Random Chat, Thoughts, Posts, and/or Rants Thread

[Fox]

Years ago, when I lived in Ukraine, I visited Chernobyl. As part of the tour, you stop on the way at the Duga radar installation. It was an extremely large secret radar system used by the Soviets. About 150 meters / 500 feet tall off the ground.

This creates an obvious problem - how can you have a secret radar base that you can see like 10km away. So what they did was they called it a "kids summer camp" and they put a big cartoon bear on the entrance. Of course, if you were a local and asked too many questions about this obvious BS story - you were taken away to disappear somewhere.

I remember thinking, "Wow, it must have been wild to live in a time when everything was such an obvious lie or total propaganda". Yet here we are in 2024 and we see even high levels of propaganda every day in most mainstream news sources.

They expect you not to question the most obvious facts you can observe around you. And instead "simply skip breakfast" or some other nonsense. Being able to just see reality as it is is probably one of the most overlooked skills right now.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” ― George Orwell, 1984

 

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[MitchC]

View attachment 54230

Years ago, when I lived in Ukraine, I visited Chernobyl. As part of the tour, you stop on the way at the Duga radar installation. It was an extremely large secret radar system used by the Soviets. About 150 meters / 500 feet in the area.

This creates an obvious problem - how can you have a secret radar base that you can see like 10km away. So what they did was they called it a "kids summer camp" and they put a big cartoon bear on the entrance. Of course, if you were a local and asked too many questions about this obvious BS story - you were taken away to disappear somewhere.

I remember thinking, "Wow, it must have been wild to live in a time when everything was such an obvious lie or total propaganda. Yet here we are in 2024 and we see even high levels of propaganda every day in most mainstream news sources.

They expect you not to question the most obvious facts you can observe around you. And instead "simply skip breakfast" or some other nonsense. Being able to just see reality as it is is probably one of the most overlooked skills right now.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” ― George Orwell, 1984

There’s a story I like about someone from USA criticising a Chinese person because their news is all fake an propaganda.

The Chinese person replies, yes, but at least we know our news is fake, no one believes it. The only difference with your news is you believe it’s real.

Here’s a personal favourite “news article” of mine recently

Growing your own food is bad for the environment

 

[OMDA]

View attachment 54230

Years ago, when I lived in Ukraine, I visited Chernobyl. As part of the tour, you stop on the way at the Duga radar installation. It was an extremely large secret radar system used by the Soviets. About 150 meters / 500 feet in the area.

This creates an obvious problem - how can you have a secret radar base that you can see like 10km away. So what they did was they called it a "kids summer camp" and they put a big cartoon bear on the entrance. Of course, if you were a local and asked too many questions about this obvious BS story - you were taken away to disappear somewhere.

I remember thinking, "Wow, it must have been wild to live in a time when everything was such an obvious lie or total propaganda. Yet here we are in 2024 and we see even high levels of propaganda every day in most mainstream news sources.

They expect you not to question the most obvious facts you can observe around you. And instead "simply skip breakfast" or some other nonsense. Being able to just see reality as it is is probably one of the most overlooked skills right now.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” ― George Orwell, 1984

Duga/Chernobyl was quite the trip. Very interesting standing in the control rooms for that radar where they showed the US missiles they were looking for, coming over the horizon.

There’s a story I like about someone from USA criticising a Chinese person because their news is all fake an propaganda.

The Chinese person replies, yes, but at least we know our news is fake, no one believes it. The only difference with your news is you believe it’s real.

Here’s a personal favourite “news article” of mine recently

Growing your own food is bad for the environment
View attachment 54233

Growing your own food is bad for the environment though! The environment of someone else controlling your food supply, telling you what you have to eat, where you are allowed to go...

 

[Fox]

Duga/Chernobyl was quite the trip. Very interesting standing in the control rooms for that radar where they showed the US missiles they were looking for, coming over the horizon.

View attachment 54234View attachment 54235View attachment 54236View attachment 54237





Growing your own food is bad for the environment though! The environment of someone else controlling your food supply, telling you what you have to eat, where you are allowed to go...

