hernandez Castillo, a Cuban native who’s a legal permanent resident of the United States, was apprehended after a flight from Cuba to Miami. He faces charges of smuggling goods – specifically eight yellow-faced Grassquits and two Blue Grosbeaks – and was released on a $25,000 US bond after appearing in Miami federal court, and will return on Oct. 26.
Al was giving the birds a trip along with a pecker which they probably thought was a large worm. Our would be smuggler really put some thoughts into the metaphor of “birds of a feather.”
Birds found in taped plastic tubes
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers allegedly found the birds in taped plastic tubes hidden inside black pockets sewn into his underwear.
CBP officers then noticed an “unexplained bulge” on the front of his pelvis/waist area and said he “appeared nervous.” The complaint alleges that, after being taken to a secure inspection area, a pat-down revealed the concealment of “six cylindrical clear plastic containers, each wrapped in tape and some with black mesh material affixed near the openings.”
The birds along were found along with possibly a large cock due to the actions of the CBP.
Hernandez Castillo alleged the birds were for his “personal use” before he used his right to remain silent.
As much as AL wanted to be like Soaring wings represent liberation and breaking away from limits. Unfortunately for AL the CBP was the early bird here and as much as AL wanted to Spread his wings the CBP clipped them.
Attributions from:
Toronto Sun – Unexplained bulge’ allegedly was 10 birds in man’s underwear at Miami Airport
Student brings coffee to class gets suspended.. Teachers left wanting coffee.
Some coffee news… A student brought a coffee to school to class on the first day of school only to get suspended from a new policy not known to many
Julie , a senior at Beaver River Central School in Castorland, N.Y., told WWNY that she was stopped by a teacher as she attempted to bring a coffee drink to the first day of school Sept. 3. Kaputa said she was surprised to learn the school had adopted a new policy on outside food and beverages without notifying the public.. Julie, an honor student, was handed an in-school suspension (ISS) for violating a new Code of Conduct regulation that sought to “create a safe, instruction-focused environment for all students.” She accused the Lewis County school district of illegally changing its policy with no public hearing at the school board’s last meeting in August.
In a case of the the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing the School Board makes new rule, forgets to put it on paper and wonders why they end up in the news. When schools enforce rules they often never go after the students that don’t care. they will just walk past admin with the coffee. So they target mild mannered students and wonder why these students in the end rebel against school policy.
“Julie was put in ISS today for refusing to dump out a ‘banned beverage’ (a latte from moving mountains). I was called down to the school,” Mary Anne wrote on Facebook.
“Meeting minutes from both July and August (where the code may have been discussed) were never published to the website until today when I pointed it out to the District Office, and the district office had no record of a public hearing being conducted,” she continued. “I am certain that the school can not enforce a substantial change to the code of conduct without a public hearing.”
This here is going to run that school board into legal issues. The its a rule because I said so never ends up well. Because at that point this is running into multiple walls at once. First since its unwritten these students can run the malicious compliance on staff. “Dump your coffee its against policy. I’m a teacher it doesn’t say that. Show me! uhhh… Well you say the policy is policy and it doesn’t specifically name students or teachers so NOCOFFEEFORYOU!” That will be the dialog line going down the school tries to punish for insubordination and it will end up in the news.
Secondly, For the ADA students and they have a sugar crash and the school nurse might be over 10 minutes away and the student end up in the hospital over a drink policy it wont well.
I think there should be a sound policy about drinks, Not a bad but common sense. If there is a problem with the plastic cups that are from take out .. Sure put a policy in place and have admin at school with closed drink containers for 10$ . It helps everyone.
On Thursday, Beaver River Central School District Superintendent Todd Green said updates to the Code of Conduct are posted publicly prior to the August Board of Education meeting where proposed changes are discussed and voted on following public comments.
But if the COC was a result of those meetings were never posted those rules are not rules they are suggestions until formalized by vote. Mr. Green says they were posted.. but where were they posted in the middle of the woods by the 3 oak trees under a rock.. Yes its posted but good luck finding them .
“Recently, an attentive community member brought a procedural technicality to our attention on the very first day of school. While our annual review process mirrors a public hearing in practice, we acknowledge the advance notice did not explicitly contain the phrase ‘Public Hearing,’ and that the public may not have realized they were entitled to speak on the Code of Conduct before action was taken by the board,” Green wrote in a letter to the community.
How to fail at failing. They have made so many mistakes here and they wonder when the news picks up on them over policy that was not posted, Not a publicized meeting, ignores ADA , and policy that is Closer in agency to banning dihydrogen Monoxide in a ironic blast from the past. Again a closed container policy should be in place here and if teachers or admin get all worried ask the students to open the container if they suspect drink tampering is a common sense policy.
