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yesterday: somewhat viral post about shooting billionaires into the sun (and my stupid "WELL ACTUALLY" reply)
also yesterday: elon musk leaves twitter "for a while" and jeff bezos steps down

COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!

 elon's gotta be off twitter for a while because they don't have wifi on the SunCrasher 9000, and bezos keeps stealing his phone anyway
elon thought he wouldn't need it because of starlink but THE SATELLITES ARE IN LOW EARTH ORBIT, MUSK, AND YOU'RE HEADED TOWARDS THE SUN
bill gates is the only one who still has internet access because he remembered to set up a long enough ethernet cable

(although tim cook joked that was just because his WinPhone doesn't have wifi support anyway)
zuckerberg asked if bill gates would let him use the network connection for a while and while billy g was fine with it, it turns out none of the other billionaires brought phones with built in ethernet ports

finally, the win95 phone comes up top!
BTW I have repeatedly made fun of the windows phone in a couple posts recently and I think people might mistake it for actually being serious mockery.
it's not that I think the windows phone is behind iphone and android and that's why I mock it for being 16-color or dial-up or having a full size ethernet port or running windows 95
it's that I wish that all those things were true so I could buy one
anyway, google founders page & brin brought along a server but it turns out the hard drive was damaged on lift off so they have a blank drive. they're gonna need to write new code for it, and where are they gonna find developers 20 million miles towards the sun?
then steve ballmer comes around the corner, chanting
the harddrive was partially encrypted, and gates wrote some BASIC code to unlock it but eric schmidt estimated it'd take too long to decode it. There's only 18 months left in their trip to the sun, and their computer would need to be twice as fast to solve it
that's when Gordon Moore (net worth 9.8 billion) walked in
larry ellison slipped a note to musk saying he figured out a way to get to mars, and to meet him down on the cargo deck.
elongate sneaks down there and there's no database dude to be seen, but there's two people...
"Who are you, what do you do?"
"Hi! I'm John"
"Jacqueline, nice to meet you. We make candy!"
it takes elon a second but he finally gets it, and swears revenge on larry ellison
BTW, amusing thing about John there. The first picture that shows up on forbe's "top billionaires 2020" page and on google images is this one:
while trying to find a better picture of him (or a picture of him with his sister Jacqueline, which apparently doesn't exist) I found that it's a cropped version... and they cropped out THE FUCKING QUEEN
you know you're rich when the first picture of you on google is a picture where they had to crop out someone who rules (well, reigns) over 16 countries.
gonna finally change my profile picture/avatar (I'm too old to use the acronym "pfp") once I can get a picture where I'm talking to the pope, and then crop his holiness out
anyway, to finish connecting some of the billionaires together:
michael dell provided the server that the google trio are using, although it was purchased used off alibaba (thanks Jack Ma)
on the trip they're mainly eating chocolate since giovanni ferrero at least brought plenty of nutella.

bloomberg supposedly had organized purchasing all the food but thanks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue, he just ensured that warren buffet was on the ship
lee kun-hee keeps making "suck my koch" jokes to tim cook and then elbowing charles but rupert murdoch explains it's pronounced like "coke"
They did have some entertainment on the trip, at least.
George Lucas brought his VHS tapes and that fortnite guy Tim Sweeny brought a DOS laptop with a copy of ZZT loaded onto it
unfortunately steven spielberg is the only one who brought a VCR and he hasn't talked to Lucas since '81, so all they can really do is look at the VHS covers
gabe newell did bring a top of the line gaming PC, but he forgot to enable offline mode before they left so he can't get any of his steam games to load
my favorite thing about this forbes billionaire list is when you get to someone who has their (money) "source" listed as just "cheese"
ahh, there must be a bug there, it's loading the wrong name. lemme fix it real quick... yeah.
it must get confusing because they'd got Eric Schmidt (former google CEO) and Eric Smidt (CEO of Harbor Freight) on the same spaceship
that wasn't the only name confusion by far.
One of the Waltons went up to the founder of the Allegis talent agency and told him how much they loved his work, and he had meekly to explain that he wasn't THAT Jim Davis.
forbes why did you have to put an advert in between these two billionaires
does peter thiel get weaker the closer they get to the sun?

