Elon Musk shows what being Chief Twit is all about across weird weekend Chief Twit Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter and shown he is well and truly up to the job title he gave himself after paying $44 billion for the micro-blogging platform. Musk began his tenure with a few quips, before offering the following announcement detailing his plans to address content moderation on Twitter: Twitter …
I have to ask what the hell is the point? Presumably Tesla engineers work in C, maybe C++ and perhaps some Python or similar for AI.
Twitter engineers will work in Javascript.
It is absolutely sensible and useful for one of these groups to check the code of the other. Oh yes.
(For the sarcasm impaired, I doubt either group can understand the other's code.)
Tesla's engineers work in AutoCAD and the MCC Materials Handbook. Tesla's programmers work -- We'll agree to refer to repeated failure due to forced and unrealistic released dates as working -- in C / C++.
Given that most of Twitter's back-end data processing is also written in those languages, and that it uses some "AI", those Tesla programmers might have an inkling what they're looking at.
Not sure why they'd want to change it, though. I've no use for Twitter, but it works as well as something like that can. It isn't broken, merely useless.
You don't always have to be in habit of writing good code to recognize it, but it helps. Of course there are actual people that do this for a living, but Musk either can't afford to pull any of Tesla's QA team out from under the mountain of unfinished test cases, or just keeps sending the good ones to SpaceX.
Much like Tesla, Musk is going to hit a wall of pain as his minority investors take their frustrations out on him. While this isn't what I expected for the third act, he definitely has found a bigger gun to shoot himself in the foot with. But sooner or later the people he had to get in bed with to buy twitter are going to get upset, as will Tesla shareholders wondering why Musk is pulling resources from their company to funnel into his latest toy.
"My favorite thing is the reports that Musk has brought in a bunch of Tesla software engineers to look over the Twitter code."
While Elon looks to turf out all of the lazy bastards that pretend to work from the Twitter offices, he has people from a publicly traded company stop the important work they might have been doing to review code for their CEO's new non-profit purchase. Why haven't those people from Tesla been fired yet. Obviously, what they were doing at Tesla couldn't have been all that important if they can be sent elsewhere.
I wonder how the other shareholders of Tesla feel that Tesla staff are being asked to work for another firm unrelated to Tesla except that its majority shareholder owns the other firm.
That seems ripe for a case of Conflict of Interest being brought against Musk.
Its not like Tesla software engineers don't have work to be doing, like I don't know, programming their cars not to crash into police vehicles.
I'm also not convinced that software engineers that are focused on automated car software, visual identification, real time control, etc. are the best fit for determining good programming of a social media application...
"I'm also not convinced that software engineers that are focused on automated car software, visual identification, real time control, etc. are the best fit for determining good programming of a social media application."
A good code reviewer can review any code in a language he is familiar with. It may even be an advantage if he is from a different field. Musk is basically saying he doesn't trust Twitter employees to verify the quality of their own product, which seems fair. It's like bringing in external auditors to check a company's accounts.
"A good code reviewer can review any code in a language he is familiar with".
I used to work with a bunch of PhD Astrophysicists, and I really doubt just any programmer could just look at their code and get what it's supposed to do. verifying syntax is one thing, but working out what a complex piece of code does to a large set of data is another.
doesn't have to be complex code - just think of the amount of times you've proof read something you've written, or proof-read for someone else - errors get through - and just a few days ago, a colleague was having some issues with a program and I was helping to trace/he was convinced the problem was network connectivity - I asked, have you checked the configs, and are you sure those are the values being processed and presented correctly (Spring/annotations) - of course he was adamant the code and config was right. I started looking, and saw some settings that were transposed in the code, including wrong annotations - so, the wrong values were being assigned - to make matters worse, the naming of the configuration values and the instance variables and the getter/setter function names were inconsistent/difficult to link to each other. Oh, and this had been PR'd. And to cap it all, this chap is dead keen on performing PRs. Unit tests would have picked up the issue/should never have got anywhere near an integration test.
I make a point of not getting him to do PRs of my code, as I don't have the confidence that he will pickup on the things that do matter.
well thats partly because java is fucking crazy using annotations, at this point it's basically magic incantations to make the code work.
"annotation" means notes/comments, not fucking config/data for a compiler.
one of the reasons java and like minded languages sucks balls.
""annotation" means notes/comments, not fucking config/data for a compiler"
Well said, but habits die hard. On a java project I prototyped some algorithms and commented the code extensively with (guess what?) comment lines among the code. The application developers, however, stripped all those comments out and replaced them with basic summaries in html at the tops of the methods. That of course is the conventional way to "comment" java, but it made understanding the code much harder.
But we should also probably not pretend that Javascript isn't pervasive, and that Tesla coders are probably familiar with it as well. It and Java were pervasive when most of these kids were coming up through school.
I don't put it on my CV, because I don't want to have to code front end shit all day. If that team runs out of bodies again and tries to press gang people from the server team to make a sprint, they won't stop at my cubicle. Doesn't mean I don't know it, or I'm not reasonably good at it. I also don't advertise my SQL skills because I don't want to end up the report monkey for my least favorite member of the management team. (not that being a DBA is a bad gig, I just don't want to do it here)j. Somehow data makes it into my programs from the database though.