According to the New York Post, the new Code of Conduct, which applies to BRCSD middle school and high school students, added a policy barring Food from Outside Vendors. Green told WWNY that the rule aims to promote a safe and distraction-free learning environment.
In a case of stupid rule writing here, The school dept just banned all food, It banned biting nails, Short of shoving a cow and a garden planter in your locker it bans ALL FOOD. The Dept forgets that school lunch is an outside vendor, this is not the 1900 anymore where lunch was made inhouse. So I guess back to eating lead paint and asbestos. Teacher opens a sugar packet.. Call the school dept. Teacher has food in their car .. Call the school department… Principal has crumbs on his tie .. Call the school department. Cannibalism and booger eating is officially compliant. DON’T CALL THE SCHOOL DEPARTMENT!
“The following food and drink guidelines help minimize distractions, protect students with food allergies, and promote a calm, equitable school experience,” the 2026-2027 policy states. “Students arriving with drinks or food will be asked to finish them before entering school.”
This policy is so badly written that a student with a big gulp now will end up in the rest room 5 times trying to urinate 64oz of soda and become a maximum distraction. The student that finishes their Starbucks coffee is not jittering all over the place. The diabetic that uses the drink to keep their sugar stable through the day is now a distraction because s/he is passed out on the floor and class is stopped because a EMS unit is working on them.
“Our family has always promoted transparency in government and proper representation of the people,” Julie wrote on Facebook.” This new policy was overly broad, unenforcible, and open to wide interpretation and inconsistent implementation, which is how abuse of power has always started throughout history. I would hope that this encourages students to pay attention to local politics, read documents before signing them, and get curious about their civic rights and responsibilities.”
Student Julie here is spot on and should be commended for her comments. However the school will likely point out she is against policy and call her insubordinate. However, She will thank the school for giving her pretty much a guarantee of school of choice when she submits this as part of her college entry letter!
Attributions from:
syracuse.com – Upstate NY high school student suspended for bringing coffee to class
From the WTF did I just read files – Senator Claims Many Pilots, Flight Attendants Are Furries
I can’t believe I have to write about this.. but.
Well shit. Furries are flying now… wouldn’t that make them… Featheries? Hell if this new manufactured panic is real the senator could just call immigrants from Ohio and this shit will clean it self up? I mean hell based on what people think about furries they would be attracted to the Cock pit. Perhaps a litterbox is needed, Oh wait those are in classrooms supposedly.
But for fucks sake, If you are going to do this show us a single picture. because I have a few questions depend on your point of view if 2 furries are the problem out of 3,472,394,793 pilots and the subjective use of the word “many” this is the most horseshit fake moral panic ever. What pilots do in their free time is what they do in their free time, I don’t give a shit unless they don’t have a pilots license. Only than we can panic.
Attributions from:
Newsweek – Tommy Tuberville Claims ‘Many’ Pilots, Flight Attendants Are Furries (Drew Curtis just likely threw his bourbon at his Fark server and deleted the politics tab again. )
Writing prompt III: There and back again by Coffee Commander..
The longest trip I’ve taken was the best and worst. I happened to take a flight where the airliner never got to the runway.. The plane spent over 3 hours on the tarmac and delayed getting to the next leg of the flight to Philadelphia. When I got to philly I missed my connection, this is where things go from aggravating to bad.
US airways redirected me from a direct flight to CDG airport in France. The problem was they could not find pilots for the flight. so after hours of delay they finally find some pilots. The pilots got on the plane after a delay and as we were taxiing the pilot announces that they are returning to the gate because they had too many flight hours. Back to the gate we go, Defeated and hungry.
I did not know US airways screwed up my itinerary while they did redirect me towards Europe they made a mistake on the computers, They had my paper routing set to Orlando rather than Arlanda somehow the US airways employee fat fingered my location. So if we review my flight plan, It was supposed to be BOS to PHI to ARN , Somehow US airways had me from BOS to PHI to CDG to MCO to ARN?
To this point I had spent 1.5 – 2 hours – Logan Airport ,5 hours – broken plane out of gate – philidelphia airport inside of plane, 45 minutes – 1 hour – attempt #2 at taking off Philadelphia airport illegal flight crew., 5 hours – inside gate 22(?) at airport finding new crew.
to this point we’d been past the gates, with most amenities closed, me starving and other passengers in the same state we had asked for food, the flight attendants gave us a lavish meal of a Soda and a package of pretzels to which I still have to this day.
