#all hail elon musk

[nachoscheesy]

Matt Mullenweg

I recently read @photomatt post about why casual porn doesn’t work in the current era of the internet. While I understand what he is getting at, I do not agree with the way he’s framing the issue. He claims that companies are anti-porn and that the stringent rules enacted by app stores are what makes managing porn on social media sites so difficult. I think this is an oversimplification and what the real issue is.

To his first point, Credit card companies are not strictly anti-porn, they are in fact anti-illegal porn. I mean who wouldnt be? This includes things like, child porn, revenge porn, and nonconsensual porn. Companies like Mastercard, Visa, and Paypal didn’t just decide to no longer deal with Pornhub anymore, they saw reports that these things were on Pornhub and decided to pull out. More than likely to avoid, what I can only imagine to be a legal headache for all parties involved. These are also the same exact things that Tumblr was having huge problem with in 2018, instead of dedicating the resources to fixing the problem Tumblr pulled the plug on it all together. This was also something users had been telling Tumblr about for a long time, but a mix of a bunch of different issues made it impossible for them to handle it effectively internally.

Like I said I understand where Matt is coming from, but instead of acting like it’s out of everyone’s hands maybe just admit plainly that dealing with porn is a massive headache that Tumblr doesn’t have the resources to deal with right now. (Which he KINDA does at the end of his post.)

His second point is true however, Apple has been historically anti-porn for a long time. However, I think this has more to do with the fact that Apple knows how big it is and how much power it has to shape the tech landscape. That’s why Apple gets to basically do whatever it wants with anyone who wants to deal with them.

Why do Twitter and Reddit get to have adult content and still exist on the app store? Well that’s because Twitter and Reddit managed to get around Apples rules by not allowing someone to just see NSFW content without at least logging in to the service. As well as not being exclusively advertised as apps/sites for porn, although I don’t think Apple personally cares if Reddit or Twitter are on their store or not.

Matts point on a dedicated service or company does not make a lot of sense to me, because these services already exist, online and most adults would not have any issues finding it if they really wanted. The issue comes back down to content moderation and verification, this isn’t just a porn specific issue but an internet issue.

Not to mention the fact that Matt seems way to into the crypto hype that will surely bring about a magic bullet that fixes all of the online issues that come along with running an online space of any kind. but thats a post for another time.

I'm not criticizing @photomatt expertise or insight on how difficult content moderation is, let alone adult content moderation. My criticism is that he tells users to go and bang on the doors of these corporate giants to enact change. While @photomatt and @automattic have the full power in their hands to lobby themselves for these changes.

If Matt wants that crypto-utopia to come to life, he should acknowledge that the foundation for that is being built on sand. As we've seen with Meta and the rest of these services, this includes the current dumpster fire that Elon Musk has created over at Twitter. In the end I want to see Tumblr grow and be the comfy website I think its always been, but that wont happen until they pull up the rug and address the foundational issues that are leading all other sites down the drain.

[travellinghopefully]

Cats v evil overlords

[animebw]

So uh

I think Twitter is, like

DEAD dead now

[jupitoorz]

erm ! what the scallop !!!!!!!!!! ( the darkness continues to swallow my soul to this day )

[spiderblog-mcu]

Me watching Elon burn twitter to the ground:

[thepastisalreadywritten]

The United States has returned to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years after a privately-built spacecraft named Odysseus capped a nail-biting 73-minute descent from orbit with a touchdown near the moon’s south pole.

Amid celebrations of what NASA hailed “a giant leap forward,” there was no immediate confirmation of the status or condition of the lander, other than it had reached its planned landing site at crater Malapert A.

But later Intuitive Machines, the Texas-based company that built the first commercial craft to land on the moon, said the craft was “upright and starting to send data.”

The statement on X said mission managers were “working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface.”

The so-called “soft landing” on Thursday, which Steve Altemus, the company’s founder, had given only an 80% chance of succeeding, was designed to open a new era of lunar exploration as NASA works towards a scheduled late-2026 mission to send humans back there.

“Welcome to the moon,” Altemus said when touchdown when the 5.23pm touchdown was eventually confirmed, after about 10 minutes in which Odysseus was out of contact.

It was the first time any US-built spacecraft had landed on the moon since NASA’s most recent crewed visit, the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972, and the first visit by commercial vehicle following last month’s failure of Peregrine One, another partnership between the space agency and a private company, Astrobotic.

“Today, for the first time in more than a half century, the US has returned to the moon. Today, for the first time in the history of humanity, a commercial company, an American company, launched and led the voyage up there,” Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said.

“What a triumph. Odysseus has taken the moon. This feat is a giant leap forward for all of humanity.”

There was no video of Odysseus’s fully autonomous descent, which slowed to about 2.2mph at 33ft above the surface.

But a camera built by students at Florida’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University was designed to fall and take pictures immediately before touchdown, and NASA cameras were set to photograph the ground from the spacecraft.

The 14ft (4.3 metres) hexagonal, six-legged Nova-C lander, affectionately nicknamed Odie by Intuitive Machines employees, is part of NASA’s commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative in which the agency awards contracts to private partners, largely to support the Artemis program.

NASA contributed $118m to get it off the ground, with Intuitive Machines funding a further $130m ahead of its February 15 launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on a Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.

