thehardtimes
patreon
Hard Digest September 19: Early Access the DMV, presidential candidates, New Jersey, and More
🕑 Added 2024-09-20 00:00:05 +0000 UTCWoman Who Lost Entire Wallet Considers Elaborate Identity Theft Scheme to Avoid Calling Banks and the DMV
By ALBANY, N.Y. — Local woman Andrea Wellson is reportedly considering a risky and in-depth plan to commit identity theft to spare herself from having to go to the DMV after losing her driver’s license, sources confirmed.
“I lost my entire fucking wallet last week,” said a visibly frazzled and manic Wellson. “There is no way in hell I’m about to go through the hassle of replacing every single credit card, every single piece of identification in there–I’d rather actually die. Have you ever been to the DMV around here? I can’t do that. It’s probably way easier for me to plum the depths of the Dark Web to concoct and execute a very elaborate identity theft grift. I’m thinking the best way to start is to start making AI-generated robocalls to old people. Or like, rich or evil old people, just to make it a little more palatable, ethically speaking.”
Wellson’s partner, Julia Ion, weighed in on her potential schemes.
“The only reason I’m not dumping her immediately is because I know at the end of the day, I’ll just physically drag her to the DMV and take her out for a coffee after, and it’ll be fine,” lamented Ion. “But Jesus fucking Christ, this is the fourth replacement license she’s had this year alone. I don’t know how many more insane gambits she can come up with before she realizes she just needs to buy a goddamn wallet chain.”
A spokesman from the FBI provided critical expert insight into situations like Wellson’s.
“Now I’m not sure what I’m legally allowed to share, but I will say this: the number-one cause of identity theft isn’t anything like blatant monetary greed or other malicious motivators by petty criminals, no. It’s actually people like Ms. Wellson who just really, really don’t want to deal with bureaucracy,” said Special Agent Dane Collier. “There is truly no motivator like avoiding an hours-long line and filling out paperwork. The only reason we haven’t addressed this phenomenon more publicly is because honestly, we kind of get where these would-be thieves are coming from.”
At press time, Ion was seen purchasing Wellson a set of Apple AirTags for her upcoming birthday.
Is America Ready for a President Who Can Convert a Word Document to a PDF?
By America’s expectations for its leaders have always been low. We’ve had presidents who needed help with basic tech, and we were okay with it. But now, we face a terrifying prospect: a leader who might know how to convert a Word document to a PDF.
In 2024, Kamala Harris has the potential to be the first president with this ability, reportedly mastering PDF conversion by typing “pdf” into Microsoft Word’s search bar. Is this progress? Or is it a slippery slope toward a future where our leaders are expected to perform basic tasks without passing the buck to those with less status and wealth?
PDF conversion has eluded each of our previous presidents in the digital age. Bill Clinton was president when PDFs were invented in 1993, but when a junior staffer brought up this new file type, he asked her, “Does that stand for ‘pretty damn fine’… like how you’re looking right now?” That was the end of any serious tech conversation during his term.
With his youthful, tech-savvy vibe, many assumed that Barack Obama knew this stuff. But when pressed about how to convert file types, he responded, “What do I look like, some kinda fuckin’ nerd?” His honesty was refreshing. After all, converting a file shouldn’t be the president’s job. That is what interns are for. (Recent surveys show 90% of interns’ work hours are spent combining, condensing, and converting documents in a way that doesn’t crash the aging government servers.)
Let’s remember what’s really at stake here: the intern-to-advisor pipeline. This sacred institution has molded countless young, wide-eyed college students into seasoned political operatives, making six figures based solely on their ability to click “File” and then “Save As PDF.” If a president starts handling this themselves, what’s next? Will the interns have to pivot to writing macros in Excel? It’s a slippery slope that could disrupt not just the economy, but the very fabric of American democracy.
So, the question remains if America is ready for a president who can operate thirty-year-old software. Maybe some mysteries are better left unsolved—at least by those in the Oval Office. The future might be coming, but does it really need to arrive in PDF form?
New Jersey Hardcore Band Cancels National Tour After Realizing They Have to Pump Own Gas
By Zac Lux
TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey hardcore band Bust In canceled their first tour outside of New Jersey after realizing they don’t know how to pump their own gas, sources close to the musicians confirmed.
“This just shows proves what Springsteen has been saying all along, New Jersey is the best fucking state in the world,” said frontman Gord Wilmont. “Forcing the common people to get out of their cozy car on a brisk fall day just to pump their own gas and get all stunk up by the fumes that smother any scent of the pumpkin spice latte you just picked up from Starbucks is inhuman. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but no, I’m not afraid to pump my own gas, and I actually do know how to do it. I just choose not to, because I don’t want to take part in ripping jobs away from hard-working people who want to pump my gas. It’s unbelievable that so many sheeple blindly follow along and pump their own gas. What a bunch of conformists.”