After getting off the flight and entering paris airport. from all the delays from the start of the flight I tried to find any help possible for my next flight because the connection time was only less 15 minutes(or passed by 15 mins) or so to Stockholm , so finding that the plane leaves from gate 7(?) again across an entire airport.
While I headed across this airport I realized that the setup of the airport is a horrible horrible setup. The airport was very hard to navigate your way through to get to your next location . figuring that I am already 24 hours overdue to my receiving friends I figured that I should reach out to them, I grabbed my phone out of the carry on and Tried to dial *dead* tried again *dead*. I did not know at that the time but T-mobile messed up and set another phone on the account for international travel and my phone to receive international calls. I put the phone away and hoped i would catch the flight and figured worst case I would figure out what to do in Stockholm. I ran to the gate across the cavernous airport with the people mover treadmills and got to my gate and to my dismay the flight was not listed. I found an english speaking person and asked about the flight and it had left an hour beforehand.
Defeated, I decided to make my way to the US airways ticket booth.. and there I realised I won my next prize, they were closed and would not be open till monday a full 24 hours till the booth opened. I managed to spend all of my time in the airport with a few excursions into france because I was bored out of my mind. Given I had not slept, I knew if I sat down I would pass out and I was still analyzing the situation to figure out what to do . I did eventually sit down and my carry-on with on me but not attached to me. There is nothing like waking up with guns in your face asking about your luggage. Given I was scared, Lost, Exhausted I kept trying to do my best not to piss off another country. The problem was every time I fell asleep I would wake up with some very attentive military types. Given it was their third visit and me not having a cigarette in over 2 days I noticed one of them had a pack on them, I gave them a short explanation to my plight and they seemed to take compassion in it. They said hold on and actually brought me out a door that I was not supposed to be out and let me smoke one of their cigarettes.
The Charles De Gaulle Airport security guys were amped but actually very nice. I joked with them where I might end up next. Due to having my bag strapped to my shoulder so long it had actually caused it to bleed fairly bad and I was starting to look like Bruce Willis in die hard. The next twenty four hours had me in a haze. The next morning I was actually able to have the breakfast of champions which was two Heinekens and a basket of rolls .
My next discovery in the airport was the internet kiosk, after my breakfast of the gods, I had some euro coin and it was enough to get on the computer for 10 minutes and cost 15 euros. I loaded up every session possible of Connected messengers, and at the time offline messages were not a thing. And I watched the time count down in desperation for ANYONE to log in. As I watched the time remaining drop into the sub two minute range, A good friend logged in and my typing WPM was likely 400 because I typed an entire book to my friend which was something like “Hey I am at the wrong airport , my flights were diverted my phone doesnt work my card locked up when trying to get money , Call my mother tell her i am fine . tell my mother to call my father and tell him that i am stuck in CDG airport. Contact US embassy please help, US Airways trying to divert me to MCO ” at the 30 second mark my friend said “ok” and I watched my connection die.
Happy I had made a hello world from the wrong part of the world gave me a bit of reserve. I went back to my area I was sitting and listening and hoping someone would find me. Not realizing the whole time over the PA they were calling my name and I was not paying attention to local dialect. My name is pronounced differently in france and suddenly my gun toting friends found me in the airport and they brought me to US airways booth. Now that part of things I had people I had hope and the first thing that the US airways desk agent says is “do you realize that you have a flight to MCO Orlando, at that point I said why on earth would I come to france and divert to orlando when my destination was Arlanda !” The desk agent made a call and what I could see in his hurried voice over the phone turning to abject terror realizing what exactly was happening.
The Desk agent suddenly was a flurry of calls, they routed a call to the US to my parents to say I was alive. My mother was freaking out, I told them to call my father instead, I gave him the story and he said he’d call back. They gave him the number to the desk. after a short bit Mr Gate agent’s phone rang, I knew he was talking about me and looking at me. Little did I realize that US officials got involved, I was shifted to the Pilots lounge. I had a celebratory rum and coke and just marvelled how fucked up US airways was. My Cell phone rang, it was my father saying he straightened things out and had help from US gov. Sipping away at my rum and coke and finally relaxing, Mr Gate agent comes in and says I cant stay in the lounge, I finish my Rum and coke and they finally have me routed to ARN through germany, I tested my debit card on mcdonalds and to say the least it was a completely different experience than USA. When they called me on the plane , they set me up in first class, which is an experience in itself.
The flight attendants treated me like royalty and honestly at the point I did not care, because I was getting closer to my destination. After another switch and window seats to which I love I saw my first glimpse of Sweden and realized the beginning of the beginning of my Journey was nearing its end.