The IM-1 mission, like the doomed Peregrine effort, is carrying a payload of scientific equipment designed to gather data about the lunar environment, specifically in the rocky region chosen as the landing site for NASA’s crewed Artemis III mission planned for two years’ time.

It is a hazardous area – “pockmarked with all of these craters,” according to Nelson – but chosen because it is believed to be rich in frozen water that could help sustain a permanent lunar base crucial to future human missions to Mars.

Scientists announced last year that they believed tiny glass beads strewn across the moon’s surface contained potentially “billions of tonnes of water” that could be extracted and used on future missions.

The risks are worth it, Nelson told CNN on Thursday, “to see if there is water in abundance. Because if there’s water, there’s rocket fuel: hydrogen, and oxygen. And we could have a gas station on the south pole of the moon.”

The planned operational life of the solar powered lander is only seven days, before the landing site about 186 miles from the moon’s south pole moves into Earth’s shadow.

But NASA hopes that will be long enough for analysis of how soil there reacted to the impact of the landing.

Other instruments will focus on space weather effects on the lunar surface, while a network of markers for communication and navigation will be deployed.

“Odysseus, powered by a company called Intuitive Machines, launched upon a SpaceX rocket, carrying a bounty of NASA scientific instruments, is bearing the dream of a new adventure in science, innovation, and American leadership in space,” Nelson said.

Through Artemis, NASA’s return-to-the-moon program that also has longer-term visions of crewed missions to Mars within the next two decades, the US seeks to stay ahead of Russia and China, both of which are planning their own human lunar landings.

Only the US has previously landed astronauts in six Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972, while five countries have placed uncrewed spacecraft there.

Japan joined the US, Russia, China, and India last month when its Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon (Slim) made a successful, if awkward touchdown after a three-month flight.

Two further Intuitive Machines launches are scheduled for later this year, including an ice drill to extract ingredients for rocket fuel, and another Nova-C lander containing a small Nasa rover and four small robots that will explore surface conditions.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/22/us-moon-landing-odysseus-intuitive-machines

US returns to lunar surface with for first time in over 50 years

23 February 2024

A spacecraft built and flown by Texas-based company Intuitive Machines landed near the south pole of the moon, the first US touchdown on the lunar surface in more than half a century, and the first ever achieved entirely by the private sector.

Communication with Odysseus seemed be lost during the final stages of the landing, leaving mission control uncertain as to the precise condition and position of the lander, according to flight controllers heard in the webcast.

US returns to lunar surface for first time in over 50 years: ‘Welcome to the moon.’

[edwinspaynes]

If The Last Hours Cast Had Social Media

Their usernames would be

@/eldrich-eternal-flames (James)

@/kickinitwithcordy (Cordelia)

@/kickinitwithcortana (Cordelia's sideblog for Cortana pics where she also bestows Persian terms of endearment unto it)

@/wilde-wanderer (Matthew)

@/grumpycatcarstairs (Alastair)

@/thomas-the-tree (Thomas)

@/kit-li-the-science-guy (Christopher)

@/that-science-bitch (Grace)

@/ghostwriter (Lucie)

@/lord-jethro (Jesse)

Matthew's page is a travel blog type thing with pictures from his adventures. His Instagram grid needs to be aesthetically perfect, so it's a lot of landscapes. Every few pictures, he'll post Oscar and perhaps periodically a selfie. The whole thing is beautiful and perfectly put together, but the unfortunate (or very fortunate) tagline is Putting the Lust in Wanderlust.

Additionally, he has a Twitter that he uses for literally no other purpose than to initiate arguments with Elon Musk.

Matthew also makes lots of TikTok videos of himself doing adventurous things like bungee jumping, cliff diving, and taking long and interesting hikes with Oscar. They're really cool and he amasses a large fan base. Unfortunately, he likes to make really cringe puns, and he's really judgmental of the fashion sense of everyone he meets. Which brings us to:

The fact that Alastair has a YouTube channel where he reacts to bad TikToks. His droll commentary and sharp wit evoke an enormously positive response in his audience. He's hailed as one of the funniest human beings ever, especially when he gets to react to serious nonsense. The videos come once a week and are about 10 minutes long.

But every month he does a special double-length video where the only thing he mocks are Matthew's travel TikToks from that month. Matthew comments every time that it is hurtful, but it's all a big joke. They pretend to argue in the comments and that eventually is endearing to both of their followers.

Alastair also goes onto Cordelia's Instagram once in a while to do a live. They call it (based on Cordelia's screen name) 'Kickin' It With the Carstairs.' They just take questions and have conversations with the many viewers of their livestreams. They talk about current events, give (often bad) relationship advice, and behave in a distinctly siblinglike manner.

James and Thomas are the cameramen, and James one day decides to go get himself a cup of tea. You can see James puttering about in the background and messing with the kettle while Cordelia and Alastair talk. James comes back with the tea, but Cordelia thinks it's for her. James is forced to sacrifice it because they are on live and he is a) gallant, and b) a Wife Guy.

Alastair then jokingly inquires about why Cordelia gets tea but not him. Thomas gives the camera to James and goes to make Alastair the tea he likes because he too is a) gallant, and b) a Husband Guy. In leaving the camera with James, he unfortunately drops its height by about a foot. The angle is all off and the viewers are really confused by Thomas's big hulking frame.

