Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMsspRbXMAATxOO?format=jpg&name=small

lol

We're about to get into a golden era of dramatic adaptations here of this kind of stuff -- Super Pumped started last night, The Dropout starts later this week, the WeWork one in a couple of weeks...

I think I'm going to watch some of them before I deem the era golden

https://www.theringer.com/tv/2022/2/25/22949799/super-pumped-showtime-dropout-hulu-wecrashed-apple-tv

xpost Well, gold-plated.

reminds me of the weekend when my friend's son was insisting part of an action figure was real gold because the packaging said that. it actually meant shiny gold paint

This is an amazing/terrifying concept: https://www.cana.com/

What do you think? I like the idea that you don't ship a bunch of water around the world. But I'm not loving the pay-per-drink business model. Maybe that's better than the standard printer model where you pay for all the colors when you run out of one of them.

No hot drinks at launch, which means no "tea, earl grey, hot" action.

wait... 3D printing wine?

I'm not buying it, Captain Picard

lol, it's like Juicero meets Theranos

Juiceranos

Also.. I mean, doesn't good wine have to go with the gravelly soil in the vineyard? Whisky that's been aged in a barrel for many years?

This sounds like a fucking scam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYIJzcxZXXo

recycles its cartridges for you. it gets up and walks to the curb and barfs out its trash? now i'm intrigued.

xps the materials say "a range of wines", nowhere do they claim to be "good"

(probably grape drink with vodka)

probably be handy on the ISS

I mean IN THEORY the barrel aging, the soil, the peat, is all just molecules, so IN THEORY it could replicate all that if it could be measured accurately in the first place. But I doubt it has been or that this is sophisticated enough to do that.

Looks completely worthless, thanks for sharing.

lol I thought this was the star trek thread at first because the season premiere of the Picard show does have him harvesting grapes and making wine

too bad that's not a Kickstarter, I'd like to see how many dummies are setting $300-700 on fire

automatic espresso machines aren't even good and all they have to do is grind beans, tamp them and push hot water through, they're not synthesizing Colombian crops

It’s not 3d printing anything afaict. It’s a sodastream.

That is connected to the internet and charges per drink.

https://i.imgur.com/8v8GTM8.mp4

what i am gleaning from this is that cock is welcome, and i think that’s nice

if this was actually real it would be fuckin cool as hell

They must be doing a marketing push today, saw a post from Simone Giertz (a usually awesome builder/maker Youtube person) about her role as a seed investor in the company. At least she didn't go down the NFT route.

I drink only NFTs now

I find it very hard to believe that isn't an outright scam.

"Yeah, it uses, um, molecules"

Like what the fuck is in that cartridge than can make merlot, coffee, lemonade & gin?

"molecules!" gimme a fucking break

kinda wanna poll the staff photos but maybe every snake oil startup has a gallery like this, i don’t browse enough of them to know

it's a sodastream. there are multiple cartridges.

each bursting with molecules

It's borderline Ali G. "Everyfing is made o moleules. So wha if me had all the kinds of molecules in one machine, me could make anyfing"

I mean, it's not wrong in a sense so broad it's being catcalled by a legion of dudes from Guys and Dolls

xp but I am proud of this terrible joke so I am posting it

i got yr drink right here
it's called the musk-ateer
and here's a guy that says ...

she is GETTING that emmy pic.twitter.com/wXo0aL1pte

— lucy (@heylucymay) April 8, 2022

that felt too uncomfortably real

It was a pretty good series. Waiting on the final episode of Super Pumped on Sunday (well, the final one of this season -- there's going to be a second focused on Facebook, in line with Mike Isaac's forthcoming book on same).

I have trouble imagining workers actually expressing enthusiasm for having that dude as a boss / leader. I've only seen the first episode of Super Pumped so far and I can understand the workers sitting around fucking off and getting paid, or doing their tasks in the background, but actually enthusiastically cheering for dude's speeches?

Yet we see it happen. WeWork was notorious for it, the “fuck you Carreyrou” chant at Theranos occurred, people do buy in. It’s goofy as hell but there ya go.

Once a company reaches a certain size, you get a number of employees where their role isn’t easily connected to what the company actually sells, and bizarre corporate sloganeering pops up. I think the majority of people at non-startups just kind of passively ignore it, but there are outliers who latch on to that internal marketing to justify their work lives

My impression is that startups, especially ones that don’t turn a profit, push that company culture bit a lot harder because the company doesn’t necessarily do anything yet!

i just wonder about the people who buy into it. the followers, as it were. otoh ... idk why i have trouble accepting this since Hitler and Trump but ... sometimes i have to be reminded

I think the majority of people at non-startups just kind of passively ignore it

yeah, this attitude I understand ... like, clerks at Walgreens don't seem really gung-ho about "Team Walgreens"

Companies regularly place more demands on their workers than even a good, conscientious worker can satisfy. I always figured if I delivered somewhere between 90% and 95% of 'perfection' I was not just earning my pay, but an excellent employee. I totally ignored the motivational hoo-hah and quietly met my own standards.

I totally ignored the motivational hoo-hah and quietly met my own standards.

Yup.

Well you're hardly going to get yourself a waffle party with that attitude, are you?

I feel better already.

;) I'm enjoying Severance