News

Lets' Play Sports in 250 A.D.

We found a very old Mayan city with a sports complex. Also, Dark Amazon rises (and is sued by the FTC), Musk isn't paying employee bonuses, Hunter Biden pleads guilty, and the very cold place is off limits.

Endeavorance

Jun 23, 2023 — 3 min read

Programming note: I will be taking Monday off from Stuff Keeps Happening, and will return next Wednesday.

We found a Mayan city

Mexico has announced the discovery of a previously unknown Mayan city in the southern jungles of the country. It is believed that the city was deeply important culturally given the layout, significant structures and location.

It is believed the city was most widely used between 250 to 1000 AD.

They even found a game court in the city! A game involving tossing around a rubber ball by hand was popular in pre-Hispanic Mayan territory.

Sounds like a good time, tbh.

Dark Amazon

The FTC is suing Amazon, alleging that they use dark patterns to trick customers into signing up for Amazon Prime, then making it difficult to cancel the subscription.

"Dark patterns" are a concept in user interface design where you use the design to specifically obfuscate things or coerce specific user actions. It can be as simple as a super tiny "X" button that is borderline impossible to find, or it can be a much larger, multi-step flow that confuses users and leads them to a place they did not mean to be at.

Virtually every major tech company does some degree of dark pattern usage, so it'll be interesting to see if the case is strong enough to land the allegations. I SURE HOPE SO cuz like damn, though.

It's like when companies allow you to sign up on the internet but require you to call them to cancel (which, to my knowledge, is no longer allowed).

Elon Musk, one of the richest men alive, is not paying his employees when he said he would

First, Musk bought Twitter. Then, he promised bonuses. Then, he didn't do that. WEIRD.

A class action lawsuit filed against Twitter is alleging that Twitter has not paid current and former employees bonuses which they were promised after Musk's takeover. This is because Elon Musk is a sociopathic bastard who thinks he can continuously pull the same scheme on loop without ever being held accountable. Unfortunately for everyone else, that has proven to be the case so far.

Maybe we'll get lucky, and he will develop a hyperfixation on the wreckage of the Titanic.

Anyway, bonus Twitter financials thing: the new CEO of Twitter is now wiping Musk's metaphoric financial ass and has patched up relations with Google after Musk skipped out on Google Cloud bills.

Hunter Biden pleads guilty to charges

Conservatives have a fixation on Hunter Biden because reasons, and they're finally getting a modicum of payoff as a state attorney has charged Hunter with two tax-related felony charges. There's also a gun-related charge in there but its likely gonna be waived. This is the result of a plea deal, essentially dropping the case down to just these charges which he will plea "guilty" to and probably not face jail time.

I truly and honestly do not care, nor do I ever think in the slightest about the existence of Hunter Biden, so I'm honestly not sure what else to say here besides "cool? We got him?"

Now do the rest of the kids of powerful rich people who get away with basically everything.

On this day…

On this day in 1961, the Antarctic Treaty System went into effect.

The Antarctic Treaty System is a suite of international agreements that basically amount to "hey, this cold place should be for science rather than war," and so we did that.

There was some back and forth for a while because originally the United States was like "ayo we want some of that laaaaaand" and also there was the very chilly war for a while when the US was again like "ayo we dont want the soviets to have that laaaand" but ultimately the treat worked—mostly—and while some participants hold the right to make land claims, largely the Big Cold Place is for science and expeditions. And penguins.