Grace and Christopher, who are both gloriously alive and happy, live in a little cottage somewhere in the idyllic countryside doing science. They will take videos of new innovations that they have. They'll show how they're meant to work vs how they do work, and they'll explain the inventions to everyone watching. They try to get young people interested in science and curious about the way that the world works. They also have a pet rat, Marie Curie II. Their followers love her.

[knightotoc]

The Fall of the House of Usher spoilers:

I was wondering if there were any way for any member of Roderick's family to escape from their curse. The deal is that "your bloodline dies with you;" "bloodline" seems like a precise word, but there are a couple interesting qualifiers in this (unreliable Google) definition:

The first thing that stands out here is that "bloodline" is a modern word, increasing in use, not the kind of ancient language you'd expect in a demonic contract with an immortal being. If this timeline is correct, Verna wouldn't have been making deals using this exact phrasing in the past; the one with Roderick might be the first one.

The second thing to consider is the example phrase: "the survival of a legitimate royal bloodline." "Legitimate" and "royal" often contradict "bloodline;" all three concepts are social constructs that depend upon a culture's definition of fatherhood, motherhood, law, and power.

A king might have illegitimate kids but invent a new religion to make them legitimate, like with Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Or a queen might have illegitimate kids and keep their true father a secret, like the James Hewitt rumor. Medieval upper classes in Europe and Japan commonly adopted/raised each other's kids to maintain a peaceful balance of power.

Modern ideas about genetics are based in science, but deals with the devil certainly are not. The Ushers made the deal in 1979, and the technology for and social trust in paternity testing did not become common until the late 80s.

What makes this curse so particularly twisted is the same thing that makes the TV show so fantastic: Roderick did have many illegitimate kids, but he claimed them all and made them his heirs. If he had been ignorant of or rejected his illegitimate kids, would they have been safe from the curse? In my opinion, yes.

The question reminds me of the phrase, "Blood is thicker than water," which is a misinterpretation of the Biblical quote, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." The former means genetic family is stronger than social bonds, while the latter means the opposite. Both phrases and Verna's deal invoke "blood" as the source of their power, but they all mean it in a different way.

The "covenant" of the Ushers, Roderick's promise of wealth and power in exchange for obedience, is signed in blood -- the misery and deaths of all the innocent victims of Ligodone. This tragedy has a far greater social, physical, and spiritual impact on the world than the fact that a handful of people have similar genetics.

I think if a character truly wanted to escape this "bloodline," they could. It would be difficult, but people have been rejecting their families for as long as families have been worth rejection. It makes me think of Ruth in the Old Testament ("where you go, I will go"), or Elon Musk's daughter, who changed not only her first name but her last.

The most tragic aspect of this possibility of escape is that it would still be impossible for many people, especially children. In the show, the only character who I think would escape this way is Lenore, but the curse comes too quickly. If she only had five more years, she might have been able to create a new identity for herself.

I love stories of inescapable tragedy, and it breaks my heart that Lenore's fate reflects the reality of so many kids trapped in bad families, so I appreciate what her death means. I wouldn't want to change anything in the show, and I don't think my interpretation cheapens the curse, just adds to it.

A final story that I want to consider is the recent Bob Marley biopic "One Love," which has a motif of a childhood vision of a pith-helmeted horseman in a burning field of sugarcane. At first, this horseman is his white father who rejected him, but eventually he transforms into Haile Selassie, the Messiah of Rastafarianism. While Marley is able to escape the mental hold his father had over him, the movie also implies that Marley inherited a rare form of cancer from him, which led to his early death. It's not demonic, but it is still unfair.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

WTYP: The Shandor Building, Part 11

[Do you like the colour of the fanfic? This is long and if you expand it you're gonna get the whole thing, because Tumblr hates you. Don't say I didn't warn you!]

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

Part 11: Shake Hands with Gozer

[Beware of strong language, mention of all kinds of death, gore, and Lovecraftian horror.]

[SLIDE: Shandor Studios, with the All Hail Gozer logo.]

[faint sound of a car alarm]

L: Oh, heck, it’s Gandalf…

[chirp-chirp]

[car alarm ceases]

A [dismissive]: You know, this is really not doing it for me anymore. The whole deal. Not even with a camera. No. Fuck it. Your personality is a real turn-off.

R: These chairs are still really comfy, though.

[rumbling, squeaking]

G: [muffled, into phone]: UH-HUH… UH-HUH… IN MY DEFENSE, THEY INSULTED MY DOGS AND SUGGESTED I ASSOCIATE WITH ELON MUSK, ABI… YES, ADMITTEDLY, BUT THERE’S NO NEED TO BE RUDE… MM-HM. WHAT’S IT CALLED? “CLIMATE CHANGE”? [with sudden excitement] OH! “GLOBAL WARMING!” YES! HOW LONG? OH, THAT’S NOT LONG AT ALL! NO, NO, I REALLY APPRECIATE THE IRONY. DIY APOCALYPSE! OH, YES, WE MUST GIVE THEM A CHANCE, MUSTN’T WE? HA-HA-HA. BUT, UH, DO YOU THINK THERE MIGHT BE… A LAKE OF FIRE? EVEN A SMALL ONE? [laughter] WOW! THAT SOUNDS AMAZING!