This isn’t the first time a band from New Jersey has canceled a tour due to vehicular constraints.
“I’d say this happens with about 98% of the bands from Jersey,” said Trent Gazo, a booking agent who works with multiple national acts. “They whine and whine about wanting to build their audience by going on tour, but as soon as they’re forced to reconcile with leaving the state for the first time in their lives, they run and cower in some greasy spoon diner to drown their fears in milkshakes and disco fries. It’s sad, really. But, for many, the decision to live in Jersey was a deliberate one, giving them a baked-in excuse because they’re too lazy to actually go out and tour.”
Some think NJHC bands’ resistance to tour nationally is actually fueling oil companies’ larger agenda.
“From a finance POV, we’re hoping there’s enough kickback from New Jersey Hardcore bands, that this can reach a legislative level,” said Joseph Kim, CEO of Sunoco Corporation, “The more NJHC bands that complain about not knowing how to pump their own gas, the more leverage we have to take this to the supreme court and make it a law that every station across the country needs to be staffed by a worker who may or may not overcharge the driver for gas by squirting out a couples squeezes on the asphalt.”
At press time, Sunoco representatives were too busy talking with lobbyists to squander the New Jersey Department of Education in an effort to get an earlier start on diminishing students’ fluency in pumping their own gas.
More From The Hard Times:
15 Music Video Tie Ins To Remind You That You Failed At Both Your Music Dreams And Your Film Dreams
Report: That’s Bullshit I was Aiming Right at Him
BY ORLANDO, Fla. — Calls for debugging the latest and most popular first person shooter have been made in the wake of claims that I was literally aiming directly at that guy.
“We take every report seriously. It’s entirely possible that the game experiences intermittent glitches that could affect accuracy, but certainly not in the volume this complaint is claiming” responded dipshit technical support engineer Caroline Buckwater. “We often get requests to look into problems like these, and they nearly always trace back to what we would call a skill issue.”
Despite the hearsay of incompetent game developers, several other sources have corroborated that I completely had him in my sights and that should have been a kill.
“Yeah I guess it could have been lag or some funky hitbox problem, he seems pretty fired up about it” reported local gamer and decent teammate Colin Preston. “I was playing with him that night and he kept talking about how he was going to clinch the win for us, then all of the sudden I heard a bunch of cursing and saw that he died. He had been pretty on point all night, but he doesn’t usually admit when he’s the one who loses us a game.”
Even with witness accounts piling up, some people still don’t seem to have a strong opinion either way on the matter of how unbelievable it is that I didn’t hit that guy.
“I don’t even know what game he’s playing, I just wish he would get out of the house a little more” explained chicken nugget supplier and aging mother Luanne FitzPatrick. “He spends so much time in the basement screaming about god-knows-what, I worry he’s never going to meet a nice girl and move out of here.”
At press time, in light of mounting controversy over this incident, I will be playing Stardew Valley tonight.
Pocketpair Hires Identical Lawyers with Guns
BY Matt Fresh
TOKYO — In the wake of Nintendo officially filing a patent infringement lawsuit against them, Palworld developer Pocketpair has announced that they have hired lawyers identical to Nintendo’s but with guns.
“Nintendo’s lawyers may be an institution in the gaming world but our lawyers are the exact same but with guns which makes them better and cooler,” said Pocketpair President Hiroshi Takeshita in an official statement. “The simple fact of the matter is that Nintendo’s lawyers have had diminishing returns for a while now. They’re the same lawyers they’ve been for over a decade with no meaningful changes. In some aspects they’ve even gotten worse. Our lawyers on the other hand are fresh, new and exciting. They have guns. Isn’t that such a cool way for lawyers to innovate?”
Benjamin Cassidy, a gaming YouTuber with an expertise in law was quick to weigh in on social media.
“Well there is no doubt in my mind that Nintendo does have a credible case. I mean anyone with eyes can see that many of Palworld’s designs are direct lifts of Pokémon,” posted Cassidy to Twitter. “Having said that, Pocketpairs lawyers have guns and that’s just so cool and funny. I mean lawyers with guns. Come on. So I think there’s a real chance that the court just won’t care what Nintendo’s lawyers have to say since they’ll be so taken aback by the comedy factor of lawyers with guns.”
Despite how equipping their lawyers with firearms may make them look, Takeshita assures that his company is innocent of any infringement and their lawyers will be able to defeat Nintendo’s.