and we all know what he spent his cargo allowance on: a coffin filled with the earth from his home country.
although that brings up a vampire mythology question:
if you're a vampire who needs to sleep on earth from your home country, what if the country you were born in no longer exists?
Peter Thiel was born in West Germany.
Now you can argue that yes, modern Germany is just the continuation of West Germany, because legally it is, but what if he was from East Germany, or, like, Czechoslovakia?
maybe it needs to be dirt that was collected back when that country still exists.
So he's got to find some dirt from prior to german unification
Ted Turner did actually get to take along a set of DVDs and a DVD player but sadly only a B&W TV so he's refusing to watch anything on principle.
I like how the profile for Steve Case doesn't even mention AMERICA ONLINE which is the only reason most geeks even know who he is
(and yes, it's That Steve Case. He's a billionaire!)
oh hey, they've got a kryptonian on board!
Don't they know that he will only be powered up by earth's yellow sun?
anyway, yesterday's billionaires post was this:
https://t.co/n5Uc1rJupS
and my WELL ACTUALLY response was here:
https://t.co/I9sBHHnO5N
with the key take-away being this:
https://t.co/X0UjRaDMlm
besides, clearly I'm suggesting with this thread that we make a reality TV show where billionaires are loaded into a spaceship and we watch them
if we vote one of them out the airlock every week, the show can run for 40 years according to the Forbes 2020 list.
although I'm still wondering on the vampire thing
even if we assume that countries don't matter and you just need it from the general sort of area you were born in, what if that area isn't really there anymore? like, what if it is underwater?
if you dredge up the silt from the bottom of a man-made lake or swim down and dig up some dirt from what used to be an island before the sea levels rose, does it still count as "earth from your home country"?
maybe this is why we never see any atlantis vampires.
they just can't get the dirt
maybe global warming is a long-term plot by the werewolves to finally win the war
a couple centuries from now there's gonna be a bunch of werewolves living on top of mt. everest, drinking tropical cocktails with their yeti friends.

the last vampire is dead. the galaxy is finally at peace.
if a werewolf bites a yeti, do they turn into a werewolf on the full moon?
would they even notice?
"yeah, doc, about once a month I get slightly hairier and feel like howling at the moon. Weird, right?"
maybe it'd work backwards because of how werewolves are on the other side of the hairy-hominid spectrum.

every full moon, the wereyeti shrinks and loses their hair, becoming a human guy named gary
all the wereyeti become a guy named gary.

it's one of the great mysteries of cryptozoology
once every thousand years one will be born who turns into someone named garry or garrison but they are always sterile, and their mutation can't be passed down
anyway your challenge, fiction writers, is to figure out a way that the lack of a "home soil" country is actually a power-up for vampires.
like maybe they can only be truly killed by burying them in their home country?
so if you kill an american vampire, that's easy mode.
go dig a hole in charlotte, NC and stuff them in there, and they're never coming back
west german vampires? slightly trickier, but you just need to make sure it's on a part of modern germany that was west germany.
then you've got vampires from like, Kashmir, and that's way more complicated.
and burying a vampire from a now-underwater island is very tricky. you need lead weights (although silver is preferred for obvious reasons, although that can attract treasure-hunters who might unbury them) to hold down the coffin under the ocean/lake/whatever
and the ultimate threats are vampires from, like, Atlantis or Lemuria or the land of Mu.
They're underwater AND you don't know where the fuck to dig!

More from foone

foone
foone
@Foone
WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD HOLLYWOOD STYLE TITLES TO YOUR HOME VIDEOS?
NOW YOU CAN!


This is the Sima ScreenWriter, a device for putting titles on your home videos.


The back


It's apparently from 1992, and takes a CR2032 battery


The very minimalist IO panel. composite in, composite out, power and a switch.
ALL
foone
foone
@Foone
So I was talking to @gewt about Job: A Comedy of Justice and I came up with a theory that I think explains why Heinlein's late-period work is so kinda-terrible and why I still enjoy it so much


So Heinlein had always been very interesting in the short parts of his novels, like the little snippets inside chapters. He had a very fun writing style, and wrote some fun dialogue with fun characters, right?>
It probably comes from how much of his early stuff was short fiction

And I think what happened with a lot of his longer works is that he'd just start writing fun bits and hope it would end up going somewhere or having a bigger plot by the end. like eventually he'd figure out where this was going, then go back and rewrite it into a cohesive whole

and I'm sure he had editors that'd help this process. No editor would let you publish something as rambly and changing-gears-every-other-chapter as The Number Of The Beast, for example... unless you were God-King Of Science Fiction 1980s Robert Heinlein.

so basically I think what happened is that by the 80s (when he was in his seventies!!) he lost the drive to go back and rewrite and he was too Untouchable for editors to make him.
CULTURE
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foone
foone
@Foone
It is 2018 and this error message is a mistake from 1974.
This limitation, which is still found in the very latest Windows 10, dates back to BEFORE STAR WARS. This bug is as old as Watergate.


