Are we talking about Musk or Trump at this point?
Posts by graeme leggett
2628 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Oct 2007
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Elon Musk pukes over pork-filled budget bill with Tesla subsidies on the line
Ukraine strikes Russian bomber-maker with hack attack

Employee disatisfaction drops
So, you are a middle-ranking employee of Tupelov in the aircraft maintenance and parts supply department.
At the start of the week, you might have felt disconnected from the Special Action with Ukraine. Obviously the news tells you its Ukraine's own fault and you might feel a bit of pride in your work for the Russian nation but the actual combat is happening far away.
Now, Ukrainian intelligence know your name, possibly a photo, where you live, your bank account details, possibly things about your family and health.
You'd be foolish not to think what that might mean.
Perhaps the next parcel delivered to your apartment will not be a box of chocolates from your parents but something spicier.
Perhaps someone will stop you in the stairwell and suggest, strongly, that making copies of aircraft status reports and uploading them to an anonymous web server might be in your best interests.
It might well weigh on your mind.
AROS turns any PC into an Amiga with USB-bootable distro
Meta's still violating GDPR rules with latest plan to train AI on EU user data, says noyb
Bosses weren’t being paranoid: Remote workers more likely to start own biz
US Transpo Sec wants air traffic control rebuild in 3 years, asks Congress for blank check

Corruption - all the way down
Oh. now the executive recognises that congress aportions funding for federal agencies.
Am currently watching latest Legal Eagle (featuring Liz Dye) on YouTube - general tone is Project 2025 is using Trump seizing control of the spending (and not spending it on anything) as means to reach their ends.
Microsoft wants us to believe AI will crack practical fusion power, driving future AI

Re: "It's sort of foolish to imagine that we'll do fusion by trial and error"
Listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe and this sounds similar to what they are doing with gravitational wave detectors.
The AI generates designs based on performance targets rather than copying existing designs. All very technical so I may have not followed it wholly
https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcasts/episode-1034
https://scitechdaily.com/when-machines-dream-ai-designs-strange-new-tools-to-listen-to-the-cosmos/
Palantir loves the smell of DOGE budget cuts in the morning
Data watchdog will leave British Library alone – further probes 'not worth our time'
Elon Musk's X revenues in the UK crashed in 2023, down 66%
Google goes cold on Europe: Stops making smart thermostats for continental conditions

Re: Bollocks
I was surprised this wasn't an offered add-on/replacement for the wired bi-metallic strip
If you know the hot water tank temperature at any time then you can decide if
1) hot enough for a shower right now
2) not too hot for using the sink
3) out of legionella zone
4) worth using the electric immersion heater rather than gas/oil/propane
5) being superheated by an out of control boiler
AI-driven 20-ft robots coming for construction workers' jobs
Tesla's Optimus can't roll without rare earth magnets, and Beijing ain't budging yet
Japan serves Google a cease and desist order over its Android bundling deals

The Japanese style
That slide seems typical of the content dense "busy" graphic that Japanese culture uses.
Older Japanese culture (eg tea ceremony, noh, martial arts, woodprints) is portrayed as calmly-paced, mindful, measured but modern presentation looks like a 5-minute infomercial compressed into 5 seconds.
Official abuse of state security has always been bad, now it's horrifying
Self-driving car maker Musk's DOGE rocks up at self-driving car watchdog, cuts staff
50 years ago the last Saturn rocket rolled out of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building
Trump orders all government IT contracts consolidated under GSA

Re: ps f47
As I understand it, the Pentagon paused the NGAD project last year to assess whether against rising costs (never a surprise in military aviation) it should go ahead or not.
Presumably the internal assessment came in recently and the Orange Buffoon made maximum media out of the decision.
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/07/air-force-taking-a-pause-on-ngad-next-gen-fighter-kendall/
Tesla Cybertruck recall #8: Exterior trim peels itself off, again
No big changes to UK broadband regs, despite no real competition for BT
Eutelsat in talks with Euro leaders as they mull Starlink replacement in Ukraine

Re: Hmm
Others have suggested its not so much the money as being the most famous person in existence rather than transactional for money.
Obviously the money helps.
And yesterday I heard an explanation that does fit, If you view his activities as the continuation of the reality TV format, new constant "conflict". Stirring the ants nest every day with something intended to get people talking about him. US doesn't need to take over Greenland, through NATO and simple diplomacy it could easily get whatever extra bases it wanted established there, but saying they want to take over, then he becomes the news focus.
Trump says US should kill CHIPS Act, use the cash to cut debt
'Cybertruck ownership comes with ... interesting fan mail'
So … Russia no longer a cyber threat to America?

