Grace Dean, Insider:

Many consumers are thinking carefully about how they spend every dollar, with some cutting back on visits to quick-service restaurants, as executives told investors on a series of earnings calls last week. To win penny-pinching customers back, some say they’re planning smaller price increases for the rest of the year.

Several fast-food chains described a gloomy outlook. The chief financial officer of Wendy’s, Gunther Plosch, told investors on Thursday that consumers were “still under pressure” — especially those with household incomes under $75,000. “They are reducing frequency, so visitation is down,” he said.

Chains raised prices drastically during the pandemic to offset rising labor and food costs, and it’s coming back to bite them. Some diners are cutting back, saying fast food is too expensive and no longer represents good value.

OK, so…the headline of this article is…

Fast-food chains are getting the message about soaring prices

And one of the first statements is…

To win penny-pinching customers back, some say they’re planning smaller price increases for the rest of the year.

So your plan to win back customers who dislike how high prices have become is to…

…continue to raise prices.

More slowly, but still. Raise.

Are we all that dumb? Number cannot forever go up. Number can drop. Number can stay maybe. But Number does not always go up.

Lower your prices, provide a better experience for employees and customers alike, and people will flock to your restaurants.

“Oh, our profits aren’t high enough!”, you’ll cry. But profits you’ll still have. And in this economy, that is your win.

James Gunn on Threads:

Get ready. Superman 7.11.25 @dcofficial … The above photo was taken on set by Jess Miglio and was entirely in-camera.

Here we go, folks. After what feels like ages of hype and excitement, the first fruit of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Comics movie universe has been revealed, as we get a look at David Corenswet (The Politician) as Kal-El/Clark/Superman.

I’ve attached the image to this post, and I have to say: I really like the vibe here.

After what feels like ages of Hollywood looking at Superman and having only the creatively bankrupt idea of “What If Superman was…evil?!” as if it were a new, original thought, to see a more…mundane version of Superman is kind of wild.

You can practically hear the sigh, as he remembers that his job isn’t done, he’s gotta go back to work, pull on the boots, and face down evil and terror once again.

It’s humanizing, something that is so easily forgotten about who Superman is as a character.

Given that James Gunn made a world care about a talking raccoon and a tree, I feel like that his version of the Last Son of Krypton will speak to us all. Finally.

Superman hits theaters on July 11, 2025.

Germain Lussier, Gizmodo:

io9 is honored to exclusively debut a brand new poster for Godzilla Minus One by Phantom City Creative. Released by Bottleneck Gallery and Ish, it’ll go on sale Friday, May 3 at noon ET at this site. Capturing Godzilla in a cloud of fire, the poster comes in three different editions, all 24 x 36 inch screenprints.

Godzilla Minus One was one of my favorites of 2023, and this poster is absolutely stunning. I’ve featured the black-and-white variant in my post here, and if you want to see all three versions, head to the source link above.

Should you be interested, hit this link on Friday, May 3, 2024 at Noon Eastern.

Luke Plunkett, Aftermath:

Remember how in February publisher Take-Two–who, thanks to Grand Theft Auto, have more money than you or I could ever conceive–had no current layoff plans, then two months later went out and laid off 600 people? We’ve learned today via Bloomberg that among those 600 people are everyone at two of the company’s studios: Intercept Games (Kerbal Space Program 2) and Roll7, which are both being closed.

While it’s still unclear what the future will hold for Kerbal Space Program 2–a game that hasn’t had the best time since launching last year, but will apparently still be receiving “updates”–I had a particular fondness for Roll7, a studio that was only bought by Take-Two in 2021! It had been around in some form since 2008, and in that time had developed a ton of very cool video games, from the side-scrolling skateboarding series OlliOlli to rollerskate murder simulator Rollerdrome to the much-expanded OlliOlli World.

This absolutely sucks. The OlliOlli games – along with Rollerdrome – are some of the most fun, polished, unique and engaging experiences I’ve had in gaming over the last few years, and now, because they were acquired just 3 years ago, and Number Must Go Up, this talent team is being gutted, drawn and quartered.

Going beyond official recognition, I also honestly believe the OlliOlli titles are some of the best skateboarding games ever made, and that the studio should be applauded for the work they put into making their games look amazing as well; Roll7 games had such a unique and vibrant style that in a previous life I wrote art features on both OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome in the same year.

But now two entire studios are toast, all because a company with revenue in the billions woke up one day and decided it didn’t need to keep them around anymore. And why would they, when all they really care about is shaking people down for spare change every second minute they’re playing Grand Theft Auto Online or NBA 2K.

