Elon f*cks Twitter

[Essence Lumin]

So, the thing is now, some of us are going to have to decide not whether we will have to leave Twitter after all, but where we will go.

That won't be much of a choice for me. I've posted around two messages the entire time I made an account there. Mostly my only use for twitter is to read links people post on VVO to there.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

 

[Free]

Twitter seeks assurances that Musk won’t break merger agreement again

Debt financing a key sticking point in talks to end litigation and finish merger.

arstechnica.com

lol

 

[Free]

Judge delays Musk/Twitter trial, gives them three weeks to complete merger [Updated]

Musk asked judge to cancel trial, claiming Twitter won't "take yes for an answer."

arstechnica.com

Ooh, a Halloween merger...

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Elon Musk again blessed the world with his unwanted wisdom, this time about how to resolve the Taiwan conflict.

To quote the man himself: "My recommendation . . . would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy. And it’s possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong."

Needless to say that Musk has now a lot of fans within the Chinese Communist Party, while not so much in Taiwan.

Elon Musk: ‘Aren’t you entertained?’ | Financial Times

The Tesla chief talks to Roula Khalaf about moving to Mars, saving free speech via Twitter — and why ageing is one ‘problem’ that should not be solved

www.ft.com

 

[Free]

Uh oh.

US might bail Musk out by blocking Twitter deal over national security

Musk's Twitter and Starlink deals could warrant national security reviews.

arstechnica.com

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Uh oh.

US might bail Musk out by blocking Twitter deal over national security

Musk's Twitter and Starlink deals could warrant national security reviews.

arstechnica.com

Desire to watch Musk get spanked aside, this isn't the worst outcome.

 

[Free]

Musk signals $44 billion Twitter deal on track to close this week

Musk notifies advisers, equity investors that he intends to finalize takeover by Friday.

arstechnica.com

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

So, the thing is now, some of us are going to have to decide not whether we will have to leave Twitter after all, but where we will go.

A lot of us are moving to Tribel. It is primarily a phone/tablet app, but also works pretty well on a computer via web browser. I am Katheryne Helendale there, if you want to look me up.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Same sort of shit that pisses me off about Twitter.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

 

[Free]

Dan Rather quoting the Clash. In some other dimensional realm, Sid Vicious is screaming out for some vodka.

 

[Noodles]

Hey, maybe Dan Rather and his journalist buddies can set up a news based Mastodon where people can follow various news people.

Make it a joint effort among proper journalists.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The new owner of Twitter has something the world to tell after he has fired the whole top management of it:



Why did Musk buy Twitter? In his own words: "The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. That is why I bought Twitter. I didn’t do it because it would be easy. I didn’t do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love. "

Elon Musk claims he has acquired Twitter ‘to help humanity’

Tweet comes as advertisers fear one of his first moves as chief will be to restore Donald Trump’s account

www.theguardian.com

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Pick your favourite slur and run a search for that.

 

[Noodles]

Why did Musk buy Twitter? In his own words: "The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.

So he is taking a page from the Steve Jobs book and acting like he invented something that already exists.

As in, the whole Internet. Which is a digital town square.

I guess he was already following the Jobs playbook when he pretended he invented electric cars, rockets, and shitty subway trains.

 

[Noodles]

Good god the reply chains on those tweets.

I fucking hate people.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

So he is taking a page from the Steve Jobs book and acting like he invented something that already exists.

As in, the whole Internet. Which is a digital town square.

I guess he was already following the Jobs playbook when he pretended he invented electric cars, rockets, and shitty subway trains.

You forgot the hyperloop, even that idea is around at least since the 1799. It was just called Vactrain back then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain

Musk did never invent anything - his achievement lies either in making a product appealing enough to become mainstream (electrical cars), or cutting down production costs a lot (rockets).

Or this thing from 1998, quite the Hyperloop itself (the company behind it became bankrupt in 2009):

You've got to understand that Musk is driven by the idea to fly to Mars. This is why he loves electrical cars - they can drive on Mars, ICE cars not. This is why he has his own rocket building company. And other stuff, basically most he makes is there because he could use it on Mars one way or the other.

Also the hyperloop and boring company makes sense in context Mars: since Mars has no atmosphere, if you are creating a train system you don't want to have that above ground, because above ground radiation levels are dangerous. And no atmosphere means also that you have you a vacuum for free. So putting a maglev in an underground tunnel, where you just have to pressurize the maglev itself is a good way for transportation and to be save from galactic cosmic radiation.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

And yet again, something I didn't know was on my bucket list.

 

[Chalice Yao]

Musk did never invent anything - his achievement lies either in making a product appealing enough to become mainstream (electrical cars), or cutting down production costs a lot (rockets).

There *is* something that, as much as I dislike Musk, makes him very special:

He's a rich guy that *actually* tosses tons of money at crazy or weird and random ideas.
While most of his type just simply hoard money, don't take risks, push old ideas and stay 'safe' except when they have to 'donate' money to avoid tax, he just gets an idea, grabs a huge chunk of money, and tosses it at the wall to see what sticks.

And quite frankly, as much of an idiot that he is, I wish there were much, much more rich folks like him doing exactly that: Toss lots of money at new developments and ideas, no matter the risk, and letting good things come from that.

It is this kind of unsafe and random spending that, ironically, got us the technical developments we got during the world wars. Except for much sadder reasons, but the willingness to just toss tons of money at risky things-that-might-not-work-out was the same.