Zoo Animals as Influencers, a Shoe-Hoarding Alligator, and Greece’s “Rebrain” PR

Yo I'm too tired so got an LLM to summarise this episode below, sorry. No need to read ittttt

Ermis records episode 94 from Berlin, reflecting on modern zoos and their conservation narrative, comparing captive animals to “trapped influencers” funding protection of wildlife, and noting the northern white rhino is functionally extinct with only two females left, relying on IVF. He shares a news story about an alligator lifted by helicopter after a flood, found to have eaten a missing businessman and to contain six pairs of shoes, suggesting it may have preyed on others near a frequently flooding bridge. He comments on the Trump administration releasing UFO files in curated batches while dumping Epstein files as unorganized raw data. He critiques Greece’s “Rebrain Greece” campaign amid brain drain statistics and misleading “reversal” language, praises Korea’s mixed-ripeness “one a day” banana packs, covers Berlin’s e-scooter hub parking plan extending to 2035, and updates that he’s building a six-level

2D platformer game playable in a browser: here

https://pull-the-plug.feepok.workers.dev/

more projects at:

https://ennui92.github.io/ermis-dev/.00:00 Welcome to Episode 9400:46 Zoos and Conservation Guilt04:41 Rhino Extinction Reality06:09 Alligator Eats Businessman10:01 UFO Files vs Epstein Files13:14 Rebrain Greece PR Spin19:31 Bananas One a Day Pack21:26 Berlin E Scooter Parking Ban24:05 Building a 2D Platformer Game25:34 Final Wrap and Callbacks

Click me! What a chaos. Freshly converted by the city’s May 1st mass awakening, moving through the people-rivers. Listen as we try to hold a family-friendly corner in a park while DIY DJs multiply, and I attempt to sleep a baby in a stroller like a Game Boy game, and a million things to avoid.

He’s good. Charming strangers, cautiously worshipping dogs, and steadily evolving in unpredictable directions. We’re also flirting with the dreaded “pasta period,” which may already be too far gone.

Plus:

• An Amsterdam church experiments with going offline,
• Anguilla keeps cashing in on the AI boom, and
• I ship a new Chrome extension, Tab Noodle, after last week’s “fair German Google reviews” tool.

Thanks for tuning in.

If you're interested in the stuff I make, like Tab Noodle or the Fair Google Review calculator for Germany, you can find everything here: https://ennui92.github.io/ermis-dev/

Fair Google Ratings, Remote Cashiers, Polymarket Scams, and Ryanair Leaves Berlin

This episode covers a new Google Maps change in Germany that shows how many reviews were removed under defamation-law claims, and my free, open-source Claude love built Chrome extension called “Fair Rating for German Reviews"

Extension here

The episode then looks at ethical gray zones in tech capitalism: New York restaurants using remote on-screen cashiers paid $3/hour from the Philippines, and Polymarket manipulation, including the Coinbase CEO trolling “mention” bets, a Super Bowl anthem-length bettor timing rehearsals, and someone allegedly heating a single Paris airport sensor to spike temperature bets.

Also Ryanair closing its Berlin base amid rising costs and taxes, and ends with a personal plan to shave my head. Sunday Intro Germany Review Loophole Fair Rating Extension Claude Coding Freedom Remote Cashier Wage Hack Polymarket Mention Games Super Bowl Rehearsal Edge Weather Sensor Manipulation Ryanair Leaves Berlin Shaving My Head Wrap Up and Thanks