“There was no stealing taking place at all. We used AI and the prompt was clear. Make Pokémon like creatures. So it couldn’t have been stolen and even if they were too similar, Pals have guns which makes them different and that’s what our lawyers will argue and they will argue better than Nintendo’s because they have guns. Nintendo’s lawyers will not be prepared for our firepower. They have spent the last few years doing nothing but suing fans so they won’t be prepared to face lawyers that are completely identical to them but are better because as I said before, they have guns.”
At press time, Nintendo responded, claiming guns or no they will come after Pocketpair with the same fury with which they go after 17-year olds who make fan games.
New Wordle Expansion Pack Includes Never-Before-Seen Letters
BY NEW YORK — The New York Times has announced a new expansion pack for the beloved daily word game, Wordle – now featuring new, never-before-seen letters.
It’s no secret that Wordle has had a difficult year: after a controversial game update to remove the letter “E” entirely, player count dropped by 80%.
“You know, people weren’t using the letter responsibly. GREFT? RENKS? Come on. At least try a little. Every time you play Wordle, real people have to check those answers, you know? And you’re wasting their precious time,” said Tracy Bennett, Editor of Wordle, at a press conference earlier today.
“But honestly, we didn’t know that people felt so strongly about a run-of-the-mill vowel. And yeah they were mad. So, we thought, maybe we bring “E” back — maybe even two Es — and see if people would pay for that. The ol’ “Bottled Water” approach. But then we thought, why limit ourselves to introducing letters seen time and time again when we could reinvent language itself?”
The new Wordle expansion pack, available as a monthly or annual subscription, allows you to use brand new letters, such as ᘅ, ⱷ, and even that one impossible-to-type letter that looks like a shark with a really hooked nose, in your favorite classic Wordle words. Joe Kahn, Executive Editor of The New York Times, shares,
“With the new expansion pack, you can interact with your favorite words like never before, all while absolutely demolishing your self-aggrandizing friends who swear they know every single word. Guess what? They don’t know the one you typed today. ‘Cause you just invented it.”
When questioned about the origin of the new letters, Kahn donned a shifting, darker tone, as if he were reminded of something darker he longed to forget.
”Where did the letters come from? That’s none of my business. All I know is if we take our feet off of the gas here, someone’s really gonna get hurt. Really hurt. Do you understand? I’ve come too far — too far — to go back to living my life in fear. I know what they’re capable of. And I hope that NYT Games enthusiasts never have to learn the way I did…” He would not respond for comment on who “they” refers to.
At press time, every new user of the Wordle expansion pack has reported it cannot be implemented into the puzzle unless they sit through 3-5 unskippable ads for the popular iPhone game, Royal Match. They have all tried to find the exit button of said ads, however the buttons in question are very small and very transparent.
Speak No Evil Review: They Sure Did Speak a Lot in This Movie
So Much Speaking, So Much Evil. False Advertisement.
BY Matt Fresh
As a big fan of James McAvoy I was a little shocked to learn he had a new movie out in theaters now. I mean you’d think that they would have done any marketing at all but they just didn’t. There isn’t even a trailer for this film, so I would not be surprised if this review is the first you’ve ever heard of Speak No Evil. But being the huge McAvoyeur that I am, as soon as I walked into my local cinema and saw this poster I immediately bought a ticket and let me tell you, this was not the movie that I expected.
This movie is called Speak No Evil and yet it was full of dialogue. Just non stop conversations the whole way. Not only are they speaking but McAvoy in particular is very often speaking in quite a sinister, some may even say evil manner. They should have called the movie Speak Lots of Evil because that’s what happens the entire 1hr50 runtime. I kept waiting for there to come a point when something would happen that would cause all the speaking to stop but it never did. In fact they spoke more as the film went on and it got more evil. Just a completely flabbergasting film to watch.
According to my post viewing research, this is a remake of a Danish film that’s also called Speak No Evil which came out just 2 years ago. Now I’m sure this film is at least better than the original since everyone knows that Hollywood films are always better than foreign films. But I was curious to see if the Danish one also bamboozled the audience by featuring copious amounts of speaking and it turns out it did. So I guess this is a faithful remake but what’s the point of remaking a subtitled foreign film if you are not going to improve upon it the way every Hollywood remake has done.
So overall I cannot recommend this film. It’s simply too frustrating to watch and it completely destroys any trust with the audience. If you’re a die hard McAvoyeur like I am you may get something out of this because he is delightful here as a gracious host who is increasingly pushed to his limit by annoying and ungrateful house guests. But that’s all this film has going for it. When I go to a film called Speak No Evil, I don’t expect much but the bare minimum is that there should be no speaking and certainly no evil speaking and this film is almost nothing but that. I feel betrayed as a viewer.
Speak No Evil: ★☆☆☆☆
