[conspire] Twitter successors

[Rick Moen]

Quoting The Doctor (drwho at virtadpt.net):

[some some other algorithm foolishness, and then:]

> This is to say nothing of discovering that I suddenly was following
> Elon Musk there (where I had not been before), unfollowed that
> account, discovered the next day that I was suddenly following it
> again, blocked it, and found that it was unblocked and in my list of
> followed accounts once more.  Perhaps coincidence, perhaps a bug,
> perhaps enemy actions; I don't particuarly care, save that something I
> once found useful was not anymore.

I'm pretty sure this _is_ one of the documented infantile behaviours
imposed to benefit Elmo, shortly after the tantrum he threw at HQ over
someone else's organically derived tweet popularity (one of Biden's,
perhaps) dwarfing his.

The whole pattern of the man's conduct is like that.  One of the silver
linings of following Nitter's valiant attempt to repeately evade
sabotage and then (late January) running out of saving moves was finding
recaps like this one, linked from one of the Nitter sites' swansong
pages:
https://soundcloud.com/trueanonpod/lamest-show-2?in=trueanonpod/sets/the-lamest-show-on-earth

Notice that it's _part two_ (of three) of what seems to be a patient,
yet very entertaining, dissection of the man's, um, less than socially
constructive deeds and his, um, casual relationship to the truth.  
I've sat through the Part 2 segment, and boggled at numerous points.
The two podcast hosts do a very credible job of saying nothing that
could provide Elmo and his posse with a plausible cause of litigation
action, such as that time Elmo made some... interesting Stanford
University claims, and some... interesting claims to be a "co-founder"
of PayPal and of Tesla, and how he managed to walk away with legal
settlements or other arrangements where other parties in the know agree
to never say "No, you weren't."

It's all very, very Дональд Дж. Трамп.

Anyway, agreed.  It was once useful, and Tantrum Boy killed it.

I never argue with people who honestly claim they see no inherent
advantage in Mastodon over BlueSky (or that Zuckland thing, or Xitter),
because that means either they cannot think or prefer not to, but,
c'mon, if the sociopathic billionaire failure mode wasn't obvious
before Elmo's Saudi-funded leveraged buyout, only the wilfully blind 
can miss that point now.  And there's absolutely nothing protecting
BlueSky Social, PBC from ElmoMode.

BTW, my to-read queue (aka Mt. Tsundoku) now has the illustrious Kara
Swisher's recently released "Burn Book: Tech Love Story" balanced on the
peak.  Deirdre's been listening to / watching a number of interviews
with her.  I'm sure she has, among other things, Some Things to say
about Elmo.

Both Deirdre and I are, FYI, doubly glad she never seriously considered
a Tesla EV and instead got an Audi Etron.  The more one learns about 
what Tesla Motors did starting right around the time Elmo kicked out the 
real co-founders, the more appalling that firm looks.

For example, back in 2010-11, there was already solid industry
consensus among EV manfacturers, and US Federal regulators, that EVs and
hybrids needed to make a synthesised warning sound at low speeds, and 
the details were worked out _then_, and an act pushed through Congress
giving regulators (IIRC) 18 months to publish regulatory law.  And
every manufacturer got ahead of that, and complied in anticipation, 
each and every one, except one company.  Tesla.  Дональд Дж. Трамп got 
in, and his henchbeings sandbagged those regulations until the voters
tossed him from office, regulations finally came out in 2021, and....
Did Tesla comply?  Almost.  They waited until the last possible moment
to implement the required addition to new cars, announced that a
retrofit would not be offered to most previous production, and said
owners of some recent Teslas could have that safety measure added -- 
for $200 per car.

What a dick.  And that's the sort of move he does, all the time.

-- 
Cheers,                   "Every bit of complexity you add is a failure point."
Rick Moen                                                -- Adam Savage
rick at linuxmafia.com 
McQ! (4x80)