Landing in ARN Stockholm.. getting off the plane and going to the belt to get my luggage I watched everyone’s luggage go around the belt. Ten pieces turned into 8 pieces that drew down to nothing left on the belt. I left the belt area to go to the US airways booth to be told my luggage was not there so I was left with a month to go no clothing to go through my trip , my stuff in my luggage was somewhere else. The irony here, My luggage took a different journey, BOS -PHI- CDG- NYC – MCO – PHI – ARN it came three weeks into my trip to which point I welcomed my luggage like an old friend and laughed that someone from ARN drove 3 hours to bring it to me.
Honestly, The trip was the best in my life, I had Friends, food , Surströmming(yes that one, No it was not bad, It was prepared by a chef), Beer, Swedish Culture, Walking around sweden give you an idea of how big and small the world is all at the same time and how Sweden’s Culture of Lagom is something to aspire to..
Enshitification of Shrinkflation- Brought to you buy Gatorade.
So I was at the market, and I went to get some Propel packets. I noticed that the box has changed and that struck me as odd, and I looked at the packaging. They decided to shrink the package and make the product less useful.
The left package is the new package. The right is the package the old.
Here’s the thing they are priced more expensive for less product.
They jacked the price and made less product. they made it look like you were getting more in the individual packet by making them larger. But if you look at what they did they removed stabilizers so the shelf life is less . By Reducing it to 8 packets you lose 20% of the Product.
So thank you Gatorade for making me give you some haterade and making your product more shitty. Hype up on Vit b and enshitify the rest.
Attributions
My Local store
Gatorade – Making stuff Cheap shit because someone wanted to save a dime.
Propel Water -I thought this stuff was supposed to be Zero Calories…
So an update: the new formulation tastes like salt. So at this point Propel is salt water now..
Judge Beats Off Prosecutor in Gamble inflatable member case against local pd.
Fairhope Municipal Judge Haymes Snedeker acquitted Renea Gamble Wednesday of all remaining misdemeanor charges stemming from her decision to wear a inflatable 7-foot penis costume at an anti-Trump “No Kings” protest in October 2025.
From the website Courthouse News Service a Big dick was acquitted from doing hard time. Renea Gamble Faced a judge and was threatened with hard time when the judge dropped 7 changes of Ms Gamble of being a dick.
Gamble walked out of the courtroom after three hours of testimony cleared of any wrongdoing, but her attorney said her arrest was traumatizing and she may consider legal recourse.
She is not dicking around here, but in the future if you are treated like a hard and stroked violently, She should act and get legal recourse. Gamble, a retired sign language interpreter who is used to hard things and giving tactile messages with her hands.
Body camera footage that went viral showed Fairhope police zeroing in on Gamble’s inflated member. The arresting officer, The officer who complained that the erect person was causing a scene in a family friendly town. When Gamble refused to tuck away her member, things got physical: officers took the 62-year-old huge member to the ground and cuffed her, struggling comically to detumescence her and stuff the oversized erection into a squad car.
City prosecutor Marcus McDowell said it wasn’t a free speech case but argued “no one has a Constitutional right to be dicking around as an engorged member. ” Paraphrased for the “hard” statement it is.
In the end Municipal Judge Haymes Snedeker wasn’t convinced of making the gamble of giving hard time to Ms Gamble..
Mary Kay Smith was outside speaking of how rough handling of erect members should not be arrested for free speech.
We live in wild times.. Back to my coffee after the spit take of this.
We are seeing the .com Bust and the Gold Rush playing out in real time.
Some mornings I take a peek at the news and I just read up on things while I wait for my coffee, and one article caught my attention.
Struggling shoe retailer Allbirds makes bizarre pivot to AI, adds $127 million in value
Shoes to …AI ? Did I read that right. Yes I did . The first thing that came to mind was SouthPark. than The 1990s.
A Business pivots so hard that even a contortionist goes damn!
Give or take right now, AI is “hot” but, it’s as hot as running a building full of graphics cards with a failing cooling system. The thing is ALLBIRDS reads as a master class of failure. They make shoes, The shoes become popular. Allbirds leverages itself that they are the Steve Jobs of shoes and don’t read the room. Two years out they are sputtering and failing and have not become the next reebok or nike. They come up with a “brilliant” plan , They sell off all of their assets and jump on the AI train. ALLBIRD than renames themselves to NEWBIRD AI. Sure sure they likely wanted to create an image like they were a phoenix reborn from the ashes of their old company. But they missed out .. ALLbird to AIBIRD (which would of been perfect. like the mimicry of a parrot?). They could of adjusted there merch with a sharpie at that point.