And this review is probably to spot larger howlers, not subtle defects in single lines of code. If Mudge's reports are accurate there may be a pile of baling wire and duct tape holding up key parts of Twitters infrastructure.
Also interesting to see if Mudge got a job offer and if it was declined with a middle finger or not.
"If Mudge's reports are accurate there may be a pile of baling wire and duct tape holding up key parts of Twitters infrastructure."
If that's the case, some temp tesla code monkeys seconded to Twitter for a few weeks isn't going to be adequate or useful long term. They'd have to be brought up to speed, provided there's anybody left that can do that, and then have to work out improvements, test, conduct reviews and finally have the code released. Perhaps they can do that in the time they are there, but who supports it afterwards? A new hire that has to learn all of the things the Tesla coders just did all over again with nobody around to explain things?
Besides all of that, if you were "asked" to leave your post at one job you might have liked to go over and help out somewhere else, you might decide that switching employers might be the better alternative. I've had that happen before and it was a nightmare. I spent all sorts of off-the-clock hours trying to get up to speed on the new stuff while at the same time trying to track what was going on with my permanent job so I wouldn't return and be dead in the water there. Of course all of that extra work wasn't appreciated in any meaningful way.
"and just a few days ago, a colleague was having some issues with a program and I was helping to trace/he was convinced the problem was network connectivity"
A second set of eyeballs to help troubleshoot something as you outline is far different from the monstrosity that is likely what the code is to run Twitter and the things that need to happen. There never seems to be time or budget to stop adding "features" and do a bottom up rewrite to make it nice and clean again so it can be supported. This is why it can really be an issue to lose people and Elon is going to find this out and Twitter users may see a whole bunch of strangeness and outages.
Funny you should mention that, as an external software quality audit seems to be exactly what he needs, as well as one of the things he waved in the acquisition as part of the due diligence he clearly didn't do. But why do that when you can pull people from another company you control but don't totally own and get in trouble with the SEC again.
Maybe also things that he could have learned in a basic software management training class, along with the remedial management training they offered and he declined.
There's some decent concepts in JavaScript, but Netscape rushed the release of what had really been little more than a proof of concept - as admitted by the language's own author. Hence horrors like the need for the === operator. typescript gives me some hope that we'll eventually get away from the worst excesses of JavaScript.
Hmm, yes.
That was a really quite a long time ago. We are currently on ECMAScript version 13.
> horrors like the need for the === operator
I don't see that as a horror. It's just a syntactical feature, albeit one which seems to pass a lot of coders by. That's kind of my point.
-A.
what kind of capabilities he really has besides finding and motivating excellent people to work for him ( he's absolutely fantastic there ) - besides an enormous stubborness and absolute lack of empathy...
Really thinking through a problem the size of Twitter's free speech vs hate speech vs. national regulations does not seem to have played any role in his bid to buy Twitter.
Probably he will have to find other execellent people to solve this for him, too.
Just as he did with Tesla and SpaceX.
True, that is exactly why I'm kind of surprised he makes Twitter crash and burn in no time himself instead of bringing in someone willing and capable to take on the complexity of managing Twitter in this phase.
But hey, it's not my money burning...
"It's not his money either."
A lot of it was, but the second in ownership stake is the Saudi investment fund. It wouldn't be all that good for Elon if he managed to burn the place to the ground and make them rather angry at him. At the very least, they wouldn't be as interested in going in with him on a project that might actually make money.
Elon borrowed around $13 billion from banks to pull this off so he has payments to make on those loans. More relationships he'd not do well to sour.
"A lot of it was, but the second in ownership stake is the Saudi investment fund. It wouldn't be all that good for Elon if he managed to burn the place to the ground and make them rather angry at him. At the very least, they wouldn't be as interested in going in with him on a project that might actually make money."
If it does burn, he'd be well advised not to accept any invitations to a Saudi embassy ;-)
“there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story” behind the attack on Paul Pelosi in San Francisco, linking to an opinion article in the Santa Monica Observer, a site described by fact-checkers as a low-credibility source favoring the extreme right. The article claimed without evidence that Pelosi was drunk at the time of the assault and “in a dispute with a male prostitute.” (cited from the Washington Post; the NYT article reported the same facts.)
Looks like Elon turned off the bullshit filter in his own mind as a warm-up for his actions at twitter.
Given that 'fact checkers' are nothing of the sort and most often paid shills for the DNC it is probably safe to ignore their opinion.
A well known nudist hippy living in one of the leftest places on earth is somehow now far right. We really are in the death grip of the 'everything I disagree with is far right' mindset.
Being anti-government is not exclusive to 'the right'
Questioning 9/11 is not exclusive to the 'far right'
Being anti-war is not exclusive to the 'far right'
Hmm... I don't think you are right. Remember 2000, 2004 and 2016? Hillary has stated many time the election was stolen from her. Stacey Abrams has also claimed the election she lost was stolen from her. Dem members of the house refused to certify the 2016 election, although they didn't follow process and it was rejected.
