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

I praise dried mangos, while the orange man is fighting the pope, and AI fakes are ruling the world. Some nostalgia for old times, a story about my date with an old man to see ballet, and a few thoughts on the Artemis mission splashdown

Thanks for tuning in

Timestamps
00:00 Mango Delusion
00:55 Apps Became Casinos
02:33 Episode 92
04:00 Trump vs Pope
07:40 AI Is Fooling Everyone
10:24 China’s “Show Your Diploma” Rule
12:08 Accidental Ballet Date
20:40 Artemis Splashdown
21:36 NASA’s Potato Stream
26:25 Moon Won’t Turn Around
27:00 Wrap-Up

I got one extra hour of sun and one surprisingly decent espresso, which is weird because I usually drink instant dirt and pretend it’s a personality. I spiral a bit about Nestlé, then I put on Placebo and immediately time-travel back to being an embarrassing teenager. So yeah: music, memory, and how to hack your brain without buying another app. Then I peek at the news: Greece doing Greece things—corruption, surveillance, and a luxury hotel near the Acropolis making money off being illegally tall. I also talk about ads that feel psychic (they’re not), a stupid “white messiah” meme, a Germany rule about leaving the country, and Voyager 1 just quietly escaping all of us. Berlin blossom festival, breathing, jump around, don’t die. See you next week.00:00 Morning Hello00:26 Coffee Standards Clash01:20 Ditching Nestle Guilt02:22 Placebo Nostalgia Trip04:46 Music Memory Hack06:23 Greece Corruption Snapshot08:40 Acropolis Hotel Scandal11:48 Ads That Read You14:30 Cobain Hawk Messiah Meme15:41 Germany Travel Permit Rule18:12 Voyager 1 Deep Space Update20:42 Wrap Up And Wellness Tips

Us or them? An AI dog cancer vaccine and birds using quantum physics. Here's whats up:

• Growing the podcast - ads, stickers, mild criminal energy. Expat dad life in Berlin. The nightly betrayal of waking up to pee at 3am.
• A thought experiment involving €100 million and the ocean.
• Europe's biggest drugstore chain drops krill.
• Trump's committee guts the Endangered Species Act so Gulf drilling can take out rare whales, turtles, sharks, and coral.
• Migratory birds might literally see Earth's magnetic field through quantum effects in their eyes.
• A data engineer used AI and DNA sequencing to make his dog a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine. It worked.

Like, rate, subscribe your grandma. Ciao!

Hello world, hello spring. It's been a while. Recording on a Sunday with a kid playing horrible flute through the wall. Divine. Back pain, tooth pain, and a norovirus. Living the dream. Sewages exploding at home and abroad.

Also a lovely 14-month-old who points at things until they happen. But life is good and I'm trying to keep this episode light. Succeeding partially - Maybe spiritual bird watching is the way.

Oh and I won the caffe hipster battle so I saved you that click.

Links:

Yet Another Expat on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/7ibAqCfRRWJmUiWIRyTeWD

Ερμής και ο Κόσμος - Greek Podcast with Cosmo:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1jOWcdO5g0UWf5vaWtr43i?si=0eS3osRDQh-9lDELdXncKA

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/yet.another.expat.podcast/

Thanks for supporting!

Sunny days and deceiving titles. This one's worse than usual! Thanks to whoever did that 21st rating, you're the real MVP.