When this was developed, nothing had UPC codes yet because they'd just been invented.
Back when this mistake was made, There was only one Phone Company, because they hadn't been broken up yet. Ted Bundy was still on the loose. Babe Ruth's home run record was about to fall.

When this bug was developed, Wheel of Fortune hadn't yet aired. No one had seen Rocky Horror. Steven Spielberg was still a little-known directory of TV films and one box-office disappointment. SNL hadn't aired yet. The Edmund Fitzgerald was still hauling iron ore.

WHEN THIS STUPID MISFEATURE WAS INVENTED, THE GODFATHER PART II HAD JUST OPENED IN THEATERS.

So, why does this happen? So Unix (which was only 5 years old at this point) had the good idea of "everything is a file" which mean you could do things like write to sockets, pipes, the console, etc with the same commands and instructions.
TECH
foone
foone
@Foone
So Sony has this format called Optical Disc Archive, right? It's a high-density storage cartridge, but it turns out it works by cheating.


because if you open it up (which you should never do. trust me on this one)
it turns out... it's blu-ray.


it's a big STACK of blu-ray


And the idea is that Sony built some very complicated drive which you can slot this cartridge into, and it'll open it up and grab out the right disc and just read/write that one

then when you hit the eject button, it shoves the discs back in and closes up the case, and hands you the cartridge.
TECH
foone
foone
@Foone
I've only got one quest in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and it's always active.


wow, I think I just rolled a critical failure on my image capture.
I told my script to take a picture of Oblivion and instead got a badly cropped screenshot of Heroes of Might & Magic III, a game I don't even have installed


the endless questions of trying to capture fonts from modern 3D games:
1. what's the native resolution?
2. IS there a native resolution?


it looks cleaner at 1024x768 (earlier one was 640x480)
but not perfect.
maybe 800x600?


nope. I think it's 1024x768, for a simple reason:

this splash screen! it doesn't scale based on resolution, and it seems to be sized the same as 1024x768
GAMING

More from For later read

Simon Wardley
Simon Wardley
@swardley
X : Do you think cloud will decentralise?
Me : Already has - started with regions and AZs and is now rapidly expanding into outpost, greengrass, EKS anwhere.
X : No, I mean many providers.
Me : There are two forms of decentralisation - provision and control (i.e. authorities) ...

... what is happening is decentralisation of provision (i.e. cloud everywhere, at the edge) but under centralised authorities (Amazon, Alibaba, MSFT, Google etc).
X : What about decentralisation of control?
Me : Many companies working to a common standard ...

... that was the dream of OpenStack but they blew that on day one creating a collective prisoner dilemma. They are trying to recorrect this with K8s but the cloud has moved on, higher up the stack ...

... so, the idea of a marketplace of many different companies each having authority is ... wishful thinking by past vendors and clients they've hoodwinked. Maybe in 15-20 years we will get another go ... open source is a long game ...

... more likely is many points of provision i.e. companies offering EKS anywhere on a utility basis but under centralised authority e.g. AWS.

So, yes, the cloud is going to edge, has been for sometime but it'll be AWS / Alibaba / MSFT cloud that is everywhere.
FOR LATER READ
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Planet Money on HP's myriad ripoffs; Strength in numbers; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/esjoT3u5Gr

#Pluralistic

1/


On Feb 22, I'm delivering a keynote address for the NISO Plus conference, "The day of the comet: what trustbusting means for digital manipulation."

https://t.co/Z84xicXhGg

2/


Planet Money on HP's myriad ripoffs: Ink-stained wretches of the world, unite!

https://t.co/k5ASdVUrC2

3/


Strength in numbers: The crisis in accounting.

https://t.co/DjfAfHWpNN

4/


#15yrsago Bad Samaritan family won’t return found expensive camera https://t.co/Rn9E5R1gtV

#10yrsago What does Libyan revolution mean for https://t.co/Jz28qHVhrV? https://t.co/dN1e4MxU4r