And that’s the point. What’s the line in Mad Max: Fury Road? “Do not, my friends become addicted to water, it will take hold of you and you will resent its absence.”

These super studios are so massive, and so dependent upon the recurring DLC revenue of live service games and its ilk, that they’re cutting themselves down to just those sorts of titles. Much like the drum I keep beating about movies, we’re fast approaching in gaming the place that the movie industry has arrived in: you get two games now – the massive AAA blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto VI or Assassin’s Creed: This Years Location and Era or the stunning, quirky indie successes, like Vampire Survivors or Balatro.

The last two weeks, I’ve found myself immersed in the gaming of the 90’s and 00’s, thanks to Delta on my phone and the Miyoo Mini+ I just got in the mail. You know what’s great about those games? They’re simple. The gameplay is the focus. You don’t need to buy DLC. The experience is contained.

I may be Old Man Yelling At Cloud here, but game studios – seriously – lower the production values, up the actual value for the customer. There’s a reason why so many years on, the Nintendo Switch was outselling the new gen systems.

In the meantime: I hope the Roll7 team lands as well as they can, and should they decide to re-form and start a Kickstarter for their next project, I’m there Day One.

Barry Petchesky, Defector:

For I am a baby gamer: I do not wish to be unduly or excessively challenged by video games. I wish to die a maximum of, let's say five times before beating a boss or passing a section. I wish to have fun, and I do not find it fun to be frustrated. That happens enough in real life for me to want to experience it in my free time too. In games, I want to see the entire package, and appreciate the developers' work from start to finish. I want to revel in transversal or combat or exploration or physics or plot—and I want it to be easy to see and do it all.

I can hear you now. Skill issue. Damn right it's a skill issue! I am a grown man who until the pandemic had not played games since the Nintendo 64, outside of some dorm-room Madden sessions. I suck at this! Do not think I am ashamed of it. Once, I was a capital-G Gamer. I mastered landing on the carrier in Top Gun. I played TMNT's dam level until I beat it. As a kid, I happily put in the hours necessary. As an adult, I do not have the time to git gud, as the youth say. I respect a game that respects my time.

Perhaps even more important than a lack of time is a lack of inclination: I do not obtain satisfaction from overcoming a video game challenge. Memorizing enemy attack patterns, or mastering my own fast-twitch reflexes does not give me a sense of accomplishment. If it does for you, that's fine, but I promise you I feel no less fulfilled for having beaten Tunic with damage turned off.

Goddamn, I felt this post with my soul.

As a holy shit I’m almost forty year old, I’ve done my time in the trenches, but some of the most fun I’ve had with gaming in recent years are with the games that I’ve played on Easy. Or even Very Easy!

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor? They tell me the gameplay is a Souls-Like, but I like the power fantasy of wrecking peoples shit with Jedi powers. I turn that sucker onto Easy (or whatever fancy name they give it), and I’m slicing troopers up with lightsabers, tossing aliens around with the Force, and I feel awesome.

Spider-Man 2? I get to enjoy the story and explore NYC without stress, as I have all of the power, and less of the responsibility.

Hell, my dirty secret of the last week is that I’ve been putting a lot of time into some old GBA favorites from the Metroid and Castlevania franchises via Delta, and you bet your ass I’ve got GameShark / Action Replay codes on.

But there are some games that I’d love to apply this logic to, where it’s just not an option. Elden Ring is visually and conceptually very much My Shit™, but the gameplay is punishing, so I’ve been unable to dig into it. Much as its discused in the piece, I don’t have the time to Get Gud. I want to Have Fun, and while I understand the why in 2024 that a GameShark/Action Replay/Game Genie isn’t really an option in the time of the online game, I long for the ability to turn on Infinite Health and just see all of the Lands Between. I suppose I could just check out the amazing looking art books, but it’s just not the same.

Let me meet you where I am, games. Make it so I don’t get achievements, I don’t care. I want to give you $$$ and enjoy your efforts — let me play on Easy.

Edward Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At?:

This is the story of how Google Search died, and the people responsible for killing it.

The story begins on February 5th 2019, when Ben Gomes, Google’s head of search, had a problem. Jerry Dischler, then the VP and General Manager of Ads at Google, and Shiv Venkataraman, then the VP of Engineering, Search and Ads on Google properties, had called a “code yellow” for search revenue due to, and I quote, “steady weakness in the daily numbers” and a likeliness that it would end the quarter significantly behind.

