Listen to the podcast online here, or search "Stuff Keeps Happening" wherever you get podcasts!

Merch!

A quick reminder! If you've not seen my merch store yet, that is a thing! Grab some Stuff Keeps Happening merch or browse some designs from my other projects! More to come soon. I'm cookin'.

Check it out at https://shop.endeavorance.camp

Okay, on to the STUFF.

Suddenly Dark Outside

IT ECLIPSE.

If you're in North America, you have probably already heard or made plans to go see the eclipse. Its this cool thing where the moon punches the sun in the face and so the sun goes away for a bit.

Here's some notes about that:

• Don't look at the sun without proper eclipse glasses
• Read the first bullet point like 20 more times and truly internalize it

If literally any of the sun is visible, you risk burning the shit out of your retina, which results in not vision happening anymore so. I mean. Your call.

It's gonna be cool. It's gonna be weird. I was at the one a few years back in the path of totality, and it was WILD. You really do feel the temperature drop and shit gets ominous. You won't soon forget it.

Best of luck, and please: be safe. Be safe driving, be safe looking, be safe.

Everything you need to know about the upcoming solar eclipse

McDonald's Is Sowwy For Supporting a Genocide

Congrats on the boycott. Keep it up.

McDonald's has reached an agreement to purchase back all 225 of their locations in Israel from the local franchisee. The Israeli operator of McDonald's locations had been vocally supporting the IDF, giving free food and donations to the occupying army. This sparked global boycotts against the burger slingers, ultimately resulting in me writing these words.

Of course, McDonald's business decisions are not the primary news coming out of the region as Israel continues their genocide. In a testimony, Israeli intelligence officials discussed using an AI system called "Lavender" to identify targets to attack, while also admitting that the IDF was totally cool with killing large sums of civilians.

Beyond that, the news of seven aid workers in Gaza being intentionally targeted and executed by Israel is impossible to ignore. These people were trying to feed the hungry, and were operating in marked cars while coordinating their movements with Israel specifically to avoid being accidentally targeted. Israel then launched repeated drone strikes at the aid convoy, killing a few of the aid workers each time. After each strike, those who survived attempted to move to another car, which would then be struck.

Now, US officials are stuck trying to explain why this STILL doesn't constitute a war crime. Y'know, actively and repeatedly targeting humanitarian aid workers who were trying to alleviate a man-made famine. That's what it's all about baybeeeee! We sure have the moral high ground. You can tell because stock prices went up.

Nice Record, YouTube. Be a shame…

Discord had a bit of a day on April Fools.

Discord's April fools day video is now the most viewed video in 24 hours on YouTube EVER, taking the title away from me. Their video passed 1 billion views in one day.

But what astonishing video did Discord make that procured a veritable storm of views? A fairly mediocre Tech April Fools gag, announcing loot boxes for Discord. It's not that everyone shared the video around though. No, Discord went full Discord and popped the video up for everyone, but then never unloaded the video after you closed out of the pop-up, and setting the video to loop infinitely.

So everyone on Discord was inadvertently looping their video all day.

Congrats on the success, Discord. Maybe you can use some of your newfound clout to fix the mobile app.

Attack of the Blue Checkmarks

If you recall, when Elon Musk bought Twitter accidentally, one of the first things he did was make it so that having a blue checkmark was just about the least cool thing you could possibly do. Removed them all from verified accounts, and instead used the check mark to signify "this user is paying Elon Musk for a Twitter subscription." Its such an embarrassing sight that they had to roll out the option to hide the checkmark.

Now, Twitter has begun placing blue check marks back on notable accounts, causing people to be like "AYO get this shit off me"

Accounts with enough "verified subscriber followers" are automatically given blue checkmarks, regardless of if they are a card-carrying Musk Stan or not.

Get off of Twitter lol

Real quick on Musk tho, after Reuters posted a detailed report on Tesla's pivot away from low-cost cars and towards robo-taxis, Musk just kinda Tweeted that Tesla will be making a big announcement about robo-taxis and that Reuters is lying. He gave no further information, likely because he was, in fact, lying.

In Gaming News…

Final Fantasy 14 Online is gearing up for their in-game housing lottery, because even video games can't escape the reality of the housing market in 2024.

Players of the critically acclaimed MMORPG with a free trial which includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensword expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime will be able to place their bids throughout the month with multiple chances to win your very own in-game housing plot. The linked source article has all of the entry dates if you're interested.

⚔

Wildly different vibe, but if you've not seen the story about Potions: A Curious Tale, you should def be aware of it.

Renee Gittins had been building Potions for a decade, documenting her development as she built the game of her dreams. She released it on March 8th of this year, which was International Womens Day.

Out of nowhere, EA decided to drop like a dozen re-released games onto Steam that same day, burying Potions under a pile of cash grabs. Renee was gutted, and posted her story to TikTok, where it went super viral and getting more of the attention the game deserved.

It looks very great, so definitely go check out Potions: A Curious Tale if you like wholesome fun. Plus we love indie game devs here.

Here's the Weather

More Stuff

• Massive shock: Trump is suing his co-founders of Truth Social on the heels of the total failure of the stock
• OpenAI made a voice cloning thing that they claim works TOO well so they won't release it. Alright, cool guys, we get it, you're special.
• In the wake of the solar eclipse, Europe is preparing a space telescope that can make its own fake eclipses to study the SUN
• Bernie Sanders' Vermont office was set ablaze and its being investigated as arson
• Those Amazon "just walk out" stores are no longer going to be "just walk out," and turns out their "AI" was 1,000 contractors in India watching you on cameras
• Google killed their podcasts app because its Google
• We kinda knew this already but hey, science says having some nature near where you live can make you happier
• Two planes bonked each other on the runway at Heathrow airport. Just a lil' love tap.
• US Republicans proposed a measure to rename Dulles airport after Trump. That's not going to happen and its just for headlines, so, congrats to them I guess.
• The White House has asked journalists to stop stealing shit from Air Force One