5/
FOR LATER READ
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Enigma
Enigma
@ainittomai
On December 25 Mr Pool retweeted August 16 message about the Phoenix and that the worst was still on the horizon to come. 1/*


Maybe now we can assume that November 3 message meant "FUD" nor "FUN". Putting the word in capital letters seems to indicate the aspect the word fud has in our space, FUD. 2/*


Brad started it on December 22 (1/3 posts (Don't say? Sure) = 13 = Plan B). 3/*


And immediately the SEC followed dropping the bomb (1.3 billions (Don't say? Sure) = 13 = Plan B). 4/*


FUD materializes, Bitstamp is one of the first that haltes XRP trading and so on. 5/*
FOR LATER READ
Jared Rubin
Jared Rubin
@jaredcrubin
Excited we finally have a draft of this paper, which attempts to provide a 'unifying theory' of the long economic divergence between the Middle East & Western Europe

As we see it, there are 3 recent theories that hit on important aspects of the divergence...

1/


One set of theories focus on the legitimating power of Islam (Rubin, @prof_ahmetkuru, Platteau). This gave religious clerics greater power, which pulled political resources away form those encouraging economic development

But these theories leave some questions unanswered...
2/

Religious legitimacy is only effective if people
care what religious authorities dictate. Given the economic consequences, why do people remain religious, and thereby render religious legitimacy effective? Is religiosity a cause or a consequence of institutional arrangements?

3/

Another set of theories focus on the religious proscriptions of Islam, particular those associated with Islamic law (@timurkuran). These laws were appropriate for the setting they formed but had unforeseeable consequences and failed to change as economic circumstances changed

4/

There are unaddressed questions here, too

Muslim rulers must have understood that Islamic law carried proscriptions that hampered economic development. Why, then, did they continue to use Islamic institutions (like courts) that promoted inefficiencies?

5/
FOR LATER READ
Jail all false accusers
Jail all false accuser...
@Hammertonhal
The very first section of Robson's allegations is an example of how when he realizes a certain true part of his story does not support his goals he simple changes it to a lie.

He and Joy repeatedly stated under oath that Target run the 1987 dance contest.

Wade 2005 testimony


Joy 2016 deposition


Wade 2013 Apr declaration

blacked out but it's clearly Target not MJJ Production


Wade 2013 Apr Complaint


Wade June 2013 first amended complaint
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Kelly Ellis
Kelly Ellis
@justkelly_ok
So, I want to talk about how sexual harassment and fair pay are linked at Google (and beyond), because I think that's an angle that isn't being highlighted enough in the coverage of these walk-outs. I'm going to frame it largely around my personal experience there. Thread.

When I was sexually harassed by the director of the area I was working in, I was afraid to report it because I was worried that "getting him in trouble" would result in the subtle retaliation of missed leadership opportunities.

I wanted to continue working on the team I was on, because I'd gained a lot of very deep knowledge and expertise in that area, as well as reputation and camaraderie with the other folks working in that area. I didn't want to make the situation more "difficult."

To get promoted at Google, several need to happen: 1. you need opportunities for ownership and leadership above your current level (basically, opportunities to show you're working at the next level you're trying to get promoted to). The work you're "assigned" has a big impact.

2. You need glowing reviews from peers, *at or particularly above the level you're hoping to get promoted to.* Basically, you need people a lot more senior than you to say you're doing awesome work.
TECH , SOCIETY
Liz (Welsh) Beechinor \U0001f605
Liz (Welsh) Beechinor ...
@LizTweetsTech
My dad led an organization of over 300,000 employees.

When I took on my biggest marketing & events team to date (35 employees) I asked him how the *heck* he did it. Here's what he said and what helped me every day. 🧵

Remember you're leading all the employees under you, but you're not *managing* them all. You're managing your direct reports, which should be 5-7 individuals max. Focus on them.

When you interact with the employees you don't manage directly, get to know them as people first, that'll be the most valuable information in leading them. Remembering everything you learn about them is hard, but doing so will make you a superhero.

If you're not going to empower the managers under you, why do you have them? If you see room for improvement, let the manager know and let them make the change on their teams and come to you with questions/concerns. This will save you SO much time.