L: I don’t like where this is going…

A: Rocz, where the hell are my cigarettes?

R: I fed them to a dog.

A: What?

G: SO ABOUT SEVEN BILLION YEARS ON THE OUTSIDE? WELL, I GET BORED, ABI. YOU KNOW I GET BORED. WILL YOU KEEP PODCASTING AND KILLING THE SMARMY MORTAL “JAMES BOND”? HA! ALL RIGHT, I SUPPOSE I WILL MANAGE…

D: Did… Did Abi just say we’re going to keep doing KJB for the next seven billion years…?

L: Sounds like the fate of the world kinda depends on it…

A: Where is my fucking Slimfast bar?

R: Ibid.

V: Will you have a slice of meat bouquet, Lord Alice?

A: [screams]

R: You two gotta stop doin’ that.

Z: Lord Alice is mortal, Vinz Clortho. You are supposed to feed the mortals frozen peas. It is good for them. The demon David Tennant says so.

L: I think you’re a little mixed up about that…

R: Your dimension gets Amazon Prime?

Z: All hell dimensions have Amazon Prime. Where else are we supposed to get our blood plasma?

V: But we have no frozen peas to give, and we must depart our mortal hosts soon!

Z: You may rub our tummies, if you wish. It is good for your mortal brain meat.

L: Aww!

Z: Not you, Vengeful Mortal of Insults!

L: Well, this has been a total fucking waste of time!

A: Get away from me, you smell like Marlboros and despair.

V: It is the Slimfast bar…

Z: You want some of this, Frodo?

D [coldly]: No thank you, Sigourney.

R [warmly]: Good Terror Dogs… Good, good puppies…

G: HA-HA, RIGHT! THESE THINGS HAPPEN! WELL, I’LL SEE YOU AT THE CLUB TONIGHT. CIAO, BESTIE!

L: “Bestie”?

A: [sigh] It’s Mesopotamian rock-paper-scissors, don’t worry about it.

D: To think, all this time, all we had to do was summon Abigail Thorn…

G: VINZ CLORTHO! ZUUL! STOP BOTHERING LORD ABIGAIL’S FRIENDS!

V: Farewell, doughnut-giver!

Z: Never buy copper from Ea-nāṣir!

[electricity, crackling]

MILKSHAKE (M)]: آیا من یک سگ بودم؟ [TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: Okay, it’s in Persian, but Google Fonts doesn’t do cuneiform.]

R: Oh, hey, it’s my cats!

PIZZA BOY (P): پدر!

R: Nah, don’t eat that meat bouquet, I have no idea who or what that is…

M: این انصاف نیست.

R: Say, Gozer, is this here permanent?

G: ALL CATS CAN SPEAK WHATEVER LANGUAGE THEY WANT, WHENEVER THEY WANT.

P: Das ist ein süßes Kopftuch.

A: Um… Danke?

M: Никогда больше не трогай мой животик.

A: [snickers]

G: SO! [claps hands] SORRY FOR THIS LITTLE MISUNDERSTANDING. HOW CAN I MAKE IT UP TO YOU?

[brief pause]

G: WHAT?

[crosstalk, complaining, “We are covered in horse viscera!” “Clean this shit off!” etc.]

G: RIGHT. SORRY.

L: And I want to keep my new van!

G: YOUR VAN BELONGS TO ISHTAR, BUT I’LL SEE WHAT I CAN DO. WOULD YOU LIKE TO FINISH YOUR PODCAST, MORTALS?

A: Oh, yes! Of fucking course we would!

[Rapid scrolling through 10 slides or so before landing on an image of Ivo Shandor.]

A: And in conclusion… Ivo Shandor can eat shit, I’m glad he got ripped in half, art deco architecture is hideous, I disavow everything Sumerian — except Liam’s van and possibly Abi — and billionaires contribute nothing of value to society! [panting] Does anyone have anything else?

L: Pronoun checks will save your fucking life! If any of you out there ever give us shit for the pronoun check ever again, I got a [bleep] with your name on it!

G: SERIOUSLY. THAT COLONEL-SANDERS-LOOKING MOTHERFUCKER SUMMONED ME OUT OF A HOT BATH AND MISGENDERED ME ON PURPOSE — I’M GLAD I RIPPED HIM IN HALF TOO!

R: [drawing devil horns and an unflattering mustache on Shandor with the mouse] We have a segment on this podcast we like to call Safety Third…

A: What?

L: Oh my God, Rocz…

D: Fucking seriously?!

R: I’m sorry, but rigidly adhering to our unhinged podcast format has just saved our lives and possibly the entire world — and if we’d just done our goddamn intros we would’ve avoided that whole mess — so we’re going to do a Safety Third! Alice, the drop, please.

[“Shake hands with danger” drop]

[SLIDE: A pastoral oil painting that seems to be missing a figure with a shepherd's crook.]

G: OOH, THIS LOOKS FUN. CAN I PLAY TOO?

WTYP: NO.

D: And clear the slime out of my awesome control room.

G: OF COURSE.