Re: Neville Chamberlain
Munich was 1938. Chamberlain had started rearmament before then.
The Spitfire prototype flew in 1936 and orders placed but delays meant first production aircraft delivered in 1938. The Hurricane was delayed by a change from Mk 1 Merlin engine to Mk 2 but were reaching British squadrons before Chamberlain hopped on a plane to see Adolf.
The expansion began in 1934 with a plan to increase number of RAF airfields from ~50 to ~140 and orders for new aircraft types.

Re: Neville Chamberlain
A bit of disagreement on the analogy.
When Europe faced the Munich crisis, none of the participants were in a position to actually project force into Czechoslovakia to defend it or strike at Germany. The other nations were all building up their armed forces. (UK had a powerful navy but apart from applying external sanctions in the form of a blockade, a navy can't stop one country's army crossing a shared border). Coordination between the (major and minor) countries in Europe was also limited. In those circumstances and the recent horrors of the Great War, the possibility of averting another European War by trading land or at least buying time to prepare for a coming conflict made some sense and was popular.
But in this situation the differences are that the war has already started, we have seen appeasement can be a bad choice, and countries are prepared to work together.
30-year-old NHS supply chain system hit by 35 major alerts in 11 months
Incoming deputy boss of Homeland Security says America's top cyber-agency needs to be reined in

Re: good
She won't be in charge of Musk. She's in charge of the organisation that gives a veer of respectability to the "DOGE Temporary Organisation" that is the vehicle for Musk's Twitler Youth group
They had to name someone to be at the top of the organisation because the Whitehouse press secretary looked even more of an embarrassment claiming they couldn't give out their name while at same time claimed to be totally transparent.
But now they have. And courts can name her in proceedings.
Trump’s cyber chief pick has little experience in The Cyber
India's banking on the bank.in domain cleaning up its financial services sector
Tesla sales crash in Europe, UK. We can only wonder why
DOGE geek with Treasury payment system access now quits amid racist tweet claims

USAID is helping keeping the lid on the HIV/AIDS situation in South Africa by providing around 20-25% of funding for medication through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (initiated by the famously socialist G W Bush)
About a week after freezing US aid, PEPFAR was given an exemption - that there was a delay at all in providing an exception shows the initial action was not thought through.( A week is a long time in anti-retroviral medication)
Trump scrubs all mention of DEI, gender, climate change from federal websites

Re: Scrapped Direct File, which allows taxpayers to file their returns electronically to the IRS
Rather than create a new department which would have required following the law of the land, Trump renamed an existing department and handed that over to Musk and his Twitler Youth (a bunch of Musk/Thiel interns from sound of it)
As Trump slugs Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs, industry groups hope trade war weapon isn’t pointed at their feet
White House asks millions of govt workers if they would be so kind as to fork right off
China's DeepSeek just emitted a free challenger to OpenAI's o1 – here's how to use it on your PC
Musk torches $500B Stargate AI plan, Altman strikes back
Trump hits undo on Biden AI safety order, EV mandate, emissions standards, and more

Re: Yes...but no.
Trump "I'm going to stop this thing that you think happens" (waves bit of paper with his signature on it)
<sounds of crowds cheering>
Courts "You can't do that"
<crowds murmur>
Trump "These partisan judges are enemies of the people. You wanted me to do this thing and they won't let me"
<crowds boo. Sounds of sharpening of pitchforks and torches being lit>
(probably followed by email to Trump supporters asking for monetary donations)

1) Tesla has a head start on other manufacturers, removing incentives will hit their competitors more.
2) It's all performative for the twisted anti-environmentalism that pervades his voter base, they want clean water and clean air but don't want to be told they need to change to get it. An EV mandate could be reintroduced under the guise of promoting AMERICAN! industry and countering the ENEMY Chinese manufacturers and Trump's supporters would cheer it in the streets