If you're the smartest person in any room - you're doing it wrong. As a leader, your job is bringing together the best people to get the job done - your skillset is identifying those people, not being one of them.
ALL , WORK , A CATAGORY
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सा विद्या या विमुक्तये...
@raghav_aanya
#ज्योतिष_विज्ञान #मंत्र_विज्ञान

ज्योतिषाचार्य अक्सर ग्रहों के दुष्प्रभाव के समाधान के लिए मंत्र जप, अनुष्ठान इत्यादि बताते हैं।

व्यक्ति के जन्म के समय ग्रहों की स्थिति ही उसकी कुंडली बन जाती है जैसे कि फ़ोटो खींच लिया हो और एडिट करना सम्भव नही है। इसे ही "लग्न" कुंडली कहते हैं।


लग्न के समय ग्रहों की इस स्थिति से ही जीवन भर आपको किस ग्रह की ऊर्जा कैसे प्रभावित करेगी का निर्धारिण होता है। साथ साथ दशाएँ, गोचर इत्यादि चलते हैं पर लग्न कुंडली का रोल सबसे महत्वपूर्ण है।


पृथ्वी से अरबों खरबों दूर ये ग्रह अपनी ऊर्जा से पृथ्वी/व्यक्ति को प्रभावित करते हैं जैसे हमारे सबसे निकट ग्रह चंद्रमा जोकि जल का कारक है पृथ्वी और शरीर के जलतत्व पर पूर्ण प्रभाव रखता है।
पूर्णिमा में उछाल मारता समुद्र का जल इसकी ऊर्जा के प्रभाव को दिखाता है।


अमावस्या में ऊर्जा का स्तर कम होने पर वही समुद्र शांत होकर पीछे चला जाता है। जिसे ज्वार-भाटा कहते हैं। इसी तरह अन्य ग्रहों की ऊर्जा के प्रभाव होते हैं जिन्हें यहां समझाना संभव नहीं।
चंद्रमा की ये ऊर्जा शरीर को (अगर खराब है) water retention, बैचेनी, नींद न आना आदि लक्षण दिखाती है


मंत्र क्या हैं-
मंत्र इन ऊर्जाओं के सटीक प्रयोग करने के पासवर्ड हैं। जिनके जप से संबंधित ग्रह की ऊर्जा को जातक की ऊर्जा से कनेक्ट करके उन ग्रहों के दुष्प्रभाव को कम किया और शुभ प्रभाव को बढ़ाया जाता है।
ALL
Pegasus of Dharma
Pegasus of Dharma
@HarduttSuhas
The BATTLE OF PAVAN KHIND (13 July 1660)

300 MARATHAS against 10000+ ADIL SHAHI TROOPS

A Sparta style last man stand at a mountain pass which ensured Shivaji Maharaj's safety.

Valour, loyalty and sacrifice!


Baji Prabhu Deshpande was one of the most able lieutenants of Shivaji. He sacrificed his life defending Shivaji in a heroic last stand known as the "Battle of Pavan Khind" in which his force was hugely outnumbered.(1)

In this battle he became a martyr, but managed to halt the enemy forces for several hours, which secured Shivaji’s safety and victory on another front. Without this heroic last stand Shivaji’s glorious career may have been cut short.(2)


Baji Prabhu was senior to Shivaji. In the beginning he opposed Shivaji being from a rival Maratha clan, but realised that Shivaji stood for national resurgence. Henceforth he became a friend and loyal supporter of Shivaji.(3)

In 1660, Shivaji was trapped in the fort of Panhala, under siege and vastly outnumbered by an Adilshahi army led by general Siddhi Jauhar.(4)
HISTORY
Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
SRI MOOKAMBIKA DEVI, KOLLUR (KAR)

There was an Asura, Kaumasura, who was doing penance to please Shiva and get a boon. To prevent him from asking for a boon, Devi Saraswati made him dumb (hence called Mookasur)
Later, Adi Parashakti slayed him and came to be called Mookambika.


It is said that Adi Shankaracharya had a vision in which Devi agreed to follow him provided he did not look back. He kept walking and was assured of her presence due to the sound of anklets. When he reached here in Kollur, he turned back as the sound of anklets had stopped.


So Devi stayed here and merged with the lingam. The place came to be called Mookambika Kshetram.
The linga has integrated on it’s left side MahaKali, Maha Lakshmi and Maha Saraswathi and on the right side- Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.


A swarna rekha (gold line) divides this linga into left and right portion. Adi Shakthi in this Udhbhavlinga form appears only here.
Devi sits in padmasana and has 4 hands.
Adi Shankaracharya installed the Sri Chakra in front of Devi and also composed the Soundarya Lahiri here.
ALL