But here’s the thing. A shoe maker has a soft fail, they could of sold off all of the assets that was shippable. Clearance out the shoes, Leverage out the lower markets and find out if the non tech-bro market liked the shoes and pivot there. Less risk than buying the AI lottery ticket. The fact they exited the shoe market at 39 million means they were not cratored.
They have Zero experience in the AI market. They have nothing other than cash to invest, Than they spoke the word they are going to invest an AI and than the venture vultures came. There market cap climbed to 148m . The funny thing is this is all speculative. like the .com bubble. Everyone is jumping in. NEWBIRD AI doesn’t even have land yet, they need to get in line for AI infrastructure, they need to find land that will not overwhelm local infrastructure. So right now they are selling their vision on a feverdream that by the time it comes to realization may be gone.
If ALLBIRD was a tech startup and they had some revolutionary code to help AI this would be a viable path but in the end, this is a shoe company that is buying a shovel from NVidia and trying to be the next big thing when the shovel is a kids play shovel and other companies are using construction machines in the AI market with very small to negative returns.
One last thing, “Stockholders are also asked to approve a charter amendment to remove the company’s environmental conservation public benefit and to authorize a plan of dissolution the Board could implement within 12 months.” Talk about the Theoretical take away from this. live in good nature and ecology than, setting your customer base on fire pissing on the fire and walking away from your mission statement.
For Allbird, They could of paired down the back stock . Sent shoes to influencers , built a brand on tiktok with a close enough reproduction , Kept there ecologically sounding mission statement, built an entire sector off of sephora girls and won big off of “vibes”.
The worst part of all of this, is this is an AI adjacent, that needed to talk about no technology and honestly the fucktons of money thrown at nothing. New Bird AI might be the Futures New Turd AI.
update: You know its bad when Voidzilla enters the conversation….
The problem with chronic Pain and Pain scales.
As a pain scale , they are amazing things. they measure the amount of pain you are in the given moment. The problem is the pain scale is great if you fall off a house and go yes this pain is at a 9. But as a chronic pain sufferer, What does a 9 mean ? is that 3 more than your baseline? is it 9 more than your baseline. When you ask a doctor about it you get , Just tell me what it feels like. but when you live at a 6 in pain, and can tolerate a 10 what do you tell your doctor?
More times than not if I have injured myself my pain tolerance is epic, I have taken 24 needles to the legs while holding a conversation with a medical student. My figure is i have a rare condition this is the guys one chance to see a zebra for once and give him any knowledge i have. I even tell the student, My tolerances are higher than you can imagine. While i watch people wait for a nurse and scream their head off as a nurse goes by i find it a waste of time. I internalize my pain, I use every bit of concentration not to scream, and at times it does not work in my favor. You get a doctor that thinks he’s god, he will every time send you away with two Tylenol and a note in the system as “poss seeker”
Although … I’ve had my moments. Told the doctor my pain was at 9.5 , he said you don’t seem to have anything wrong . 4 hours later and the ER tried to wait me out , I forced my hand and asked for an x-ray. the funny part was getting the X-ray tech running off and than coming back with the doc and him going . shit it is broken!
But the scale that is on the wall is horseshit. 1 to 9 . with no arbitrary idea of where to start and end. I think there should be two scales. One scale for the mean pain , your chronic pain, your menstrual pain, your general pain. THan the scale on the wall
because if you are having a 6 day on your mean scale and on the other pain scale you are having an 8 . than put your end number at 14. so , 6 1 2 3 4 5 8 vs, Just 6 . So on a day where you are already at 9 , even a 4 on current charges is overwhelming. if my tolerance can go to 10 it does not mean i am functional at 10 , the Pain debt past 10 gets overwhelming quick. Can i function past 10 yes. Can i function at 20 .. no . but at a collective 15 it’s like walking around with a dead weight the size of yourself.
Both Scales should be there. that way a doctor gets a better baseline. If you are at a 2 mean and add a 7 for the wall scale , you can likely get away with a large dose of Motrin. but if you are at 5 and stack a 7 on it Motrin is like trying to put out a fire with pocket sand.
To a person with chronic pain life is like a flywheel that keeps us going. it may be a little out of balance, but the more out of balance it is when we have a critical failure like a fall . That flywheel might be putting us so far out of bounds that adding new weight to it (pain) we are in the worst state possible from a small weight (pain) .
So when I am in the hospital looking normal, sometime i have that coffee to my lips to keep me from screaming. I’d rather use that energy to divert to enjoying the coffee rather than throwing it in angry because I feel like something is killing me.
So on a day you see me sitting more than normal with a coffee and I’m not saying much . It’s not because I have a little to say , It’s because I am trying to keep centered and not trying to scream.