D [suspiciously]: Be honest with me. If someone were to press a button and cover you in boiling hot lava, would that be an inconvenience?

G: OOH, DO YOU HAVE LAVA? I JUST LOVE LAVA!

D [slowly fading, walking away from the mics]: This has been a fucking waste of time!

[door slam]

R: “Dear Justin, Alice (or name pending)…”

G: IS THERE NOT GOING TO BE ANY LAVA, THEN?

R [with determination]: “Dear Justin, Alice (or name pending), Liam (yay, Liam) and potential Guest.”

G [distorted, too close to the mic]: HELLO, MORTALS! I AM PODCASTING!

L: Shut the fuck up.

R: “...I am an art-restorer by trade, a profession which, I’m sure you know, has its dangers. Apart from the usual face-melting chemicals, we deal with a lot of paintings of dubious provenance, many of which come into our hands with curses or angry spirits attached. It’s a little like working at the humane society. Most of them can be cleaned up and rehabilitated if you’re careful, but a select few will try to kill you. It’s not their fault, but you do always need to be aware of the hazard. For example, the attached image once contained the figure of a little girl who would slowly approach the foreground of the painting over a period of weeks, before crawling out of the frame and attempting to strangle everyone in the room with her shepherd’s crook.”

A: Oh. Yeah. Pretty standard.

L: Get a new bit, ghost children!

G: I TOOK THE FORM OF A DEMONIC LITTLE GIRL ONCE!

A: No one cares.

R: “We gave her a juice box and some crackers, and let her watch a Disney video (Aladdin, but I’m not sure if you can say that)...”

L: Dammit, how many times do we have to tell you? Do not write it if you don’t want Rocz to say it!

A: Was the time he almost finished reciting that Ashanti death curse not enough for you people?

L: You’re just goddamn lucky he mispronounced it!

R: “And now she’s happily attending the local junior high school. A lot of attached spirits are just hungry, or bored, or both, and are easily dealt with. After they’ve lived through a few near-misses like that, some of my colleagues start to become jaded and sloppy. For example, my boss, whom we will call Timothy Q. Jackass (the Q stands for ‘Clueless’)...”

L: Good. Good name.

G: I ONCE GAVE A JACKASS THE GIFT OF PROPHECY!

A: Go away.

G: …HIS NAME WAS TIRESIAS OF THEBES! WHAT? NOTHING? NOBODY?

L: Get some new references.

A: Read another elegy.

G: DO YOU HAVE A RIMSHOT IN HERE…?

A: Touch my laptop and die.

R: “One morning, Mr. Jackass rolled up to the studio with a tinted etching (image not attached for reasons which will become obvious).”

L: Vigo.

A: Fucking Vigo.

G: THAT CARPATHIAN CUNT AND HIS GODDAMN ART COMMISSIONS. NOBODY WANTS TO PAINT YOU, VIGO, NOT WITH THAT HAIRCUT.

[stifled laughter]

G [hopeful]: …OR THOSE SHOES?

A: [clearing throat] Don’t press your luck.

R: “I recognized a certain Carpathian with whom you are no doubt familiar…”

G: HA! YOU CALLED IT!

L: Interrupting is a privilege, and we will mail you a certificate when you have earned it.

R: “...and, of course, I advised Mr. Jackass to douse it in holy oil and set it on fire, as per the established procedure. Imagine my surprise when he told me he wanted me to clean and restore it.”

L: No. Don’t do it.

A: Step away from the abyss.

G: UNIONIZE.

[pause]

G: WHAT? ARE YOU MORTALS FUCKING SCABS?

A: …Alright, I am not autistic — that I know of — but I have no idea how to deal with this situation.

L: You enjoy human suffering but are pro-union?

G: YOU HUMANS WILL TOUCH A CAT’S TOES UNTIL IT BITES YOU OUT OF FRUSTRATION, BUT YOU WILL STILL FEED THEM AND PET THEM.

[pause]

R: Milkshake, Pizza Boy, will you ever forgive me?

M: Lo mismo ocurre con nosotros, cuando os enseñamos el culo antes del amanecer.

R: Is that a yes?

A: All I know is how to order a beer and ceviche…

L: Rocz, for God’s sake, finish the letter so we can get in my van and go home.

R: “I told Mr. Jackass what he could do with his etching, in language that is not very podcast-friendly, and he replied, and I quote, ‘Don’t be a pussy, it’s just an etching. It’s probably Latvian or some shit.’”

G: VIGO THE LATVIAN MAKES A DAMN FINE BLOOD SAUSAGE.

[stifled laughter, a certain amount of snickering]

G [wounded]: WHAT? I AM BEING SERIOUS. SAY WHAT YOU LIKE ABOUT JELLYFISH AND CEPHALOPODS, BUT IF YOU COME AT VIGO THE LATVIAN’S BLOOD SAUSAGE, I WILL END YOU.

[hysterical cackling, even from the cats]

A: Oh, God, oh, fuck no… Xe tried to kill us!

L: And xe’s doin’ it again!

R: It’s called catharsis, Alice! Laugh or cry!

