Elon Musk's Starman - Is this shit real wtf

[may be rude]

19 hours ago, marf said:

I always knew bought twitter to prop up the republicans.

And what is up with Russell Brand? 

brain worms coming out of his eyes

[ignatius]

i don't know why. so random. wtf. i wasn't even shit posting.  blessing in disguise i guess. 

Edited April 20, 2023 by ignatius

[auxien]

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

i don't know why. so random. wtf. i wasn't even shit posting.  blessing in disguise i guess. 

i’ve not missed the Tweeter at all tbh. Mastodon is cool, much less drama and rage and horrid news constantly getting thrown into the feed constantly no matter what.

[logakght]

15 minutes ago, auxien said:

i’ve not missed the Tweeter at all tbh. Mastodon is cool, much less drama and rage and horrid news constantly getting thrown into the feed constantly no matter what.

I recommend you this extension for Twitter: Literally hides all the bullshit and makes it tolerable: https://typefully.com/minimal-twitter 

[ignatius]

i was mostly using tweetdeck which also hid all the bullshit but you had to roll it back to the previous version as the new version is actually worse than twitter.. 

regardless.. i'll probably just deactivate my account if they don't overturn the ban. i mostly used it for following some developers and music people and a couple friends. so, i can do all that in other ways. twitter was convenient though which is why i think a lot of people stick to whatever social media they are sunk into. 

[auxien]

19 minutes ago, logakght said:

I recommend you this extension for Twitter: Literally hides all the bullshit and makes it tolerable: https://typefully.com/minimal-twitter 

thanks but no thanks. i try not to even click on Twitter embeds/links anymore even. i don’t want to give them the views. i want the platform to die, quickly. i assume even second/third-removed stripped versions of Twitter are still churning the viewcounts at the very least. fuck Twitter.

[logakght]

21 minutes ago, auxien said:

thanks but no thanks. i try not to even click on Twitter embeds/links anymore even. i don’t want to give them the views. i want the platform to die, quickly. i assume even second/third-removed stripped versions of Twitter are still churning the viewcounts at the very least. fuck Twitter.

Nice. I also hate Twitter and most social media with sadistic  passion. In my case, tho, I use it as a simple broadcast tool for myself, but without caring about anything else: Literally I'm so weary of the whole Twitter toxic world that I hid it. I've used that extension these days and has made me feel a lot better. Probably that's why I couldn't get into Mastodon neither, since, despite being what it is, still replicates the same communication methods that I'm starting to avoid.

[BobDobalina]

Hahaha f yo rocket nia

[zero]

so...Elon's rockets blow up...his cars catch on fire...twitter's breaking/tanking after he touched it...his underground people movers in tubes project died... fair assessment at this point to say he's a total con man?

[ignatius]

14 minutes ago, zero said:

so...Elon's rockets blow up...his cars catch on fire...twitter's breaking/tanking after he touched it...his underground people movers in tubes project died... fair assessment at this point to say he's a total con man?

the rockets all blew up in the process of making them better. seems to work for them. their stated goal w/this launch was to "clear the tower" so by that metric it was a success. it's a huge rocket. 400ft long/tall and huge cargo pod on the top that can carry cargo or up to 100 people (wtf).  so, as for that.. the engineers will get it sorted. there's another launch in a month or so. 

he's not the guy designing them or building them. other people do that. he is just telling them what he wants and telling them when it needs to be done by etc.. that's my guess. not saying he isn't smart at some things. he's still a twat. 

the whole twitter thing is a shitshow and i suspect a tax write off and whimsical folly for elon the troll 420 69 bro. and being able to shit off $44 billion on something like this is absurd of course. 

i finally drove some teslas. they drive nice. they do have tons of torque and drive nice enough but i'm nervous there's no forceable exit tool in the car in case it catches fire and decides to lock me in. i roll the window down when i drive them at work. they are kind of annoying in some ways. every thing you want to do other than roll down the window, windshield wipers, hazard lights, open the door... it's all in the screen. adjusting the side mirrors requires going into the screen to select that page then using the little wheels on the steering wheel to make adjustments. it's annoying. i know that's how they keep costs down or whatever.. so they don't have to make a bunch of small parts and systems for doing all that shit.. but it's not like they're cheap. expensive cars. anyway.. they're decent cars. though i'm well aware of all the problems with them and dangers of battery fires that do not go out. 

con man would be close to what he is but he does actually make things.. he's a salesman, a manipulator as much as anything. a troll. he's got an agenda and he'll meddle in whatever way he wants to get there. 

[Nebraska]

 

[auxien]

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

and being able to shit off $44 billion on something like this is absurd of course. 

yeah, 44bil sounds like a lot until you're worth 150bil or whatever he is. at which point, who fucking cares? it's absolutely absurd, absolutely ludicrous, but Musk's the sort of edgelord loser who loves that sorta for the lulz shit.

never driven a Tesla (and won't be doing so any time soon) but the waves they've made in the car industry is a good thing overall. 