Nice!

I wanted to climb it but of course on the official tour you can't. I have seen some cool videos of people who got to the top.

 

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[rpeck90]

Our 15 year old was on work experience for a couple of weeks, with me.

Week 1 he was building a few Google Ads campaigns and then went through my Google Sheets courses. He was quite chuffed with himself when his formulae joined two sentences together.

Week 2 we went into an agency in Dublin where I know the owner. They rent desks in Workspace offices right in the center of Dublin. Cue Daniel learning what it means to commute through traffic.

View attachment 54225


This week is school mid-term so I got him into the County Local Enterprise Office where I chatted with a business advisor about a business idea I had to train up local youngsters to help local businesses. I got interesting feedback and it was great to include Daniel in a meeting.

While we were there I asked the receptionist if we could get a tour of the local startup incubation center afterwards, which she loved doing.

And today I got him a tour of the Google offices in Dublin. All I did was post to LinkedIn asking how to arrange it and a few people were tagged. I DM'd those tagged and one generously helped out.

View attachment 54226

I publicly thanked Gavin here:

Andy Black on LinkedIn: Massive thanks to Gavin Eiffe for taking time out of his day to take… | 14 comments

Massive thanks to Gavin Eiffe for taking time out of his day to take Daniel (15) on a super informative tour of the Google offices in Dublin today. Daniel's… | 14 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

For me, one of the biggest benefits of having a business is using it as a vehicle to help and mentor my kids.

Oh, and a takeaway for you is to ask.
People love to help, especially those getting started.

It's ironic how this post alone (to me at least) is FAR more persuasive than the majority of "copy" that's out there - well done for giving your son one of the greatest lessons we all need, which is that if you're ambitious enough, and engage your unembarrassable shield, you'd be surprised at how far persistence & a good attitude can take you.

Of course, it doesn't make things easier, especially at the higher levels, but he's undoubtedly learned a lot more than being the "tea boy" for the week at some random business. Good on you, Andy.

 

[rpeck90]

Yo Google Ads are insane.

I got 3 customers in the last 24 hours thanks to @MaximOntheRoad helping me out.
I think the last few website changes to improve loading times gave finally made the site viable.

Now I am scrambling to find time to fulfill everything.

I've been watching your call thread (have been continually meaning to join the call but the time is a little awkward for me) and I am extremely impressed at your consistency. Having not engaged with you personally, I don't know what you're like one-to-one, but, as far as I can see, you're making all of the right moves.

You're currently in the "hustle" phase of building a business, which is where you try tons of things, fail at most of them, and find "the one" that becomes your focus. To see you persisting & trying things at your age & without worrying about what people think is insane. You're making excellent progress. And, yes, I've done similar things. I tried doing cookies, I tried selling natural cosmetics door-to-door, local marketing and a number of others... all of them failed but when it came to computers & software, that was different.

Also, to give some perspective - these sorts of "breakthrough" events are what makes the entrepreneurial journey work; you'll try a bunch of things and then "something" will click. When it does, you elevate to a new level, using the experience you gained to provide the means to do it again if needed. This is how you grow and it's incredible to see you starting to see results for the hard work you've put forward thus far.

 

[Andy Black]

Yo Google Ads are insane.

I got 3 customers in the last 24 hours thanks to @MaximOntheRoad helping me out.
I think the last few website changes to improve loading times gave finally made the site viable.

Now I am scrambling to find time to fulfill everything.

Now you're going to ask yourself what took you so long to try them.

Well done Maxim.

 

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[Andy Black]

It's ironic how this post alone (to me at least) is FAR more persuasive than the majority of "copy" that's out there - well done for giving your son one of the greatest lessons we all need, which is that if you're ambitious enough, and engage your unembarrassable shield, you'd be surprised at how far persistence & a good attitude can take you.

Of course, it doesn't make things easier, especially at the higher levels, but he's undoubtedly learned a lot more than being the "tea boy" for the week at some random business. Good on you, Andy.

Funny you say that. The LinkedIn post yesterday got more engagement than my usual posts. It's more in line with how people post updates to social media platforms, but with the twist that I'm thanking someone and shining the spotlight on them, and that it's not about me.

