RPmaniac

The rumors relative to Lafayette connecting him with the red flag are denied by his friends in the most emphatic manner. It seems that he neither wreathed the red flag nor the red cap—le bonnet rouge. The poor General sits retired in his house, and weeps over the mournful end of the fête in which he again played a part, as he has done at most popular risings ever since the beginning of the Revolution, always strangely drawn into the popular movement, and with the best intention to keep the people by his presence from too great excesses. He is like the tutor* who accompanied his pupil to the bawdy-houses to see that he at least did not get drunk there; to the taverns, to keep him from gambling; to the gambling houses, to guard him from dueling; but when a duel was unavoidable—why then the good old gentleman served as his second. *"Er gleicht dem Hofmeister." The French version adds— "de ma connaissance." —Translator.

("French Affairs," trans. Charles Godfrey Leland)

Heine is responding to reports of a mysterious figure who is alleged to have raised a red banner embroidered with "Liberty or Death" at Lamarque's funeral on June 5, 1832. Given Lafayette's international outlook, it seems only fitting that after dodging so many assassination attempts, he should utterly be pinned by a German.

Companies are scrambling to stop employees from maxing out AI budgets with small tasks

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/companies-are-scrambling-to-stop-employees-from-maxing-out-ai-budgets-with-small-tasks/ar-AA26sMVl

And:

Companies want workers to stop using so much AI

The plan by the tech bros was to ingrain learned helplessness with basic tasks and then start charging like hell for every token. Companies who ordered people to start using AI for stupid shit are now paying the price for that.

Basically, Mr grifter announced that he might be getting into the collecting side of yugioh, which would lead to the scalping hell that now plagues the Pokémon and One Piece TCGs

As a joke, MBTYugioh gave them pointers on what to “invest in”, recommending some of the WORST shit products that this game released in the years

He then followed up with a tongue-in-cheek, clearly trolling video recommending shit like Legendary Duelists sets, Duelist of Deep and Synchro Storm, and the Platinum cards, and exclusive COINS before ending the video with “Don’t invest in yugioh. You will lose money due to this game’s reprint policies”

Like, it was very obvious for anyone with half-a-brain cell and is familiar with Yugioh that the video is a joke

BUT a bunch of scalping bots took the video at face value and bought out these doodoo, worthless products immediately after his fuckass video came out

"Yes, poor people must always fight against the rich to get a little justice."

There is one issue with this whole thing and that is: none of these things that tech bros are advertising are actually inconvenient, and in most cases they're the exact opposite.

Setting up apple pay (in my experience) is a hassle, and is a security vulnerability (the more companies directly connected to your bank, the more likely it is to get hacked), all for what? So you can take 3 less seconds taking out and swiping/inserting a card?

Untangling wired headphones? A hassle sure. Not as much of a hassle as losing only one ear pod, or one ear pod consistently dying faster than the other, or pairing issues, or worse sound quality at a higher price because it's wireless. How is any of that more convenient? It's like the same amount of convenience

Or how about siri and google always missing hearing what you say? Censoring swears despite being an adult? Going off when you don't say it's name?

Having algorithms currate your own feed leading to echo chambers, and radicalization pipelines, and making it harder to find the stuff you want,with yts new horrible search algorithm etc etc

None of these are more convenient, they're the same amount or worse. But guess what? They make money. So they're sold as convenient.

[My Asks box is open for Questions and Art Requests! Please go fill it up, I’ve just finished Uni so need some ideas for doodles. Anon is on too, if you’re shy!]

"On that day, the eighth of June, so many people thronged ot the morge that there was as long a queue formed as when "Robert le Diable" is to be given at the Opera. I had to wait an hour ere I could enter, and so had time enough to look at that melancholy building, which looks like agreat pile of stones. I do not know what is the meaning of the yellow tablet of wood with a blue centre like a Brazilian cockade, which hangs before the door*. The number of the house is twenty-one. It was sad enough when within to see how anxiously some people looked at the corspes, seeking what they feared to find. There were indeed two agonising scenes. A boy found his dead brother, and stood silent in grief, as if rooted to the spot. A young girl discovered her dead lover, screamed, and swooned. As I knew her, I had the sad task to carry the poor disconsolate creature home. She was employed in a magasin de modes in my neighborhood, where eight young ladies are employed, all of whom are républicaines. Their lovers are all young republicans. I am in this establishment the only Royalist." *I believe that this indicates a hospital, or that the place is under civic sanitary control —Translator.

(Trans. Charles Godfrey Leland)

Robert le Diable is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer and Eugène Scribe, which Heine apparently did not like very much, if his poem "Ja freilich du bist mein Ideal" is to be believed. It was a sensation at the time for its thrilling plot, featuring pacts with the devil and a ballet of sinful ghostly nuns.

As for the people Heine encounters — I wonder if anyone has tried to potray them as characters from Les Miserables before, in art or writing. Who could they be: Gavroche and Eponine's brothers? A sibling of one of the other Amis? Muschietta? Bahorel's mysterious laughing mistress, bereft of mirth? There are numerous possibilities.