Category: Funny

GenAI Ads Gone Wild

Earlier this year, I started noticing some very strange ads showing up in my Google phone feed. The ad copy and the images were odd at best, nonsensical at worst. The images and copy made zero sense together. I wish I’d captured more of them!

My working theory is that this was an early attempt at GenAI-based ad copy + image creation. It didn’t last very long, perhaps a few weeks, so either the technology got dramatically better, or they pulled the plug and re-introduced human curation of the ads. I suspect the latter. Either way, I did manage to capture these amusing examples, so enjoy GenAI Ads Gone Wild…

This appears to be a from-the-future Miley Cyrus who is slightly irked she did not follow Lendgo’s “genius” tricks.

This woman is looking very stern in a court room. Did she borrow from a bank and they took her to court?

Test

What exactly do USB-C docking stations have to with Women’s Day? Are these deadly hubs worthy of the “Femme Fatale” moniker?

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I don’t think the people at Melo Air understand how caffeine impacts most people. It does not tend to make them sleepy…

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Unless this is an arm-shaped pillow that also touches you inappropriately, I don’t understand what this ad is promoting.

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Wait, why do silk pajamas need amino acids?!?

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When automated eagerness creates an inefficient mess for customers

Since I work for Amazon, you can take this whole post with a grain of salt (I’m biased toward my employer), but even still…it’s hard for an objective person to not look at this situation with Target and think “This is the way it should work”.

I needed to order some paper for our printer, and when I look on Amazon the options and prices were a bit lacking. I jumped over to Target.com, and found some recycled paper at a good price. I needed to hit $35 to get free shipping, so I bought three packs of paper (which will last a long while), but I was still short of $35 and didn’t want a fourth pack.

So, I purchased some liquid water enhancers, five in total. There was only the free shipping option, so I paid and went about my day. What I expected to happen was to get a single box in a few days with everything in it. The next few days were truly odd as I watched what Target did with my order.

  • They sent four shipments in total, one of which had a single water enhancer in it, two of which had two each. Did they think this was insulin for a diabetes patient and someone would die if they wanted to bundle all the water enhancers in a single shipment?
  • The shipments arrived across four different days, so this wasn’t simply a matter of illogical packaging.
  • The emails. THE EMAILS! Does Target’s email team get paid by the email? 😱 Three emails per shipment = 12 total emails plus the original order email. Do I need to have an “your order will arrive today” email plus the email I get when it’s delivered? No, I do not.
  • The three reams of paper coming in a single box was the only logical part about this order.

I know that now and then Amazon will do something bizarre with a shipment, such as shipping a single small item in a large box. But overall, nothing can touch the lunacy of Target’s wasted shipping and packaging, let alone their almost-spam level of customer emails.

Moka the Friar

After much spiritual searching, my dog Moka has decided to begin her monastic life: I present to you Friar Moka.

Moka the Friar

(I don’t tend to post things like this often, but putting a little joy into the world is never a bad thing.)

Who wants to buy a used cheeseball?

Generally speaking, I’m not much of a trickster. Perhaps it’s the Canadian in me not wanting to have anyone feel hurt by anything I’d do, but last year I couldn’t resist having a bit of harmless fun. I realized a photo of a partially eaten cranberry cheeseball from our Christmas party was just too good of an opportunity to pass up…so I took a photo and posted it to Facebook Marketplace, looking for a buyer. 😜

It all started with, of course, the photo of the cheeseball. There were some leftover cream cheese figs, so I wove them into the story. Text in easier-to-read form below.

The inane, silly, stream-of-consciousness story that evokes Chris (Simpsons Artist).

I wanted to have fun with the responses as well. 😊

It was hard to tell who knew it was a joke and who didn’t. I think Skylar thought I was serious. 😆

I had a five people contacted me about it, and I responded to everyone. 😜

…and then I had a fun interaction with someone who got the joke! 😁

What Search Engines Have to Say About Left Handers

As a left handed, but mostly right-dominant person, I’m always interested in learning more about the genetic component to left-handedness. This article has a lot to say about the topic – I am still reading through it – but I was highly amused at what came up in Bing’s autocomplete. Evil? Demonic?

Google had no autocomplete options for the same phrase as Bing (“are left handed people”) so I had to use a shorter search term to get any autocomplete results at all. Are the people using Bing really using these terms to search for things about left-handed people? That’s pretty funny! 😉

If Apple Was Being Honest With Their Site Navigation

My transition to being mostly Apple hardware has taken a few years, starting with an iPod Touch years ago. I still use an Android phone, but my desktop is an iMac, my laptop is a Macbook Pro, and I have three iPads in my home. My wife has inherited my trusty Dell XPS 13 though, so I still have access to a great Windows laptop. ?

I’ve decided that at this moment in my life, the benefits of what Apple offers is worth what I have to pay for it…but that doesn’t mean I can’t get a little grumpy as I watch how Apple updates – or, more accurately rarely updates their Mac product line. The iPad is, in my opinion, the best tablet you can buy today. The iPhone is an excellent product. But Apple’s Mac products? They alternate between stale to compromised, outdated to ridiculously expensive. And yet because they are the only way to get macOS, people who want to use that platform have no choice.

Above is what Apple’s site navigation looks like today. They add the word “New” in orange when there’s a product update. What would it look like though if they were a little more honest? This. ?


(you’ll want to click on the image to appreciate all the sarcasm)

I’d created the graphic below months ago, so wouldn’t you know it today was the day that Apple finally put 8th gen Intel CPUs in their Touch Bar-based Macbooks and updated a few other key things (more max RAM and SSD options). The new Macbooks might have better battery life, and they might have fewer keyboard problems. We’ll see!

If you’re a Mac user, what do you wish Apple would update next?

Always Double-Check The Spell Check

I type fast, but sometimes my accuracy is awful – and this is a good illustration as to why it’s important to actually stop and read what the spell check is suggesting before you accept it and share that message. 😉