I had thought of posting what I wrote here in the forum with the takeaway for folks being to ask for help. Shame we can't embed multiple images into posts on LinkedIn. I'll figure something out, and thank the other agency that gave Daniel a bit of work experience.

Thanks for the feedback. You've definitely got me rethinking what I'm doing on LinkedIn at least.

 

[rpeck90]

Funny you say that. The LinkedIn post yesterday got more engagement than my usual posts. It's more in line with how people post updates to social media platforms, but with the twist that I'm thanking someone and shining the spotlight on them, and that it's not about me.

I had thought of posting what I wrote here in the forum with the takeaway for folks being to ask for help. Shame we can't embed multiple images into posts on LinkedIn. I'll figure something out, and thank the other agency that gave Daniel a bit of work experience.

Thanks for the feedback. You've definitely got me rethinking what I'm doing on LinkedIn at least.

Your son wasn't the important thing - for me, it was that the post was authentic & real.

It showed what can be done with a bit of ingenuity and seeking ways to help people. By helping your son, you managed to increase your own network & experiences. That's far more powerful than cookie-cutter content nobody cares about (I don't know what type of content you publish but most LinkedIn content is BS).

One of the things I did when thinking about sorting out my own company was to choose a tagline. The tagline I chose was "be part of something bigger". I think that applies here - do interesting things, share what you learned from them and sprinkle that into the wider set of experiences you have. The result is you'll start attracting people who appreciate the deeper level aspect of what you're doing, which is what the above post did.

The difficult part is it cannot be forced, so I doubt you could strategize for it!

 

[Subsonic]

I've been watching your call thread (have been continually meaning to join the call but the time is a little awkward for me) and I am extremely impressed at your consistency. Having not engaged with you personally, I don't know what you're like one-to-one, but, as far as I can see, you're making all of the right moves.

You're currently in the "hustle" phase of building a business, which is where you try tons of things, fail at most of them, and find "the one" that becomes your focus. To see you persisting & trying things at your age & without worrying about what people think is insane. You're making excellent progress. And, yes, I've done similar things. I tried doing cookies, I tried selling natural cosmetics door-to-door, local marketing and a number of others... all of them failed but when it came to computers & software, that was different.

Also, to give some perspective - these sorts of "breakthrough" events are what makes the entrepreneurial journey work; you'll try a bunch of things and then "something" will click. When it does, you elevate to a new level, using the experience you gained to provide the means to do it again if needed. This is how you grow and it's incredible to see you starting to see results for the hard work you've put forward thus far.

Thanks for writing this.

Seeing others believe in me means a lot to me.

 

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[Andy Black]

Your son wasn't the important thing - for me, it was that the post was authentic & real.

It showed what can be done with a bit of ingenuity and seeking ways to help people. By helping your son, you managed to increase your own network & experiences. That's far more powerful than cookie-cutter content nobody cares about (I don't know what type of content you publish but most LinkedIn content is BS).

One of the things I did when thinking about sorting out my own company was to choose a tagline. The tagline I chose was "be part of something bigger". I think that applies here - do interesting things, share what you learned from them and sprinkle that into the wider set of experiences you have. The result is you'll start attracting people who appreciate the deeper level aspect of what you're doing, which is what the above post did.

The difficult part is it cannot be forced, so I doubt you could strategize for it!

Thanks for this @rpeck90

My takeaways:

1) While the post was about who I helped (my son in this case), it does more to showcase my own values and willingness/ability to help others.

2) It's much more authentic than posting content formatted how the LinkedIn influencers recommend (define your avatar, have a hook, have a CTA, use open loops, format so bullets get shorter, blah blah.)

Actually, whenever I see a copywriter posting how to create LinkedIn posts then I tell the algorithm to not show me their content. I just follow one or two who talk about video content because I like their little tips.

3) Don't value-vomit. People go to social media platforms and forums for a break, not to read your essay.