Even though there are superficial similarities, the difference is that when there's a question Democrats demand sensible, objective investigation, while Republicans storm the Capitol in the worst assault on democracy since Pearl Harbour. One elevates democracy, the other destroys it.
Nope, wrong. The dems backed panty-fa, BLM etc who burned cities and terrorised mostly normal people. As well as murdering a few along the way. It was this crowd who brought a guillotine to the white house and beheaded a Trump effigy. I've not seen celebs posing for publicity shots with a fake severed Biden head. Dem politicians and lawmakers leading protests to the home addresses of other politicians they don't like. Fake photo-ops outside empty car parks. Marching through residential areas at 3am with bullhorns, bright torches and lasers waking people up.
The Jan 6th protesters took their protest direct to the government as is their 1st amendment right. Its just after 4 years of putting up with everything listed above it boiled over, along with some help by the feds.
All that the establishment creates is destruction. Inner cities, drug issues, homelessness. They stoke anger, resentment and jealousy to keep the people fighting themselves while they live in safety. You must hate the deplorables, you must hate the people with different ideologies, you must hate anything that doesn't fit the party line. Everything within the party, nothing outside the party. Keep them poor, ill and angry and they are easy to control.
Anyone who breaks from the accepted norm you label as 'far right' (and much worse) as it is easier to dismiss them as 'wrong' than looking inward and seeing the rot.
The police are controlled by the government so why burn down shops and homes? The anger is being directed at the wrong people. Just like XR and just stop oil. They don't direct their anger at the govt but at private businesses and normal people.
The riots in DC in Jan 2017 were against Trump. It wasn't all about the police.
The shops and homes are representative of the white society that Black people are excluded from and oppressed by. It's understandable that they would be targets of anger. Also, you're assuming that everyone can afford to travel to their seat of government.
And now they have no local shops as they burnt them down or kept looting them until the owners gave up and moved out. Any anyone with enough money also leaves, no matter what their colour. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Destroy your local community in in the name of protesting about how bad your local community is and then complain when it gets worse. How much did the BLM leadership spend on those big houses while doing nothing to help the people that really need it?
The people who are oppressing them are behind the big walls in their gated communities with private security in total safety.
The people pulling the strings are deliberately aiming the anger in the wrong direction to keep them 'oppressed'.
Proper fact checks do not read like opinions, they go over the statements in the material they are reviewing and provide additional evidence context that may either support or refute those arguments. They go over that line my line in many cases, and even an article with broadly factual statements can be deliberate misleading with both it's conclusions and a few inaccurate statements. If fact checkers keep taking apart your arguments, check your opinions, then make better arguments.
If you feel that attacks your opinions personally it may merit taking a closer look at them. If you are simply having a knee jerk reaction to the ratio of negative fact checks on conservative misinformation then I can't help you. The ratio exists because conservative parties the world over have gone off the rails and become "conservative" parties and totally dependent on rage mobs and disinformation tactics. If they were less allergic to the truth, they would be wrong less, and could be punching the liberals on their mistakes instead of getting pummeled themselves.
There are actual facts in the world, and those that lay them out are doing gods good work. We may not make it without them, and the ones that are good at it don't have much to worry about from your line of argument. Yes, wikipedia is shit, and if you try to start a conservitard edit war there, you are just making it worse. And Wikipedia isn't a fact checking site, and isn't supposed to contain "original research".
Keep eating this culture war crap and you will miss the real fight. That will be rebuilding our conservative movement from the wreckage that's left or holding it to account if it manages to avoid collapse in the next election cycle. Because if it just becomes window dressing for an authoritarian and totalitarian elite we should be burning it down.
What's wrong with the DNC funding fact checkers? It shows they care about the truth and that Republicans are the ones who profit from misinformation.
If they cared about the truth, they'd focus on the facts and not create conspiracies of their own. So in <48hrs the case went from being a violent assault to a left-wing conspiracy linking a violent far-right extremist to Jan 6th.
Actual facts seem to be that Pelosi was violently assaulted with a hammer by a suspect who's now in custody. Assault was witnessed by police, who would have had the opportunity to record some of the events via their bodycams. Pelosi required surgery for a fractured skull, which is not something anyone should wish on another person.
Then it got politicised.
So attacker allegedly said 'Where's Nancy?', which politicians jumped on to make a tenuous connection to Jan 6th. Attacker was inside Nancy's house, with unknown intent. If the attacker was looking for Nancy, asking where she was seems reasonable. We have no idea what the person's motivations were though. Initial reports seemed a little confused, ie both men holding a hammer. That got clarified to a struggle over a single hammer. Both men may have been in their underpants, one may not. The attacker broke in via a rear door, or the police did. There's glass on the outside, but maybe it was a claw hammer and whoever broke the glass used the claw to pull glass and one of the bars out.
The attacker was an illegal immigrant with a long arrest record, and history of drug abuse. That seems sadly typical for criminals in SF and other American cities. They lived in a trendy part of SF with trendy symbology, so BLM & Pride flags, and a 'social' media footprint that seems to lean more to the left than the right. But the far-left seem to be certain the attacker was probably a Republican. Or an extremist, which in the current political climate is much the same thing.
