I don’t know how we got from exploding pagers to space lasers.

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Proximity to the equator and high elevation make for ideal launch sites. Then eastward facing, because you want to run counter to the earth’s spin as you launch and be out over open water if something fucks up. One reason why Kenya, Brazil, and Indonesia were floated as a high efficiency international spaceports decades ago, when efficiency was considered more important than inflating a billionaire’s ego.

I mean… its a big deal if you’re anywhere near the launchpad. Or, in or around South Padre Island.

Also can’t help but notice that Starbase, Texas is practically hugging the US/Mexico border. Almost as though Abbott didn’t want this shit landing in his own backyard when it failed.

Heavy Lift drones can carry upwards of 55 lbs. And there’s no reason you’re limited to one.

We’ve been busting through constitutional amendments with abandon. I don’t think you could point to one that this administration would honor or respect.

none of the checks and balances have any balls

Trump took full control of the DHS and the FBI, staffed it with loyal goons, and is actively arresting/assaulting anyone who stands in his way.

This isn’t a matter of “no balls”, its a matter of Biden handing Trump’s biggest supporters a bunch of money and guns back in 2021 and Trump telling these guys “Arrest all the Bidencrats” the moment he took office.

Dafuq is any judge or legislator supposed to do in a country when ICE can kick down your door?

They fucked up thinking they’d never lose power. Now its too late to politics their way out of the mess.

How is he being blackmailed by TWO superpowers?

It’s hardly blackmail. He’s benefited immensely from the right wing turn on TikTok. They’ve got a Sword of Damacles over their heads that can drop any time the site turns against him.

He’s extorting them.

Why not create comparison like “generating 1000 words of your fanfiction consumes as much energy as you do all day” or something more easily to compare.

Because its still bullshit. The bulk of the utilization of these LLMs isn’t going to your 1000 word Princess Leia/Dianna Troy lesbian romance. They’re going to some call center in the Philippines blowing up your cell with automated voice-to-text phone calls and a bargain basement Netflix animation studio experimenting with AI generated children’s cartoons.

Once again, we have a giant Business Factory spewing out enormous plums of waste to produce things nobody asked for. Then we’re getting an Op-Ed from some know-nothing hack on the greenwashing beat to tell their readers “Um, aktuly, these skyrocketing emissions are because you asked Alexa to add kidney beans to your shopping list.” And I will put even money odds on this Op-Ed, itself, being AI generated.

Nothing costs Altman a dime. He’s been playing with House Money since day one.

What is crazy is that Microsoft kept cutting this con artist billion dollar check after billion dollar check, only for him to squander it on The Machine That Makes Creepy Studio Ghibli Knock-Offs.

John Witmire is a DINO by every definition of the word. He’s deep in bed with the police, he loves privatization of public services, and he makes common cause with the state’s Republican leadership on a regular basis. Nothing the man loves more than “balancing the budget” on the backs of public workers and low income residents.

But he’s been a Democrat since he took his State Senate seat and squatted in it back in 1983. So the party apparatus loyally and mechanically supported him all through the primary and general elections. The “It’s my turn” candidate is taking his turn.

Don’t worry, we’re bringing in a bunch of C-levels from AI companies and giving them Lt. Colonel rank so they can approve a “Move Fast And Break Things” approach to Pentagon IT investment.

I predict “billions over budget” will look absolutely quaint in another five years.

Also, incidentally, check out the ADE 651

No text. ASCII was a mistake. HTML is heresy.

Then they’re commandos or special forces.

Sure, fair enough.

The study isn’t bs.

There’s a lot of “I’m childless and proud and how dare you suggest living in isolation and screaming at my computer screen all day has had any negative impact on my mental health. You’re just trying to trick me into breeding! A thing I became intensely averse to just recently, after spending 16 hours a day on incel forums full of reactionary influencers.”

So much of the knee-jerk ingrained responses online are indicative of people who have utterly lost the ability to think for themselves and are only capable of lashing out in defense of their latest favorite social media trend. Add in the artificial interactions created by bot accounts and people spamming content for self-promotion, and you’ve got a real recipe for mass psychosis.

In theory, we have the Third Space for that kind of socializing. Parks, plazas, union halls, club spaces and dance halls, churches, community centers, libraries…

In practice, they’ve been gradually privatized and monetized until everything is The Mall. If you don’t have $10 to spend for the hour, there’s nowhere you can legally so much as sit down. Hard to socialize on these terms.

My city decided to take its $7B budget and close a $330M shortfall by gutting parks, libraries, and other public amenities. Meanwhile, the police and fire departments are seeing a budget surge of over $100M.

Best thing about working from home is stepping away from my desk, popping upstairs, and tossing my little baby boy up in the air a few times while he giggles and smiles.

Different applications employ different strategies for sifting content.

Facebook (and Google) pivoting to pure engagement bait was a more recent development, closer to 2018+, and synced up with their AI obsessions.

When they’re behind enemy lines, I’d say they’re on offense.

That was more YouTube than Facebook.