4) It can't be forced, but I do think it can be replicated. Don't follow the content marketing formula for starters. Instead, post content that people want to support, encourage, and share - not just content to educate them and try to get them to hire you.

Sprinkle into that content what you do and why. Have your bio and profile page explain what you do, so when people hear about someone who's struggling with XYZ they go "Oh, I know a guy who does XYZ. He's sound. I'm happy to refer you to him."


This is the conclusion I arrived at a couple of weeks ago:

HOT! - EXECUTION - Figuring Out LinkedIn

I spent a couple of weeks last year posting daily short videos to YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and a Facebook page. I got more views on TikTok and YouTube, but business came via LinkedIn (a €3k/mth consulting client) and Facebook (a €250/mth productised service client). I started posting daily...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

And this is an example of the content I've been posting:

Andy Black on LinkedIn: Someone asked how to price their services when just getting started. For…

Someone asked how to price their services when just getting started. For context, they help businesses automate tasks. Here was my reply: My favourite piece…

www.linkedin.com

Oh, and this was the simple post last week that got us into Google this week:

 

[Andy Black]

I wish I had a large twitter following so I could shit on Shopifys UI designers and have someone listen

I want to fly to their offices and punch them in their stupid over paid wfh diversity hire heads

Why the F*ck are they making the back end of Shopify harder to use, more confusing, and take more clicks to do anything

These are tools millions of people use daily, they need to work and be usable, they don’t need to be pretty

Stop moving shit for the sake of it

Does my F*cking head in how retarded can you be to not think about how something might be used and your entire job is UI design

Thanks for coming to my ted talk

Do it on LinkedIn. While you're at it, can you please include Google in your rant. The interface is different from one region to the next, and even between different clients in the same region. Like wtf?!? Trying to navigate the interface is like playing whack-a-mole.

 

[Lex DeVille]

AI made this for me in about a minute based on my text prompt. Reminds me of Dall-E before it was good enough to use (which wasnt long ago)

View attachment Gen-2 2773931359, Little girl swinging, M 5.mp4

View attachment Gen-2 3725859767, A dark silhouette of, M 5.mp4

 

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[MitchC]

Do it on LinkedIn. While you're at it, can you please include Google in your rant. The interface is different from one region to the next, and even between different clients in the same region. Like wtf?!? Trying to navigate the interface is like playing whack-a-mole.

Google was included in the rant originally actually

 

[AceVentures]

AI made this for me in about a minute based on my text prompt. Reminds me of Dall-E before it was good enough to use (which wasnt long ago)

View attachment 54248

View attachment 54247

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1758192957386342435

View: https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1758192957386342435

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Just another hypocrite pushing a socialist/woke agenda through WAPO and then moves to Florida to avoid taxes.

What a dickhead.

What not live with the policies you promote Jeff, huh?

 

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[Andy Black]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1758192957386342435

View: https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1758192957386342435

I'll see your Twitter and raise you a LinkedIn:

Steven Bartlett on LinkedIn: As a content creator, I feel like a passenger on the Titanic right now… | 569 comments

As a content creator, I feel like a passenger on the Titanic right now. The video below was made entirely (no editing) by ChatGPT's new TEXT to VIDEO tool… | 569 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

 

[MTF]

AI made this for me in about a minute based on my text prompt. Reminds me of Dall-E before it was good enough to use (which wasnt long ago)

View attachment 54248

View attachment 54247

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1758192957386342435

View: https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1758192957386342435

Look at the demos here:

Sora: Creating video from text

openai.com

That's just F*cking nuts!

Not long ago I was thinking that I would love to create my own animated movie but it was impossible to do it without a huge team and millions of dollars. Once this gets ready, I'd be able to do everything myself (write a script, turn it into animated scenes, get an AI voiceover).

 

[Ing]

I like Alex Becker.
Here he tells how to get rich with AI (a bit satiric)

View: https://youtu.be/7pSYfK5MQnU?si=_Uaw37DWq9RigBHr

 

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[Kak]

@MJ DeMarco you're going to love this. I know you're O'Leary's biggest fan. Check out this sage advice on getting rich.