[pandemonium ending in sniffles]

R: Ah… Ah… Oh, God… Lemme see here… “I reiterated my refusal, forcefully, and Mr. Jackass decided he’d teach me a lesson by restoring the etching himself. The next few weeks were remarkably quiet, with regards to Mr. Jackass, save for occasional instances of chanting. He rarely left his office and appeared to be sleeping there. He was also going through a lot of black candles. There was a single attempt to order ‘an unsullied infant boy’ from DoorDash, which was not successful. The next day, Mr. Jackass called in sick, so I figured he was at the exorcist’s and that would be the end of it. Imagine my surprise when I turned on the six o’clock news and found him declaring his candidacy for City Comptroller. From what I could gather, his platform included human sacrifice and a ‘skull throne tax.’ I had my hand on the phone to call an exorcist and report him, but my mean streak got the better of me. ‘Let’s see how this plays out,’ I thought.”

L: Did… Did he win?

R: “Don’t worry. Vigo the Carpathian, running as Mr. Jackass, suffered a resounding defeat and eventual exorcism. However, we restored and reclaimed so many paintings during his extended sabbatical, that before Mr. Jackass even had a chance to dye the blond bleach job out of his hair, the higher ups called him and told him, and I quote, ‘Don’t come back.’ That is how I became head of the art restoration department!”

[cheers, applause]

R: “The moral of this story, if there is one, is, ‘never interrupt your stupid boss when he is making a mistake.’”

G: A MODERN DAY SUN TZU!

R: “Love to you all, and be well.”

A: Aww, that’s actually very nice.

L: I hope Vigo fried that guy’s hair so bad he never recovers.

G: DAMN, I COULD GO FOR SOME BLOOD SAUSAGE.

R: This concludes Safety Third.

[“Shake hands with danger” drop]

R: Does anyone have any commercials?

L: Rocz…

R: Our podcasting format saved the world.

L: Okay, okay, but I got nothin’.

A: Same. You know where you can find us.

L: Right, we live in your basement. We’re watching you right now.

G: SAME!

R: If we want more Gozer the Gozerian, for some reason, where else can we find you?

G: IN YOUR NIGHTMARES!

R: Of course.

[SLIDE: The Amityville Horror House.]

R: Our next episode…

G: OH! OH! WAIT! I ALSO HAVE A TUMBLR!

A: Oh, my God, I have got to get off that hellsite…

R: Our next episode is on the Amityville Horror…

G: OOH, I LOVE THAT ONE! CAN I FIND IT WHEREVER PODCASTS ARE FOUND?

R: Uh…

A [tightly]: Don’t tell xem, just end the episode.

G: WHAT? TELL ME WHAT?

L: End the episode! END IT BEFORE DEVON HITS THE LAVA BUTTON!

G: HI MOM! HI GRANDMA! I LOVE YOU!

[soothing public domain music]

D [not drunk enough to stop being annoyed but still very drunk]: This is Future Devon… Fuck, I mean Present Devon. I have consumed all the liquor and ice cream I demanded from Gozer, and I am going to bed. If, as I suspect, this has all been an epic-length fanfiction from the diseased brain of some individual out there on the internet, when I wake up in the morning, I expect not to exist. This version of me, I mean. So, I would just like to take this opportunity to say: Fuck you. You will die alone. The pet raven in no way makes up for any of this bullshit — although I cherish him and have named him after Sir Ian McKellen. All these fucking Chekov’s guns all over the place, and you didn’t let me use my lava button even once. I will never forgive you for this. I am so done with podcasting, and everything Sumerian, but apparently I still have several billion years of Kill James Bond to go. [sigh] Okay.

[shuffling, sound of a laptop closing]

D: Come on, Sir Ian, let’s go to oblivion.

[long pause]

SIR IAN (I): This is Sir Ian, I am the raven who is talking now, my pronouns are he and him, and I thought you’d all like to know I work for Pazuzu. Don’t tell Dev, it would only upset them. I suppose I’ll put this up on the Patreon for them…?

[click]

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]

[And if ya liked that, I got a whole serialized story for ya. You let me work with my own characters and I get even more unhinged, just so's ya know.]

Thanks for reading!

[whumpster-fire]

Railway Series Headcanon:

We know trains are sentient, of course, as are many other land vehicles, watercraft, and aircraft. But what about spacecraft?

Satellites with simple jobs are very rarely sentient, and mercifully neither are most launch vehicles. And having minds of their own is undesirable to spacecraft designers despite the potential benefits of autonomy for a vehicle with no crew that operates under long communication delays.

All the same, the mechanical explorers sent into the cosmos are nearly always alive. How could they not be, with the love and care that’s put into the construction of each one? But their minds are so alien to humans and to other machines that they are hard to understand. They only awaken once they are free of their launcher, speak only in raw data, and most have no concept of socialization and a concept of mortality that is more like an octopus’s than a human’s. Their only drive is to explore, observe, and learn.

There are exceptions. Hubble thinks fondly of the visitors from the blinding blue light below, though they don’t understand that the astronauts were different from the shuttles. Several Mars orbiters have worked as communication relays with probes on the surface, and have discovered that they are not alone. The rovers and orbiters enjoy swapping photos and other information with each other, and the orbiters love sending pictures of the rovers down to them. I don’t think any rover has managed to return the favor yet, though they’ve tried.