Or, as the attacker was an illegal immigrant, known to the authorities, he could have been deported back to Canada. But SF is a 'sanctuary city'. Interviews by some journalists seem to show the attacker was violent, abusive and psychotic. Just as many criminals in the US are, and who go untreated or unpunished. This one seems to be having the book thrown at them with a long list of charges. Other criminals who've committed violent assaults, including against politicians have been put back on the streets with cashless bail. Some politicians are arguing that violent offenders shouldn't be locked up, or should be released. Unsuprisingly, if criminals have no fear of punishment, they keep doing crime.
So I think it's disgraceful that people are making this political, rather than focusing on the actual crime. Nutjob attacks old guy, seriously injuring them. There's also the media pressure. There's lots of CCTV around the house, and the bodycams. So there's probably evidence showing how the attacker gained entry, and what happened when the police arrived. But there are also security and privacy concerns because Nancy is currently 3rd in line to the throne. The police also need time to conduct a thorough investigation, and prepare a case for SF's DA, who might actually prosecute this one. Criminals who've assaulted Republicans don't seem to get the same treatment, even though justice is supposed to be applied equally.
But sadly, political violence does seem to be on the increase, and some politicians do seem to be encouraging it. So rather than 'healing divides', some seem intent on widening them. It does raise questions around politicians security arrangements though, especially after claims that someone graffitted the Pelosi's garage and left a pigs head at that property. That does seem pretty exposed, but one of the oddities is whether it had sufficient security, ie armoured glass, break-glass alarms, panic buttons etc, and if it did, if those were in use. Police response seemed quick, but then it is a posh part of SF. Response times are much lower in other parts of town. Or if people are unlucky enough to live in Illinois, they're getting a new 'crime reduction' policy where police won't attend to deal with intruders.
Is the guy really an illegal from Canada? Not see that one.
That he was originally from Canada seems pretty certain. Current immigration status, maybe less so. Seems like he went to the US after high school in Canada, so may have become naturalised, possibly by marriage. Also according to wiki, he had been a member of the US Green Party. So obviously a dangerous radical. Also complained that Etsy didn't sell fairy houses with fairy appropriate doors. So a person that looks like they were barely on speaking terms with reality. Sadly, there's a lot of those in the US, and partly the reason for it's crime problems.
Pure echochamber horseshit. Jellied Eel and an AC (sockpuppet?) just throwing rumors out, then confirming them.
My point is that there have already been too many rumors. But all you seem to hear are echoes of Jan 6th. Your President has told you this, amplified by sections of the media.
But the suspect is in custody, the investigation continues, and his motivations may become known. It seems pretty clear so far though that he was a highly disturbed individual who saw conspiracies everywhere. Sadly, this is pretty common in American politics today.
How much do they pay for this?
Less than MSNBC, CNN, the NYT or Washington Post?
Why exactly is that again? Something about the angry mob and rage politics that is the cornerstone of the new Republican political rhetoric. Since you spew empty talking points on a regular basis, I assume you are familiar with the pattern of inciting violence and then pointing the finger when someone follows through on this.
You have nothing to counter this with but hand waving then? Because regardless of his immigration status, and probable mental heath issues, this is literally why politicians that incite an angry, conspiracy fueled mob need to be held accountable for the violence that ensues. This is why earlier conservative movements knew enough to stay on the other side of that line, even the firebrands. And in a healthier time, conservatives would hold each other to account over this kind of incident. Instead conservatism has been invaded by slash and burn con-men who have tried to attack the very idea of responsibility, of accountability, and a cornerstone of conservatism.
And in a healthier time, conservatives would hold each other to account over this kind of incident.
Most conservatives I've seen have condemned the attack. The President condemns his political opponents for the attack. Election polls show Dems may be losing badly in the mid-terms because voter's priorities seem to be law & order and the economy. Areas where the Dems have been extremely weak.
Instead conservatism has been invaded by slash and burn con-men who have tried to attack the very idea of responsibility, of accountability, and a cornerstone of conservatism.
Err.. Right. Wait a couple of weeks, see what happens in the mid-terms. See also-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE-T_Act
or a video version-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC_qdm501LM
"But all you seem to hear are echoes of Jan 6th."
Echos are not necessary. The filmed footage, photographs, recordings, and in some cases testimony (read: confessions) of the rioters and criminals who attacked the U.S. Capital building, assaulted police officers, and threatened congress people and the VPOTUS is sufficient.
You, apparently, have chosen to believe the likes of Fox news and trump rather than the reality which any rational person with eyes and ears can see and hear.
And Alt-Right extremists have been arrested after coming down here directly to participate in white nationalist attacks with US based groups. Remember that nonsense with the truckers on the border? The base?
The guys social media is apparently all "Q'd" up as well.
So his immigration status may have bearing on his trajectory through the court and jail systems, but not on the resting place for blame in this attack. The far right incites and refuses to condemn political violence. There are consequences. One of which is that encouraging talk of violence toward the political opposition lead taking a hammer to the political opposition. If that agitation is normalized you should be more concerned about the golden rule than using immigration as a talking point.
