Quite. And the era when everyone was trying to "do their own thing" with UI design wasn't exactly pleasant or usable. Just have a look at some of these designs, for example

http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/mshame.htm

Ahh, but I do miss all the weird phones from 1998 - 2008.

I think it's ultimately the same process at work.

Sure, in X11 https://www.x.org/releases/X11R7.7/doc/xextproto/shape.html

And for Wayland I found this

https://dev.tizen.narkive.com/AkKHZRHh/wayland-non-rectangul...

> The point was usually not usability. It was identity.

Is it bad that when I read that I immediately thought "this was written by an LLM."

Absolutely, same feeling here. But I also see that the author wanted to say something, and finally he manages: it begins as a rant (generated by a prompt of course) the goes to some examples that are entertaining, at least making me remember how I did some things in the past.

Every single line in this article was written by an LLM...

Admit no fault, ignore the criticism, keep doing the same thing, receive no consequences. I wonder how the folks at Fiverr's Tel Aviv HQ learned this strategy.

Amazing that a company whose whole brand is based on hiring people for $5 turns out to not respect the workers who created value on their platform.

I get your criticism, however, there was a lot of talent working on the platform for many years. I was averaging 150 USD per project, significantly more than 5 USD.

Last year Fiverr started to push AI to the detriments of their freelancers, as well as a new "success score" metric, but never specifying how these metrics are calculated, making it very hard for freelancers to do something about it. This caused many accounts to "lose value" and thus rank lower on searches, causing a drop in income.

I've reported this on the Fiverr Freelancer Forums, let's see how long my post stays up...

> This caused many accounts to "lose value" and thus rank lower on searches

wouldn't this make some other accounts rank higher on searches then? I mean it couldn't have been a problem that affected absolutely everyone so for someone it must've been a positive change.

There were also a ton of ArtIsts of the "Take the job, generate it with AI, throw the slop" rip and run kind of artistry.

Even before AI I remember reading that many of the "custom designed" logos on Fiverr were just ripoffs of existing trademarks.

There are sites where you can buy 200 different shape stencils for $100, and most logos are just those with text added.

When I found out years down the track that I paid like $1000 for a “premium experience” to be offered 6 or so stencils like this, I was pretty furious. Luckily, I picked none of them, and made the artist draw it exactly as I later described.

> Japanese construction is a lot more robust than American housing, and also tends to have extremely good soundproofing on windows and doors.

This must be a different Japan than the one I'm familiar with, where exterior walls are often uninsulated and only a few inches thick and single-pane windows are still the norm in a lot of housing. I wouldn't be surprised if soundproofing were better for railroad-adjacent buildings, but compared to American homes the soundproofing here is surprisingly poor.

> is one election away from fraud charges.

Nothing in my lifetime of experience in the US so far, or in the demeanor of the "opposition" party suggests he'll face real consequences for this.

"One election away from more fraud". Not fraud charges.

Or more recently Switchel, which was popular in 19th century America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchel

I think the ready availability or citrus fruits caused their decline.

ah yes, I remember that one from some episode of Tasting History, but I could not remember the name!

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrub_(drink)

I enjoy the flavor of kvass - a Russian / eastern European malt flavored soda - but it's hard to find where I live. The process involves really aggressively toasting some rye bread, boiling it with eaisans and sugar, straining it, and then brewing it with ordinary baking yeast in 2-liter bottles until it reaches your desired carbonation level. The end result is really refreshing.

If you can get it where you are, have you considered trying malta[0][1]?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_(soft_drink)

[1] https://www.findmeabrewery.com/blog/malta/

I have tried malta, and I like it. But it's a bit sweeter. I think it's a worthwhile substitute if you don't want the fun of trying to make something that might go wrong.

Me too except I just use rye malt instead of the bread and without making any dough with it. The malt is cheap and easy to get in UK thanks to home brewing suppliers whereas rye bread is super expensive.

My only challenge is controlling the gassiness - it’s so vigorous that the moment I even slightly open the cap the whole thing fizzes up like crazy - opening it normally would result in a kvass fountain shooting up like 30cm. :)

How does this not become alcoholic?

Short brewing time. Finnish sima is similar - sugar, lemon, water, yeast, ferment for a couple of days. Alcoholic drinks are usually fermented much longer, aged, and processed much more intensively.

It is usually alcoholic. 0.5-2%. Here stores sell most commonly 0.5% one which is regulated to be sold like a non-alcoholic drink.

I understand that Kvass is around 1% alcohol.

By Russian standards, this is "non-alcoholic".

I once got a Root Beer brewing kit as a gift. It noted that a trivial amount of alcohol would be produced by the process (no included or added yeast either!) and it wasn't a big deal.

Usually they remove the alcohol later. The taste is similar to a alcohol-free Guinness (but sweeter).

> The item you have requested had an error:

Item cannot be found.

which prevents us from displaying this page.

Clicking the link splits off the ".", which is interesting but necessary.