SpaceX is generally doing good and idk the details but from all i've heard it has very little to do with Musk. he's obviously not a rocket scientist. he just had the idea for vertical integration and the money to get it started.

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

he's a salesman, a manipulator as much as anything. a troll. he's got an agenda and he'll meddle in whatever way he wants to get there. 

this. he's a rich asshole who's been a rich asshole his whole life and at some point learned leaning into that persona worked and set him apart. Bezos and plenty of others are basically the same but they just got too scared to go hard into that lightning rod persona. 

i think Steve Jobs is probably a good analog to Musk...smart in the sense of looking at the big picture and way forward and just having the clout/money/whatever to get the ball rolling to make it happen. Jobs was also famously an ass, and worshipped as a genius by cringey cultists. Musk's just taken it to a new level.

Thiel has had a similar track, but just not quite as in the public eye or as interested in huge idea style companies.

[zero]

2 hours ago, ignatius said:

 

con man would be close to what he is but he does actually make things.. he's a salesman, a manipulator as much as anything. a troll. he's got an agenda and he'll meddle in whatever way he wants to get there. 

for sure. he's an idealist. well thought out ideas are valuable/lucrative. that's where he's been able to successfully convince people he knows his shit, and to listen to him... I totally get the old adage of breaking a few eggs to get it right...but when you big picture it, what has he really done that has had a net positive result for all us? it seems to me he wants so bad to be a guy to change the world for the better, yet his ideas so far have crapped out after a few years. like Tesla had all this positive momentum when it launched, now it seems like overpriced garbage. Hyperloop? dead. these exploding rockets don't add a lot of confidence to Elon's good idea ability...IMO he needs to stick with one thing, work it through to success, THEN move on. he seems to want to conquer space travel, public transport, EV driverless whatever, all at roughly the same time at this point in human existence. the failures gonna outweigh the positives, damage his brand, and push him more to a laughable spoiled rich boy. only reason I say this is because I thought he had potential early on. now? yeah, not so much

[cruising for burgers]

3 hours ago, ignatius said:

they are kind of annoying in some ways. every thing you want to do other than roll down the window, windshield wipers, hazard lights, open the door... it's all in the screen. adjusting the side mirrors requires going into the screen to select that page then using the little wheels on the steering wheel to make adjustments. it's annoying.

Gen X's... want to do everything manually...

Spoiler

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by cruising for burgers

[cruising for burgers]

21 minutes ago, zero said:

he wants so bad to be a guy to change the world for the better

wanting to be the guy that changes the world for the better and wanting to change the world for the better are 2 completely different things... fyi, imho, afaik...

kindly yours,

zlemflolia

[ignatius]

25 minutes ago, cruising for burgers said:

Gen X's... want to do everything manually...

  Reveal hidden contents

 

lols. sometimes some knobs and buttons are just faster, better and safer than having to look at a screen go into a menu and select an option.  the safety measures on some cars these days are nuts though.  backup cameras are nice though.  pretty much every car has one now and a screen of some kind. 

Edited April 21, 2023 by ignatius

[ignatius]

2 hours ago, auxien said:

Thiel has had a similar track, but just not quite as in the public eye or as interested in huge idea style companies.

he's much more into politics and culture war shit unfortunately. he's back many of the chuds and all kinds of dumb libertarian shit

[chenGOD]

4 hours ago, cruising for burgers said:

Gen X's... want to do everything manually...

  Hide contents

 

[cruising for burgers]

 

[EdamAnchorman]

12 hours ago, ignatius said:

the rockets all blew up in the process of making them better. seems to work for them. their stated goal w/this launch was to "clear the tower" so by that metric it was a success. it's a huge rocket. 400ft long/tall and huge cargo pod on the top that can carry cargo or up to 100 people (wtf).  so, as for that.. the engineers will get it sorted. there's another launch in a month or so. 

he's not the guy designing them or building them. other people do that. he is just telling them what he wants and telling them when it needs to be done by etc.. that's my guess. not saying he isn't smart at some things. he's still a twat. 

the whole twitter thing is a shitshow and i suspect a tax write off and whimsical folly for elon the troll 420 69 bro. and being able to shit off $44 billion on something like this is absurd of course. 

i finally drove some teslas. they drive nice. they do have tons of torque and drive nice enough but i'm nervous there's no forceable exit tool in the car in case it catches fire and decides to lock me in. i roll the window down when i drive them at work. they are kind of annoying in some ways. every thing you want to do other than roll down the window, windshield wipers, hazard lights, open the door... it's all in the screen. adjusting the side mirrors requires going into the screen to select that page then using the little wheels on the steering wheel to make adjustments. it's annoying. i know that's how they keep costs down or whatever.. so they don't have to make a bunch of small parts and systems for doing all that shit.. but it's not like they're cheap. expensive cars. anyway.. they're decent cars. though i'm well aware of all the problems with them and dangers of battery fires that do not go out. 

con man would be close to what he is but he does actually make things.. he's a salesman, a manipulator as much as anything. a troll. he's got an agenda and he'll meddle in whatever way he wants to get there. 