So as usual, like your namesake, you don't have a leg to stand on, and your deflection seems spineless.
The far right incites and refuses to condemn political violence.
Again, you seem confused. Or just blinkered. Republicans have condemned political violence. Repeatedly. Especially during the previous 'fiery, but mostly peaceful' protests where removing Trump from office was a theme. Or of course there was Seattle's short lived Capitol Hill independence movement where left-wing protestors seized part of the city. Riots also affected other US cities, and when Federal resources were deployed, mayors and governors demanded their withdrawl. Some people just want to watch the world burn I guess.
If that agitation is normalized you should be more concerned about the golden rule than using immigration as a talking point.
It was a point that appears to have been confirmed. Nutjob overstayed his visa by around 20yrs, and became radicalised during his stay in SF.
So as usual, like your namesake, you don't have a leg to stand on, and your deflection seems spineless.
I wonder what this image shows?
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/78/f4/3f/78f43f702b014780d46fbe1798f1ef5c.jpg
But in other news, there's been an affidavit filed and published now with some more of the details. So one charge is the attempted kidnapping of Nancy Pelosi, and the nutjob claimed his intent was to kneecap Nancy, wheel her into Congress and force her to tell the 'Truth'. And a curious comment that attacking Pelosi was just one part of a cunning plan to get to someone else. Apparently he also had a journal on him that probably contains some kind of 'manifesto', because those seem to have become a thing amongst teh crazies.
Jellied Eel, Well stated.
I also wonder about the security at Chez Pelosi. Alarms and CCTV aren't barriers to criminals getting in and doing bad things. In this case it sounds much like it was a complete nut job that broke in and smashed the insider trading drink driver's head. I have to wonder if Paul was on the booze and let go of the hammer he was wrestling over since the police had arrived or just finally lost his grip. I wouldn't let go until the other guy was wrapped up by the cops or if I had a place to break contact and run away.
Does this house have no panic room? Did Nancy arrange this? You'd think the Pelosi's would have 24hr security given her position similar to the President and VP. If not officers from the Secret Service, then from another agency. What would have happen if the attack was done by somebody a bit more professional that wasn't as distracted by visions in their head? Even if an alarm had been triggered that person could have been long gone before police knew they needed to look for somebody.
I also wonder about the security at Chez Pelosi. Alarms and CCTV aren't barriers to criminals getting in and doing bad things. In this case it sounds much like it was a complete nut job that broke in and smashed the insider trading drink driver's head. I have to wonder if Paul was on the booze and let go of the hammer he was wrestling over since the police had arrived or just finally lost his grip.
It doesn't really matter if Pelosi was drunk or not. He'd have a right to be in the privacy of his own home. The affidavit though said the nutjob broke in via the rear of the house, and found Paul Pelosi in his bedroom. Most decent security systems let you set up zones, so downstairs is alarmed, upstairs isn't.
Does this house have no panic room? Did Nancy arrange this? You'd think the Pelosi's would have 24hr security given her position similar to the President and VP.
Fair question. Many VIP homes do, and bedrooms or en-suite bathrooms are popular choices. Nancy obviously has a security detail, but some or all of them would have been travelling with her. I guess that's a wider question for US politics in what security politicians should expect, or can expense. Tucker Carlson makes some good points here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4NFYNnTOX8
Especially around the issue of transparency. Initial reports had very little in the way of facts, so conspiracy theories were generated. Carlson makes the point about a potential 'third man', because the affidavit is vague around who opened the door. Personally, I suspect that was Pelosi, but bodycam footage should make that clear. The police have been getting quicker at releasing that kind of footage because showing what happens helps create false narratives that are quickly spread by social and regular media. Police shoot unarmed man. Police brutality! Replace police with social workers! and the videos show the person was armed, and the shooting justified. Mostly.
But the narrative was quickly framed as political violence from a right-wing extremist, and it's all the fault of the Russians. I mean Republicans. No real evidence for that. It does seem clear that it was politically motivated given the target, but it seems like the nutjob leaned to the left rather than right. Or that's just another problem with polarised politics. If you're not entirely in line with the left's mindset, you're an extreme MAGA Republican. Even though the far-left has a long history of violence in the US.
Nutjob's getting arraigned this afternoon though, so more actual facts may emerge. Or more likely it'll be a short hearing and off to pre-trial detention. Which is something that should be happening to more violent and mentally disturbed people, but often they're just bailed back on to the streets to reoffend.. Except this case is special, because of the victim. The rules seem different, if you're one of the elite.
I'd argue it does make the case for self-defence though. Nutjob could have learned that bringing a hammer to a gunfight was a bad idea, despite what the fairies told him. But Dems are unlikely to accept that view given many of them are pathologically anti-gun.
"Nancy obviously has a security detail, but some or all of them would have been travelling with her."
As family members of VIPs are often targets, they usually get security as well.
The reason I question whether Mr Pelosi was on the drink again as it was said he was investigating noise from the break in. That's not something I'd do in his position. He clearest move is to get somewhere that is secure and call the police. The chances of a professional hit are too great for somebody in his position. Even if the alarm is triggered, he could be kidnapped in less time than it takes the cops to arrive and act if he's easily caught.