A blistering read from Ed Zitron breaking down the managerial changes and overall focus on profits before people which has – perhaps irreparably – ruined Google search.

I feel like the term “enshittification” has become an overused shorthand for “thing I don’t like”, but this is the term at its purist. A focus on Fuck Yours, Got Mine on a massive level, which trickles down across the web as a whole.

A reckoning is coming, of this, I am sure.

Jason Koebler, 404 Media

For years, people who have found Google search frustrating have been adding “Reddit” to the end of their search queries. This practice is so common that Google even acknowledged the phenomenon in a post announcing that it will be scraping Reddit posts to train its AI. And so, naturally, there are now services that will poison Reddit threads with AI-generated posts designed to promote products.

A service called ReplyGuy advertises itself as “the AI that plugs your product on Reddit” and which automatically “mentions your product in conversations naturally.” Examples on the site show two different Redditors being controlled by AI posting plugs for a text-to-voice product called “AnySpeech” and a bot writing a long comment about a debt consolidation program called Debt Freedom Now.

This here is why we cannot have nice things.

That said: the name of the tool being “Reply Guy”? Honestly, no notes. What a perfect assessment of this internet ruining tool.

Marvel Entertainment on YouTube:

LFG.

Watch the new trailer for Marvel Studios’ #DeadpoolAndWolverine. Only in theaters July 26.

I’ve always been in a state of liking the Deadpool films, but not loving them. (Prefered 2 to 1, for whatever that’s worth.)

Turns out what Reynolds’ version of the character needed was a really strong opposite, which Hugh Jackman appears to have in spades.

Bring on the X-Men.

Germain Lussier, Gizmodo/io9:

The best art inspires more incredible art and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films have certainly done that. In addition to the artistry in the films themselves, graphic designers from all over the world have been moved to create gorgeous Dune posters—and the latest may be the most unique, and quite possibly the best, one yet.

Korean American artist Deb JJ Lee has created just a sumptuous, stunning poster for Dune: Part One, which is being released Friday April 19 by the team at Mutant. It’s their first collaboration together and, after seeing this full image, you have to imagine it won’t be their last. io9 is honored to exclusively debut your first look at Deb JJ Lee’s Dune: Part One from Mutant.

Goddamn, what a print. You can click through the source link to view the variant.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a print I was enthused about, and having the ex-Mondo crew deliver here shines all the stronger for it.

Granted, I don’t have the wall space, but I have the enthusiasm.

If you have the wall space, along with the cash ($75 for the standard, $100 for the variant), head to MadeByMutant.com tomorrow, April 19, 2024 at 1pm Eastern to pick one up. And I’ll be keeping an eye on Deb JJ Lee moving forward.

Paramount Pictures on YouTube:

Every Transformer has an origin. Watch the new trailer for #TransformersOne - only in theatres September 20.

TRANSFORMERS ONE is the untold origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron, better known as sworn enemies, but once were friends bonded like brothers who changed the fate of Cybertron forever. In the first-ever fully CG-animated Transformers movie, TRANSFORMERS ONE features a star-studded voice cast, including Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi with Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm.

I’m not sure what I expected from a CG animated Transformers movie, but I definitely don’t think it was this.

It might just work? Either way, I’ve landed on intrigued. Of note, it’s the director of Toy Story 4 behind this, so the pedigree is strong.

Netflix on YouTube:

Inspired by the unbelievable true story, a strait-laced professor (Glen Powell) uncovers his hidden talent as a fake hit man in undercover police stings. He meets his match in a client (Adria Arjona) who steals his heart and ignites a powder keg of deception, delight, and mixed-up identities.

From Academy Award-nominated writer/director Richard Linklater and co-written by Glen Powell, HIT MAN comes to select theaters in May and only on Netflix June 7.

Oh boy, this looks like a great time.

Get ready for maximum Glen Powell this Summer, by the way, with this and Twisters hitting over the warm months.

Justin Kroll, Deadline:

Quentin Tarantino’s movies are always full of surprises, and here is one about The Movie Critic we did not expect. Deadline can reveal that Tarantino has dropped the film as his 10th and final project. He simply changed his mind, Deadline has been told.

Tarantino was going to have Brad Pitt as the principal star, which would have marked their third teaming after Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. There were rumors that many from the casts of his past films might take part, and Sony was preparing to make the film after doing such a superb job on the last one.

Word is that Tarantino had rewritten his script, which delayed the start of production. But this is his 10th and final film, and Tarantino simply decided The Movie Critic will not be it.