To be fair, the whole "EV fire" thing is pretty much FUD.  Regular gas cars catch fire at a higher rate.  That being said, an ICE fire is easier to put out than a Li-ion battery fire for sure, but safety (and fire-fighting technology) will catch up as EV battery technology advances.  We're only using super-flammable chemistry now because that gives us the best energy density / cost ratio and safety was kind of the sacrificial lamb there.  Tesla is already using LiFePO4 batteries which are much less flammable, but they are less energy-dense (heavier per kWh) and lose a bit more range in colder weather.

Edited April 21, 2023 by randomsummer

[TubularCorporation]

56 minutes ago, randomsummer said:

as EV battery technology advances

If it does. 

As far as I can tell, the last major advance that has been made in battery technology was when alkalines were developed in the 50s (EDIT: I double checked and this is actually wrong, compact alkalines came to market in 1949 but they were invented in 1901, so every major battery technology in use today is older than 100 years, other thanthat 1949 chemistry tweak that made alkaline batteries mor epractical). The lithium ion tech that electric cars use was developed over 100 years ago, before WWI, even though it wasn't brought to market in a practical form until the 70s.  There have ben advances in manufacturing techniques and cost, but the underlying technology is VERY old and pretty much mature.

When I was just out of college, around 2003, one of my roommates was doing a postgraduate research fellowship at MIT in this exact field.  There hadn't been a significant advance in decades, and he said it was a field where you kept doing paid fellowships until you either made the one new discovery that revolutionized everything, which he said was less likely as winning the lottery, or retired.  He was 40 and still doing research.  About 5 years later he quit and moved to Canada.

 

I hope we get a source of cheap graphene or something that at least lets us make them smaller, that would be the biggest advance in generations even if it wouldn't really be a new technology.

Edited April 21, 2023 by TubularCorporation

[TubularCorporation]

Plus, you know, lithium cellls don't really scale up that well since it's a lot less abundant than fossil fuel and also nonrenewable.

[EdamAnchorman]

3 hours ago, TubularCorporation said:

If it does. 

As far as I can tell, the last major advance that has been made in battery technology was when alkalines were developed in the 50s (EDIT: I double checked and this is actually wrong, compact alkalines came to market in 1949 but they were invented in 1901, so every major battery technology in use today is older than 100 years, other thanthat 1949 chemistry tweak that made alkaline batteries mor epractical). The lithium ion tech that electric cars use was developed over 100 years ago, before WWI, even though it wasn't brought to market in a practical form until the 70s.  There have ben advances in manufacturing techniques and cost, but the underlying technology is VERY old and pretty much mature.

When I was just out of college, around 2003, one of my roommates was doing a postgraduate research fellowship at MIT in this exact field.  There hadn't been a significant advance in decades, and he said it was a field where you kept doing paid fellowships until you either made the one new discovery that revolutionized everything, which he said was less likely as winning the lottery, or retired.  He was 40 and still doing research.  About 5 years later he quit and moved to Canada.

 

I hope we get a source of cheap graphene or something that at least lets us make them smaller, that would be the biggest advance in generations even if it wouldn't really be a new technology.

First of all, there's a lot you can do within the current tech just playing with chemistry to make them safer (LiFePO4), with trade-offs of course.  I agree that practically all recent "major" battery tech advances, e.g., solid state, are vaporware at this point.

Second, I don't wanna sound like a free-market douchebag, but if the safety profile of current tech poses a significant enough risk as EVs become more prevalent, the market will hopefully incentivize more radical innovation.

Edited April 21, 2023 by randomsummer

[cruising for burgers]

13 hours ago, ignatius said:

lols. sometimes some knobs and buttons are just faster, better and safer than having to look at a screen go into a menu and select an option.  the safety measures on some cars these days are nuts though.  backup cameras are nice though.  pretty much every car has one now and a screen of some kind. 

what a knob twiddler... I bet your music making set up is mostly hardware, and analogue for you is warmer...

[ignatius]

5 hours ago, randomsummer said:

To be fair, the whole "EV fire" thing is pretty much FUD.  Regular gas cars catch fire at a higher rate.  That being said, an ICE fire is easier to put out than a Li-ion battery fire for sure, but safety (and fire-fighting technology) will catch up as EV battery technology advances.  We're only using super-flammable chemistry now because that gives us the best energy density / cost ratio and safety was kind of the sacrificial lamb there.  Tesla is already using LiFePO4 batteries which are much less flammable, but they are less energy-dense (heavier per kWh) and lose a bit more range in colder weather.

yeah.. the battery race will be interesting. once they figure out how to do it at scale w/o lithium or whatever. there's several technologies that are being explored... but so far they all seem like those cancer treatments in mice we hear about. as in very far away from being practical. but perhaps some wizards will solve some of these problems and we'll all be better off for it. 

edit: re twitter.. since my account is suspended i'm unable to deactivate it. lols. 

Edited April 21, 2023 by ignatius