As family members of VIPs are often targets, they usually get security as well.
Yes, but apparently he was alone in the house. There was a comment from a lawyer who'd previously tried to serve Paul Pelosi(PP), and said there were security/staff present when they tried. PP could have assumed he was safe this time, and given staff the night off. Downside to being part of a VIP family I guess is the lack of privacy that comes with it. An unfortunate choice, especially after we've been told to be alert for extremists around the mid-terms though.
The reason I question whether Mr Pelosi was on the drink again as it was said he was investigating noise from the break in. That's not something I'd do in his position.
That seems to have been misreporting, along with both men being in their underpants. Court filings state that the nutjob encountered PP in his bedroom, with PP wearing boxers & a pajama jacket, nutjob being a MiB. But an example where transparency would reduce the scope for 'conspiracy' theories. If the DA doesn't want to release full bodycam or CCTV video, they could have released still images showing the intruder outside, and a still from the struggle witnessed when the officers first gained entry. Absent that, it allows the mind to run free. Semi-naked men get into a bedroom argument that develops into a violent assault. More 'news' at 11.
That PP drinks is known, after all he was lightly convicted of DUI very recently. Similar issues arose in that case, ie if there was a passenger in PP's car, or not. That seems to have arisen from the fact that the passenger airbag deployed in PP's car. Many cars have sensors to detect if there's a passenger present, and if not, don't trigger that airbag. But it was a pretty violent impact, so maybe it fired anyway. Salient facts in that case seem much as this one, ie the difference in the way the cases were/are being treated compared to when 'ordinary Americans' are involved.
There do appear to have been security failures though. The Dems have been telling us for years about 'extreme MAGA Republicans' being a greater threat than Pearl Harbour or 9/11 and the dangers of violent extremists. Or just drug addled nutjobs that are left to roam the streets. Given the general crime environment around SF though, it would have been sensible to convert an en suite into a safe room. Maybe that was an option, maybe the combination of being drunk or half-awake meant PP didn't use it.
I like to try and find the positives, and maybe a left wing nudist hippy becoming a psychotic far right conspiracy loon gives us hope that one day all the psychotic far right conspiracy loons might chill out and become left wing nudist hippies. I will live in hope.
While the left has gotten themselves tripped up from time to time, I see my so called conservative brethren burying their heads in the sand when it comes to the problems facing the right that are coming from out own side. You may have drank the flavor aid, but I am still eyeballs deep in the river of shit the right has been turned into. Lie as much as you want, I know what I see, and what is being said behind closed doors these days.
You can keep trying to push that failed narrative, but the violence that has been breaking out at those protests as overwhelmingly been perpetrated or provoked by agitators from the right, be they overt actions from proud boys and oath keepers, or by right leaning goons acting under the color of law enforcement. You may willingly ignore 10 incidents caused by our side for every one on theirs, but I haven't sold out my conservative values. I hold my own to account, and I am calling my side out for deliberately staging provocations and assaults and trying to blame the other side for them.
Not all of us are dumb enough to fall for that crap, and were still on the mailing lists. Did you really expect actual conservatives to stand back and watch this crap without calling it out?
"Given that 'fact checkers' are nothing of the sort and most often paid shills for the DNC it is probably safe to ignore their opinion."
I think you'll find they are usuallythr editors and legal folk employed by decent news organisations. I suspect that unless they have been very careful with sone weasel wording that the Santa Monica Observer is going to be sued into oblivion for not following this practice.
I suspect that unless they have been very careful with sone weasel wording that the Santa Monica Observer is going to be sued into oblivion for not following this practice.
Free speech seems to be something Musk doesn't entirely understand. Like it doesn't protect you from being sued for defamation. And Musk is probably a much richer target to go after than some local newspaper. Especially as Musk's profile meant the story also got picked up by other 'news' outlets like the good'ol DM.
Or perhaps this is the next conspiracy. Leak the story to the SMO, watch Musk bite, sue for billions, take Twatter as compensation!
"fact-checkers"... I don't usually put much stock in their opinion. The times I've seen them "verify" facts about things I actually know something about (engineering, aviation, some nuclear energy stuff) they're often so far off the ball it's almost funny. I've also seen far to many "fact checks" that boil down to "I think it's wrong so just trust me, bro" instead of giving an actually reliable source to show it's incorrect.
Is it even necessary to say "fact checkers"? Just say what the Santa Monica Observer wrote = Clinton died and it was her body double debating Trump in the 2016 election. That's "National Enquirer" level journalism.
Also, the Santa Monica Observer promptly withdrew the article about Pelosi and the male prostitute. Guess why? Huge risk of defamation lawsuit because it provably a blatant lie constructed out of thin air for the sole purpose of - you guessed it - defamation.
My question is - was Musks' tweet - which was liked 80K+ times and retweeted 20K+ times before being removed - an official Twitter notification because Musk is the owner - and therefore Twitter itself is now liable to be sued for defamation? And if Twitter does get sued - then won't Twitter shareholders be able to sue Musk for negligence in management?
This is drama of Shakespearean tragedy proportions.