This is a genuine surprise. Things sounded like they were moving pretty quickly on the project, and QT ending his career with how he started, with a project observing and critquing movies, felt like a great full circle move.

Alas, another project gets added to the pile.

Riley MacLeod, Aftermath:

This, I think, is what’s actually pissing the AI people off about Brownlee’s Humane review. He is clear that he has no fealty to them or their stock prices (“I literally don’t care what the stock price is of any company, of any product I review,” he says.) He even says in his video that “my reviews are technically not for” these products’ makers, which must be infuriating to our new Gilded Age robber barons who need constant reassurances of their genius. Because Brownlee isn’t in the business of promoting them or even talking to them, he’s not required to tout AI’s potential.

If you’ve missed The Discourse™ about MKBHD’s review of the Humane AI pin, Congrats! You’re not Extremely Online. But for those who do have a stake in the conversation, I think MacLeod’s piece I’ve linked above does a great job of summarizing both the situation and my personal beliefs on it.

I’ve expressed privately my confusion of the number of companies which grew to massive size not on the work they’ve delivered or the contributions they have made to our day-to-day lives, but more on the potential of doing so.

These reviews – and more specifically, the pearl-clutching of those who are insulted by reviewers, well, reviewing work – are the beginning (in my opinion) of a much needed reckoning.

Potential means nothing. Actions and reality are everything. I’m sorry that it took interest rates changing for a slue of folks to realize this, but you’re only worth what you actually do.

David Pierce, The Verge:

That raises the second question: should you buy this thing? That one’s easy. Nope. Nuh-uh. No way. The AI Pin is an interesting idea that is so thoroughly unfinished and so totally broken in so many unacceptable ways that I can’t think of anyone to whom I’d recommend spending the $699 for the device and the $24 monthly subscription.

David Pierce absolutely whirlwind dunking on the Humane AI Pin in his review this morning. Goddamn!

Cherlynn Low at Engadget did not care for it either.

If the headline of “The Humane AI Pin is the solution to none of technology’s problems” wasn’t clear enough, here’s a pretty damning pull quote:

Not only is the Humane AI Pin slow, finicky and barely even smart, using it made me look pretty dumb. In a few days of testing, I went from being excited to show it off to my friends to not having any reason to wear it.

I had a feeling that the Pin was a solution looking for a problem, but I didn’t realize it’d be this downright useless or bad. Not the best first step for the Humane team.

Overcast.fm:

Join Seth Meyers as he sits down with fellow SNL alum and comedy-music sensations The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone) to discuss their wildly popular and groundbreaking series of SNL Digital Shorts that aired on Saturday Night Live beginning in 2005. Episode by episode they’ll discuss how each short was created, what the response to it was at the time, and what impact, if any, it still has today. Aided by Seth, the guys will relive their time at SNL and reminisce on the nearly 50-year-old show from a time when putting short comedy sketches on the internet was so novel that they maybe even helped launch YouTube to do it. Along the way they’ll talk all things SNL from guests, fellow cast members, and favorite live sketches including many that never aired.

The Lonely Island has had a near direct line to my funnybone since I first became aware of them and their work in 2005.

In fact, the free giveaway of “Lazy Sunday” was my first iTunes video “purchase”.

Since then, they’ve released three albums, over a hundred shorts, and produced two of my favorite comedies of all time, in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and Hot Rod.

Suffice to say, the moment I heard that Andy, Jorma and Akiva were going to be doing a watchalong/look back podcast with Seth Meyers, I was in.

The first episode hit on Monday, and is more about their road to Saturday Night Live and their struggles in getting on air. The Lonely Island gang are great storytellers, and their friendship comes through (though I believe its all recorded remotely). Seth acts as the perfect host, and if you are at all a fan of how comedy is made or the behind the scenes of SNL, I cannot recommend this enough.

If you’re not aware of The Lonely Island for whatever reason, get on watching Popstar. Immediately.

Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac

But there’s another important update to the App Store guidelines, and this one applies worldwide. For the first time, Apple is allowing developers to create and distribute game emulators on the App Store. The news was confirmed by Apple in an email sent to developers. Since the very first iPhone, developers have been finding ways to distribute game emulators to iOS users. The App Store guidelines have never allowed emulator software, but some apps have had luck bypassing Apple’s review process by disguising their apps and hiding emulators within them. But that’s changing now with the App Store’s new guidelines.