Kevin O'Leary on LinkedIn: Costs have skyrocketed since the pandemic, specifically around housing… | 116 comments

Costs have skyrocketed since the pandemic, specifically around housing, food and energy. People are getting squeezed and finding relief in credit cards. It’s a… | 116 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

 

[Bounce Back]

Just another hypocrite pushing a socialist/woke agenda through WAPO and then moves to Florida to avoid taxes.

What a dickhead.

What not live with the policies you promote Jeff, huh?

View attachment 54249

Note the phrasing too "If you lower taxes, they will come" - I get that it is a joke but this is another leftist catechism - that anywhere not taxing their citizens/businesses to death is a dirty "tax haven" being sketchy. While FL eliminates some taxes its not that the ones that attracted him were "lowered" - they never existed! No gimmicks needed.

 

[Bounce Back]

Haven't touched wordpress in a decade - all I can say is my first taste of a purchased theme based on elementor and elementor itself is that it is hot garbage (strong bias here as a dev). Wiping the entire site after a few frustrating days and moving on to bricks now.

 

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[MTF]

Haven't touched wordpress in a decade - all I can say is my first taste of a purchased theme based on elementor and elementor itself is that it is hot garbage (strong bias here as a dev). Wiping the entire site after a few frustrating days and moving on to bricks now.

Try Kadence and your life will never be the same.

Elementor is terrible indeed.

 

[constant]

Try Kadence and your life will never be the same.

Elementor is terrible indeed.

What does Kadence do better?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Not a very good start for the Vision Pro.

I wouldn't wear the thing if it was $200.

Apple fans are starting to return their Vision Pros

That 14-day return window is fast approaching.

www.theverge.com

 

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[MTF]

What does Kadence do better?

Looks way nicer, more intuitive, extremely customizable, fast, much better drag & drop experience. Elementor feels like software from the 90s compared to Kadence.

 

[amp0193]

Once this gets ready, I'd be able to do everything myself (write a script, turn it into animated scenes, get an AI voiceover).

Give it another few years, and then you won't even need to do any of that yourself.

Just put your AI Content Manager in charge, and it'll coordinate all of that for you.

Barriers to entry getting lower and lower. We are going to have to dig deeper to find moats for our businesses.

 

[Absar]

Not a very good start for the Vision Pro.

I wouldn't wear the thing if it was $200.

Apple fans are starting to return their Vision Pros

That 14-day return window is fast approaching.

www.theverge.com

The idea of people walking with their headsets on their head on the streets in a few years sounds wild

 

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[rpeck90]

What does Kadence do better?

Kadence keeps everything inside the theme & Gutenberg, making it super fast and simple to change/edit.

I worked on several Wordpress builds which used it last year - Welcome To County Clare | County Clare, Ireland and Luxury Irish Designed Products | John Hanly & Co.

I also built a Kadence child theme which integrates deep into the theme, allowing for things such as adding custom "dynamic content" options and various other things: GitHub - flutils/pcfixes-kadence-child: PCFixes.com Kadence Wordpress Child Theme

The child theme is not documented yet but it basically integrates Redux Framework into the backend, into which I am able to add different inputs, which can then hook into Kadence via various hooks/filters: -






If you wanted to use it, you're welcome to let me know and I'll explain how it works - it significantly improves the backend extensibility of basic Kadence.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Try Kadence and your life will never be the same.

Elementor is terrible indeed.

Why is Elementor terrible? I’ve never found something as fast when it comes to making changes/new pages quickly.

Indeed, technically speaking, Elementor is highly bloated and badly designed. Slow to load. But its speed of use is as far as I’ve noticed unmatched. I would never use something different atm, because what matters to me most is making changes and iterations as fast as possible.

The slow to load issues can be handled though — run my website through page insights, you’ll see I have under 1s loading time on desktop, and 80%+ score on mobile.

The only thing I haven’t yet figured out is how to decrease that LCP score on mobile due to the background image of the hero area. I’ve tried preloading, obviously setting it to avoid lazy loading, etc. Nothing has really worked. Ofc I could remove it on mobilr, but I’d rather not lol