Tweeted from his personal account, so he is making himself personally liable, and his portion of twitter would be just another asset on the table for damages. While he probably will fare better than Alex Jones in court, this is just going to cause him problems across the portfolio of companies he owns. And that is just one day in. He has also stuck his neck in the noose by unleashing a floodgate of abuse and defamation that will also lay solely at his feet, and those risks are at a global scale, across jurisdictions that have much tougher Libel laws than he is used to.
Twitter is in the clear on that point, as the post was removed promptly, and the company didn't issue the statement, Musk was the one tasting his own foot on this one. But they have plenty of other trouble inbound if Musk changes the content moderation policies protecting the company from contributory liability.
"Tweeted from his personal account,"
According to SEC filings, Elon's personal Twitter account is considered an official source of news about Tesla. It's a double-edged sword. If they didn't make the filing, Elon could be in big personal trouble for saying anything with regards to Tesla that 'might' affect stock price. By declaring the account as an official source of information, they/he have to live by that as well. With Elon, it's not good either way. I think it's mostly a matter of who's on the hook for paying the fines.
For years the free software community have had to deal with FOSS referring to the freedom to do various things, and that free software did not necessarily mean a price of £0. Now that Elon is following up on his promise to charge for free speech on Twitter he can enjoy the same problem.
If I have understood the pot addled ramblings correctly, the long term plan is for Twitter to become a bank (x.com) and a distributor so when you click on an advert Twitter charges you money and delivers the product. The tried and trusted strategy would be for Twitter to merge with another company, the combined company fires Elon then Peter Thiel sells it to eBay. Peter would have to do a really amazing job to sell for over $44B.
Twitter's day to day existence is pretty much predicated on meeting it's content moderation obligations under the safe harbor provisions. Musk's direct endorsements and re-enstatements will mean that Twitter is no longer a "mere conduit" and risks liability for user generated hate speach, harassment, and discrimination.
So claiming the right to set yourself on fire isn't a strong position. And Musk doesn't own Twitter or most of his other companies exclusively. Those minority shareholders aren't going to show infinite patience as Musk burns their investment down along with his own. Musk is juggling grenades at this point, and the "free speech means hate speech" crowd will turn on him the moment that realization sets in. The chess board is set, and there is no version of his strategy that will prevail. He's just running out a clock at this point, and if he doesn't realize it soon, he may not have much left.
Massive media backlash against the man, full of "reportedly", "allegedly", non-neutral reporting, mostly guilt by association, …
I thought the register prided itself on conducting real journalism, seeing as you get banned every time you criticise their reporting, but so far, on this subject, it just seems to be feeding a narrative bound to please the crowds (and advertisers) but extremely scarce on verified facts that can be attributed to Musk himself.
It's not about your opinion, if any, of the man, it's about dropping the ball when it comes to serious journalism.
Just the usual reminder that what a lot of far right commentators are calling for is not Free speech, but free speech with out responsibilities.
The important concept that speech cannot be constrained or censored by government, has been rolled into the idea that anyone can say what they want, however extreme that view, without any effect to their lives.
That has not been true ever
I am free to stand at a corner and spout any sort of rubbish or views, however in I must do so in awareness that those views may have consequences for me and those around me. For example I could express a view that certain members of the human race are less equal due to their cultural or genetic heritage. If I did so at work, my employer could quite rightly sanction me, remove my endorsements for multi million trainer deal. If I am so convinced of my views that I am willing to take responsibilities of the effects then that is OK, however free speech does not protect me from those consequences. If my speech causes hate crime directly and indirectly again that is a responsibility I would need to shoulder. Again being imprisoned for causing hate crime due to my actions is not a curb on free speech, just acceptance of responsibility for saying something that I know would result in that. Alex Jones is currently finding out that while he was free to express his views, the cost was high
Similarly there is no requirement for platforms to publish or report my views. Freedom of speech cuts both ways. I am free to express my views, but others are free to ignore or block them.
The far right (and far left) want a world where what you say does not have consequences. How we define truth and opinion is exactly the opposite of that. Free speech heroes have said things that at the time were considered wrong and were censored, but because they were willing to accept the responsibilities, it was their sacrifice that eventually changed opinion not their ability to say it. That is how it works, it is designed to be hard, because important things are
This is what Musk does not get in his utopia driven brain of his
Back it up with something better if you can.
Anonymity has nothing to do with language definitions. You just ran out of arguments and can't crutch on ad hominem attacks to cover for your baseless argument. Whine about being wrong about the legal and philosophical definitions of free speech if you want, but expect to get called out for it here. Most of us had to pass elementary logic.
You are literally just stating an unfounded and arbitrary restriction in as an apparent rebuttal to the valid point that we define protected free speech as being free from prior restraint, not consequences, both legal and otherwise. Who posts pointing that out is irrelevant.
What else have you got?
UK Daily Mail today: "Elon Musk fired four Twitter executives 'for cause' as part of apparent attempt to avoid paying out MILLIONS in severance and stock options as it's revealed he's instituting rapid layoffs across the company to 'avoid similar payouts to regular employees ....It was also reported that Musk was going to fire many staff this weekend to stop them from receiving a November 1 stock grant"
Musk really is a charmer, isn't he?