Mars Express, Odyssey, Spirit, and Opportunity were the first permanently-in-space vehicles to experience grief, in November of 2006. (Previous probes, such as the Viking orbiters, Cassini, and Galileo, didn’t have much emotional attachment to their partner probes, though they felt disappointment when the brief time they got to hear reports from somewhere that was completely out of their reach ended). Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter joined their ranks in 2010, and Maven, Mangalyaan, and the Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter in 2018 (I don’t think the latter two were supposed to communicate with Opportunity, but the older orbiters didn’t give a fuck and hailed the new arrivals until they responded.

The entire Mars Orbiter Gang has spent the last sixteen months bracing themselves for the sol when Percy (the six-wheeled, plutonium-powered one) sends the last picture of Ginny.

The Shuttles, along with Buran and X-37B are the only travelers from ground to orbit to have become sentient so far. But there’s a betting pool going on how long it will take before a Starship insults Elon Musk to his arrogant face.

[bloobluebloo]

yeah Lysandre indeed had potential in the mainline games that Masters EX, The Anime, and Pokespe capitalized on. He’s far from the best Pokemon villain, but this man is one of the rare few villains that are truly irredeemable and deserve whatever karma hits them with.

This man is a madman and he deserves to rot in hell next to Satan himself (Ghetsis)

I think the appeal of pokevillains, as opposed to other franchises, is that they have a human appeal to them. Even the most cruelest of them have human attributes that we can relate to. For example, in Ghetsis’s case, it is the idea of a toxic relationship between parent and child that makes him fascinating, and in Cyrus’s case his rejection from society for his personality and pressure from his own family. I think Lysandre suffers a bit because he comes from a game that is controversial in nature (XY being very easy in gameplay with the introduction of universal exp, gym leaders being very easy, some parts of the game feeling unfinished and lackluster etc) and had to follow up on N and Ghetsis who, at the time, were hailed as the best pokevillains we’d seen to date. Additionally, Lysandre comes off as an Elon Musk kind of character, a rich boy with tech at his disposal that thinks he can make the world better despite what everyone else thinks, which would also make him unlikeable in general. Hence why he’s amongst the least popular imo.

But I do agree, he is pretty rotten. He comes off as a ceo who looks all polished and well spoken on the outside but is unhinged.

[sa1lorsp3lllz]

It seems like twitter really is now on the precipice of collapsing they already lay off 75% of the company and then 75% of the remaining staff quit meaning there's now literally like 200 people to run the entire platform. And most that quit where in key jobs like engineering you know the ones that the make the severs work and payroll who pay everyone so they're totally fucked now as far as I can tell.

This is just the problem with late stage capitalism one billionaire narcissist can buy up a platform that millions used and loved and then within 18 days send it crashing into the ground.

If this wasn't a better advertisement for never buying a tesla cause at least with twitter you probably won't die but if you buy a telsa there's a real risk his fuck ups will kill and have already killed. ( tesladeaths.com )

It is a shame that twitter will have to die to see this but I'm glad Elon musk is finally getting the scooby doo unmasking for who he really is. Too long he has been hailed as this altruistic Tony Stark type character (which is ironic being that Tony Starks real character is thay he is a narcissist and self centred with just the co incidence that he happens to help the world) but really if this guy is a marvel character he would be Doctor Octopus.

All this is to say fuck you Elon for destroying twitter. Any ex twitter employees I'm glad you got out and Im sure you'll have no problem finding a new job not working for a raging narcissist.

PS can someone please remake twitter but with no Elon.

[mariacallous]

Washington CNN  — Ukraine’s fears that its troops  may lose access to Elon Musk’s crucial Starlink internet service deepened in the past week after 1,300 of the military’s satellite units went offline, according to two sources familiar with the outage.

The small, easy-to-use satellite dishes made by Musk’s private rocket company SpaceX have been universally hailed as a game-changing source of communication for Ukraine’s military, allowing it to fight and stay online even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia. 

But concerns have risen recently over the dependability of SpaceX after discussions about funding were revealed and outages were reported near the frontlines. 

CNN first reported that SpaceX sent a letter in September to the Pentagon claiming it had spent almost $100 million funding Starlink in Ukraine and that it could no longer continue to do so. The letter requested that the Defense Department  take over more of the funding  for Ukraine’s military, which it calculated would run tens of millions of dollars a month. 

Days after the CNN report, Musk appeared to reverse course, claiming that SpaceX had withdrawn the request. 

“The hell with it,” Musk tweeted, “we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

Negotiations between SpaceX and the Defense Department continue despite Musk’s claim that SpaceX withdrew its request, according to a senior defense official.

“Negotiations are very much underway. Everyone in our building knows we’re going to pay them,” the senior Pentagon official told CNN, adding that the department is eager to have commitments in writing “because we worry he’ll change his mind.”

On Wednesday, Musk attended a ceremony for US Space Force which also included Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Musk has also been embroiled in his high-profile and controversial takeover of Twitter.

Neither Musk nor SpaceX responded to a request for comment. The Ukrainian government, including the Ministry of Defense, did not immediately respond.

The recent outage started on October 24 and was described by one person briefed on the situation as a “huge problem” for Ukraine’s military. The terminals had been disconnected, this person said, due to a lack of funding.  

