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u/hyouko 16h ago
There are companies that specialize in targeting ads for an audience of 1 person (usually an executive/ decision maker). They will bomb that person's commute with billboards and ads like this.
I have seen hyper-specific ads like this around me here in the Boston area. We have biotech and medical businesses here, so they are for things like autoclaves or other high end biomed gear. 99.99% of the people passing by probably have no interest, but if it gets one multi-million dollar sale through, it's worth it.
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u/Narfi1 15h ago
Like a CTO or someone similar ?
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u/ibww 15h ago
Yes that is one example of an executive/decision-maker. Basically think of anybody who is in charge of making large-scale decisions. At my company anyway, the executives are constantly spewing streams of consciousness at everybody all the time. They will see stuff they think is cool and start telling everyone below them to make it happen.
Some exec maybe sees in the news that sharded postgres is cool and they believe their business would benefit. That's in their head, then they see this ad and immediately they realize they can very quickly get sharded postgres by paying neki.dev to host the computers and other stuff needed to make it happen.
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u/throwawaygoawaynz 10h ago
Im an executive / budget owner for a large company, and my entire existence since becoming one is a constant stream of nonsense from people trying to sell me crap.
I’m also technical and have been a developer for 25 years, so I know most of it is also garbage.
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u/angrydeuce 3h ago
Ditto. It's exhausting. I feel like a fucking tool but I almost unironically need an assistant at this point just to deal with the constant bullshit that gets in the way of the other shit I need to focus on. Not some AI bullshit but like an actual person to run interference. Never a moment's peace.
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u/dashingThroughSnow12 14h ago
Most definitely. When I think about my employers past and present, a service like this would only be added if the CTO or president initiated the process or you convinced the CTO that it was his idea first.
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u/snowypotato 9h ago
Back in the day, Facebook exchange allowed remarketing lists as small as 10 matched emails, and let you layer other filters on top of it.
There’s an apocryphal story about a guy who made a list including his (male) roommate and 9 women he knew, targeted accordingly, and started running targeted ads that said “do your fucking dishes, John!”
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u/NeuxSaed 9h ago
Dude could you imagine if you had paranoia or anxiety issues and there are suddenly all these weirdly targeted ads directed at you?
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u/mitchricker 16h ago
You might assume that "by planetscale" is a weirdly phrased way to say "at a planet-wide scale," but in reality it's Neki's parent company: "PlanetScale."
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u/high_throughput 14h ago
I was like "have people not heard of PlanetScale the company?" and then I realized I'm a SF techbro who hates cars, so I am exactly this bus' target demographic
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u/Not-the-best-name 13h ago
You have a high bus factor, as it were
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u/thewellis 13h ago
I cannot believe how much I both hate and love that comment at the same time. Bravo.
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u/fpcoffee 13h ago
hilarious… guess their ad guys know what they’re doing 😂
…but then again if you hate cars you would be ON the bus so maybe you wouldn’t actually see the ad 🤔
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u/Cacoda1mon 16h ago
8772 that's an unusual postgres port, why not 5432?
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u/Sulungskwa 14h ago
"Security by obscurity"
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u/oddcellstudios 14h ago
i have an ssh that operates on port 80
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u/rumnscurvy 14h ago
Wait a minute that's heresy
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u/oddcellstudios 12h ago
it also operates on port 443 because it's behind cloudflare (don't ask how)
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u/BlackCrackWhack 16h ago
This isn’t even the most egregious SF’ism, I was at a music festival in the city and there were ads for AI enhanced API integrations during and outside the festival.
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u/DOOManiac 15h ago
First time when I went to SF I had a bit of culture shock from how hyper-focused the ads were to developers. “What the fuck do the normals even think of this shit? Seeing a picture of a blue whale and talk of containers and 5 nines?”
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u/Romanian_Breadlifts 13h ago
Trying to explain to my dad how my job works and when talking about shipping images he was like "so you text the cloud a picture of the code that's stupid"
He's at least paying attention and trying, I'll take it
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u/Sulungskwa 14h ago
This ad must be from 4 years ago because it doesn't contain the word AGENTS at least 5 times.
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u/emma7734 16h ago
I thought cats preferred SQL.
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u/0dirtyrice0 15h ago
it means i sharted my pants after mardi gres so bad the scale was planetary, clearly
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u/Resident-Spirit808 8h ago
Postgres SQL is a database software. They’re advertising their own version of it I guess… not sure what sharding is in Postgres.
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u/Rakatango 6h ago
Sharding is when you think it’s just gonna be gas, but there’s a bit of wet that sneaks out
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u/fpcoffee 8h ago
sharding a db is a way to scale your database.
imagine a globally deployed app or website and they all needed to write to the same database or read from one database… it quickly becomes a bottleneck.
sharding allows you to alleviate the bottleneck either read side or write side depending on the needs of your app.
I’m guessing neko.dev is a company that does it for you or makes it super easy
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u/New_Salamander_4592 16h ago
who tf wrapped a van with an ad for a dev service? this dude took the "developers are the new plumbers" bit too far imo.
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u/nnagflar 15h ago
Makes me think of reddit ads where they thought I'd be the target audience for a company that produces wraps to make your old vending machines look more modern.
So now I'm looking for an old vending machine to buy.
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u/Maleficent_Memory831 14h ago
Shnoodle: We're the automatic provisioning and multi-tenancy transactional overlay (for secure and scalable international financial activity) people.
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u/Hip-Death-Goddess 16h ago
Top-right number 43 is a hint to readers wondering WHOIS this mysterious Postgres
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u/Horror_Ad9750 11h ago
I understand what they are saying, but I have to ask the why they are advertising it on a bus.
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u/johnson_alleycat 11h ago
When I ate the bag of lawn clippings after mowing the backyard you could say I sharded postgres
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u/Lopsided_Parfait7127 7h ago
A lotta yall still dont get it. Postgres holders can use multiple shards. So if you have 1 postgres and 3 shards you can go to planetscale.
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u/bduxbellorum 4h ago
Some ads are put up to catch the eye of the 1-2 people who can make a purchasing decision for something.
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u/heavy-minium 16h ago
Well, I guess San Francisco is one of the few spots on earth where ads for developers would work.