It takes big shoes to call names at someone great like Mr. Musk.
Finally we have a billionaire who uses his wealth to improve the world, instead of spending it on super yachts costing 2.5 billion dollar like the owner of the moaning Washington Post.
The left is of course crying for losing a small piece of terrain in the area of mainstream Media and the complete Big Tech gang to someone not set on censorship and repression of people opinions.
Anyone knowing how things currently are in the US would know Mr. Musk has great courage. An armed FBI squad team might soon batter his door at 4:00am, accompanied by a bucket of shrimps from CNN, MSNBC or CBS, and haul him in jail for "supporting extremism" or any other accusation that doesn't hold up in court.
And many more before him too. So many money grubbers who did questionable things to get their money in the first place and then "finding God" or whatever and spreading the kindness to buy their way into "heaven" or wherever. Carnegie comes to mind.
The ones who got rich without being utter bastards and tried to do good while getting rich are often less well publicised.
II don't think Elon particularly represents the left or the right. It only looks like he is right-wing because it is the MAGAs who have been most agressively de-platformed, and he has been fairly consistent about being opposed to de-platforming.
For a whole bunch of reasons, I also think that it is a mistake to silence people who believe things that I would deem "insane". That doesn't mean I in any way support those ideas, it just means I don't think I anybody should have the authority to unilaterally deem them unfit for human consumption.
Because, like so many others, you are stuck on a refusal to accept the consequences. If a crazy person wanders around screaming, or carrying a sign, the damage they can do is limited.
Social media is a different animal, and the consequences of removing the "insanity" filters are armed idiots showing up and pizza joints and literal genocides in south east Asia. So yeah, there is a reason the laws around criminal speech, incitement, and liability are not one size fits all.
A guy screaming on a street corner can do so till his lungs give out, or someone tags them for disturbing the peace. Posts that reach billions have to be treated a little more carefully, as deleting a post doesn't undue the damage done. So once someone has posted hate speech or threatened violence, you need to limit that persons ability to use those platforms to do so on an ongoing basis.
That also means we shoot down people like you trying to muddy the waters around this. Trump got kicked off twitter, but wasn't silenced. It did blunt the reach of his efforts to further incite an already enraged mob, and to financially profit off doing so.
If by "muddy the waters" you mean "try to understand a complex issue through a variety of lenses".
I believe that the primary result of deplatforming people is to turn them into martyrs. "'They' didn't want me to say this, as evidenced by the fact that they literally shut me down". I am fully aware that letting people say whatever bullshit they want will have real-world consequences, but unfortunately the world is not a shiny happy place and I believe that the benefits of a general policy of free speech outweigh the negatives.
Our big problem right now is a lack of compromise, understanding, and mutual respect in public discourse. Telling people to shut up does nothing to promote any of those values. It only makes the people being deplatformed more angry, which helps nobody.
I'd also observe that the people who are being deplatformed are literally on the verge of starting a civil war (and pulling people off Twitter has done nothing to quell this). When that happens, ignoring them is not going to be an option. So you can either try to find common ground as a starting point for discourse now, or deal with THAT consequence later.
I'm concerned about the same thing. Never mind this specific instance, such a council must have mutual respect and the ability to step outside themselves. You can't just throw Alex Jones and Dejywan Floyd in a room and expect anything useful to happen.
That said, such people do exist and I believe such a council can be created. In fact, I'd say that setting these things up usually isn't that hard...it's keeping them going that is difficult, as the members and their priorities change.
^subtle microcausm alert ^
"That said, such people do exist and I believe such a council can be created. In fact, I'd say that setting these things up usually isn't that hard...it's keeping them going that is difficult, as the members and their priorities change."
The problem with creating a council of sensible and fair minded people is that ir may produce results you don't like.
Facebook tried it.
Perhaps the man baby is waking up now, finally realising that operating a social media platform requires a different skill set, and it's not just a jolly hobby. Perhaps he realises that the lawyers are circling, waiting for something actionable. Perhaps he realises what a douche bag he looks when sharing crazy wingnut conspiracy theories -- that everyone else calls lies.
Words of wisdom that Elon would do well to take notice of: 'Don't get high on your own supply' -- Tony Montana, Scarface. 1983
It was part of the let it sink in...he owns twitter meme he was playing with. Look Elons jokes aren't always that funny when you have to explain them, but they always seem to annoy the right, or left, people, as does his purchase of this company that's apparently now "hell" according to the media, strange they never thought to bring it to light till this week.
And disappointed El Reg didn't cover the Ligma twosome, who successfully trolled the media and got them reporting unfact checked fake news about the twitter firings.
Meanwhile, the world waits to see what his reign will do to a site that – for better or worse – remains the de facto real-time vox-pop of global events and opinions.
I don't think the world is waiting. And the only people who claim that Twitter is representatitive of "global" anything are those who think quoting it counts as research. All the social media channels were always predestined to become echo chambers, the more effective they are at that, the more successful they are.
It's taken a while but Telegram has now largely started to replace Twitter in many places.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