Discovered late in the day yesterday was a bunch of changes to the App Store guidelines presented to developers by Apple.

The key change presented seems to be that of allowing — in the EU — music apps to allow signups via their own web interface, versus through the App Store alone.

In the mix further down, however, is the revelation that game emulation is now allowed.

Android users have been able to do this for ages, but now, iOS — and presumably iPadOS + tvOS users — will be able to do the same without using some of the complicated go arounds in use currently with Altstore.

Now I’m just hoping that two of the Altstore’s best...

• Delta, a Nintendo focused emulator for iOS

• Provenance, a multi-system emulator that’s also available on tvOS

…make their way to the AppStore.

I do wonder if someone’s gonna try to have something up as early as this week...

Jez Corden, Windows Central:

As part of the emails to her team, Sarah Bond revealed that Microsoft has now set up a dedicated team to ensure the future-proofing of the current Xbox game library against future hardware paradigm shifts, ensuring that our games remain accessible long into the future. "We have formed a new team dedicated to game preservation, important to all of us at Xbox and the industry itself," Bond said. "We are building on our strong history of delivering backwards compatibility to our players, and we remain committed to bringing forward the amazing library of Xbox games for future generations of players to enjoy."

As far as I’m concerned — especially with the model of video game distribution becoming a digital one — this is table stakes for Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, et al.

The hard part is going to be the growth of GAAS titles: how can a game be preserved if the events have ended and servers have gone offline?

Far too often, gaming (hell, media, period) is focused on new and next, when past and current should be celebrated just as much. May this be the first major shot in a series of events ensuring that the work of talented creators can be engaged with years down the line.

Adam Reiner, TASTE:

After six months of conversations with five founders of small to midsize food brands, it appears to be an open secret in the consumer packaged goods industry that Trader Joe’s outsources inspiration for new products by targeting emerging brands under the guise of recruiting them to manufacture private-label items. Private labeling is the ubiquitous (and often clandestine) practice of consumer food brands creating exclusive products for third-party retailers. The terms of these contracts vary, but the enlisted food brand typically receives compensation in the form of a production fee or profit-sharing arrangement.

According to these sources, Trader Joe’s commonly solicits product samples and even asks for potential recipe adjustments—a revealing and time-consuming exercise for bootstrapped founders—before inexplicably abandoning the negotiations and releasing its own private-label versions of similar products at lower prices.

Yikes on bikes, folks.

This is a pretty damning expose of how Trader Joe’s decieves smaller food brands under the guise of a partnership, then undercuts them when the financial terms are deemed untenable by the brand themselves.

I recognize, in all these instances, Trader Joe’s didn’t even need to offer to work with them before ripping them off, but the boldness to proceed even after trying to work together is NOT a good look.

Zack Baron, British GQ:

These days, Nine Inch Nails, which Ross joined as a full-time member in 2016, present a different problem – how do you make something old, something so already well-defined, new again? There are years when Reznor feels like he has the answers and years when he’s less certain. He has put the band on hiatus more than once; after the last Nine Inch Nails tour, in 2022, Reznor deliberately took a break from playing shows as well. “For the first time in a long time I wasn’t sure: what’s the tour going to say?” Reznor told me. “What do I have to say right now? We can still play those songs real good. Maybe we can come up with a new production. But it wasn’t screaming at me: this is what to do right now.”

A really great profile of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, as they’ve asserted themselves as a go-to in the world of film scores.

But now that they’ve established themselves in that world, they’re now thinking bigger: the return of Nine Inch Nails, their own production company, fashion, and something with Epic Games.

You might not peg me as a NIN fan, but 1999’s The Fragile is one of my favorite albums of all time, and its been really great over the last few decades to see Reznor get clean, get healthy, become a family man, and establish himself as a true icon in music, technology and film.

I am very excited to see what he and Ross have planned with all their new projects.

Polygon

Uniqlo’s latest video game collaboration may be its best yet. It teamed up with Nintendo on six T-shirts inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and they’re coming to stores in late April. Each $24.90 T-shirt features iconography and characters from Tears of the Kingdom.

As usual, Uniqlo has put together a pretty sweet series of tees for a licensed property.

I think the pocket tees with the Korok’s peeking out is the most clever of the set.

The Verge

Instagram’s co-founders built a powerful and useful tool for recommending news to readers — but could never quite get it to scale. Yahoo has hundreds of millions of readers — but could use a dose of tech-forward cool to separate it from all the internet’s other news aggregators. And so, the two sides are joining forces: Yahoo is acquiring Artifact, the companies announced on Tuesday.

The few times I gave Artifact a spin, I did think it was a compelling way to have news articles raised up and aggregated to your personal taste. At the same time, the weird social features seemed to get absolutely drowned by people trying to push their app/crypto/etc.

Keep the algorithmic news, drop the tech bros holding court like this is LinkedIn, and I think Yahoo! may actually have something compelling in their portfolio that isn’t Fantasy Sports related.

Driving home from another great Super Art Fight event, I had my Apple Music library on shuffle.

Not sure if that’s just a me thing to do, or others handle their music libraries the same way, but that’s not the point.

The song “War on Torpour” from the amazing Canadian post-rock band Do Make Say Think came on, off their 2017 release Stubborn Persistent Illusions.

It’s a hell of a song, and a great kick off to an album. After a slow, yet intense build, the song goes in all sorts of directions.

Here, give it a listen.

Pretty rad, right? Comes in with a lot of energy and a feeling of catharsis, not to mention the drumming is out of this world.

Thing is, for years and years, I just knew that song and its driivng force. Honestly, that’s really what I knew of Do Make Say Think’s music - the sound, the noise, the feeling.

During COVID, I looked up a live performance of the band – and not only is there a killer rendition on YouTube, via House of Strumbo, but I was hit upon not just delight at how well they performed the song, but a reminder that I was seeing – finally – how that incredible noise was made. You can forget that these songs are the efforts of individuals, making noise, together.

That should be timed to the song’s appearance in the video. If not, it’s at 24:45.

It was a crash course for me in not just respecting their efforts, but seeing the craft which spawned it. The magic trick, explained, even if I couldn’t believe it, as my ears and eyes couldn’t jive their perceptions of the work.

I don’t want to sound like an Old Man Yelling at a Cloud here, but I think we forget the art we digest is through the skill and effort of the artesian. They made the magic. Their dedication gave us something to appreciate and love.

And that hung with me on this drive home, how lucky we are to just be able to digest the art of so many, so easily, in a way more accessible than ever before. It’s a lucky time.

Jennifer Maas, Variety:

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and other unions representing film and TV writers and journalists sent a letter to Congress Thursday urging protections for their industries in any legislation regarding Artificial Intelligence.

Addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the letter was co-signed by the NewsGuild-CWA, Writers Guild of America East (WGAE), Writers Guild of America West (WGAW), and National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET-CWA).

“So far this year, our members have witnessed the impact of unregulated AI on their jobs,” the letter, obtained by Variety, states. “Major news media companies, including Gannett and G/O Media sites, deployed AI articles with fake bylines to replace the work of hardworking local and digital journalists and writers. Film and television writers won critical protections in their collective bargaining agreement, but their work continues to be used by AI developers without their consent.”

This is going to be the first of many instances of different worker organizations speaking up and speaking out to their government about further regulating AI.

My galaxy brained take? The AI revolution will lead to greater adoption of unions and collective bargaining. And I couldn’t be more for that.

Netflix on YouTube:

Michigan, 1963. Kellogg’s and Post, sworn cereal rivals, race to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast. A tale of ambition, betrayal, sugar, and menacing milkmen, Unfrosted stars Jerry Seinfeld in his directorial debut.

Unfrosted is coming to Netflix on May 3.

Following in the footsteps of other Movies About How This Thing Was Made, like The Social Network, BlackBerry, Air, Tetris, The Founder and many, many others, Jerry Seinfeld (of all people) directs the story of the humble Pop-Tart in Unfrosted.

Personally, I thought Jerry was more of a cereal guy, but I suppose I was wrong.

Strong cast, with people like Melissa McCarthy, Bill Burr and Hugh Grant, so maybe this won’t be too bad? Or maybe it’ll just slide off the public consciousness like most Netflix movies.

Do you think we get a S’mores Pop-Tarts post credits scene?

Mike Langley, McSweeny’s:

That’s a good one. Ha ha. Go ahead and type your email address in the box. Please.

Look, just write it. Hit the enter key. Now give me your password. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.

What, you want me to level with you? You want to know how real this gets?

If I let any more non-subscribers in, they’re gonna kill me. They’re gonna kill my family. Bam. Done.

That’s right, just type the password in the box. Nice and easy.

That wasn’t so bad, was it?

A gloriously grim first person article from everyone’s favorite paywall, The New York Times. Absolutely nails it.

Granted, it must be effective, as I now pay for two newspaper subscriptions, not also including Apple News+.