The outage affected a block of 1,300 terminals that Ukraine purchased from a British company in March and were used for combat-related operations. 

SpaceX was charging Ukraine’s military $2,500 a month to keep each of the 1,300 units connected, pushing the total cost to almost $20 million by September, the person briefed on the matter said. Eventually, they could no longer afford to pay, the person said.  

A British request

Before the terminals went completely dark, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense made a request in early October to their British counterparts to pick up the $3.25 million monthly bill. The batch of terminals were also rotated out as concerns grew that service could be turned off, in order to minimize the impact, the source said.

A British official said after discussions between the ministries “it was agreed there were higher priority military capabilities.” Among many other channels of support, the UK has been flying thousands of Ukrainian troops to Britain for training before they head back to the frontlines.

“We support a number of terminals that have a direct tactical utility for Ukraine’s military in repelling Russia’s invasion,” the British official told CNN.  “We consider and prioritize all new requests in terms of the impact contributions would have in supporting Ukraine to defend its people against Putin’s deplorable invasion.”

A senior Ukrainian official confirmed the outage, calling the Starlink units “very important” for Ukraine’s fight against Russia.  

The September letter from SpaceX to the Pentagon said there were almost 20,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine. At that time, by SpaceX’s own admission, the majority of them received were fully or partial purchased with outside funding, including the US, Polish and UK governments. The letter claimed those sources paid for about 30% of the monthly connectivity bill as well.

The terminals, which include small satellite dishes, connect to SpaceX’s constellation of satellites orbiting the earth and not only keep troops and civilians online but have been used with lethal effect, proving critical for Ukraine’s use of drones and artillery targeting.

It’s unclear exactly how many terminals Ukraine’s military is operating but the 1,300 that recently shut off represent a significant portion. In July the country’s commander-in-chief wrote Musk directly asking for more, in a letter seen by CNN, saying approximately 4,000 had been deployed by the military.

Earlier this month, Musk said that of the more than 25,000 terminals now in Ukraine, fewer than 11,000 were paying for the service, which can run as high as $4,500 per month.

On Monday a Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on potential contracts or agreements but said talks are ongoing.

“We continue to discuss Ukraine’s satellite communication needs with Ukraine and companies like SpaceX and others,” Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters.

Whether greater cooperation with SpaceX would give the US government stronger control over the Starlink signal in Ukraine has not been answered. Currently SpaceX controls where Ukraine Starlink terminals can be used and outages have previously been reported by Ukrainian units near the front, as they advanced and liberated Russian-held areas.

As a result, Musk’s control of the signal gives him significant sway over the battlefield at a time when he has come under heavy criticism for arguing that Ukraine should sue for peace and give up some of its territory.

[specificiumray]

Trying to follow up in detail with a thought I had about how I’d ideally like to see Tony Stark written and my answer was Howard Hamlin from Better Call Saul.

Some spoilers for BCS and prior Iron Man comics (Armor Wars (1987-1988), Marvel Comics Presents #7 (2019) “Market Correction)

So on Howard. When BCS introduces him, he seems like any other suit at a corporate office, probably went to an Ivy League university on a legacy admission regardless whether he could actually make the cut, and generally seems like the sort of overbearing boss any employee has to endure.

But then we discover he doesn’t actually have anything against Jimmy at this point and it’s actually just Chuck blocking him off. We also learn that Howard feels as though he’s lived in the shadow of his father-- and for that reason he’s going to help Jimmy McGill, for whom his older brother Chuck McGill inhabits that fatherly role (derogatory as much as it used to be affectionate). But not by outright giving him a place at the HHM firm: Howard doesn’t want to actually antagonize anyone in that father figure role, let alone Chuck who HHM hails as a god among lawyers. So he offers a half-hearted fix purely on the basis of workplace successfulness versus the personal dispute between the McGill bros.

It’s for that refusal to fully confront a father figure he goes back to help Chuck. He still doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, but he still does so within the confines of a structure he’s familiar with, Kim Wexler gruelingly keeps up with, and Jimmy can’t fit into at all. And it culminates in Chuck going to a very self-destructive point that Jimmy was able to exploit and counter. After which point into s5 Howard battles with his guilt. The show places more emphasis on Jimmy’s deception at the state bar hearing to discredit Chuck’s character.

But that undercuts the fact that before this, he was largely a non-factor in his social circle’s personal lives beyond maybe getting drinks or a couple of parties. His claim to being chummy with Jimmy was his nickname he gave him, ‘Charlie Hustle’ since Jimmy at the time was an HHM mailroom clerk (working on the side to get an online law degree at the same time). He never dared to go against Chuck’s word. And then Howard attempts to adopt white surfer bro zen, taking up a ~namast3~ license plate and offering Jimmy a partnership at HHM long after the damage has been done in the Chuck situation and also after Jimmy realized he was happier running a smaller solo practice where he could make his own rules and Kim could be a public defender with Jimmy’s support.

But now you ask: Why do I think this is the makings of an ideal Tony Stark characterization?

Because Tony, like Howard, isn’t willfully malicious. They’ve both suffered in their respective fields for the work they’ve done-- work carried on from their fathers (Hamlin Senior and the surrogate of Chuck McGill / Howard Stark). And they do have enough wherewithal to recognize that maybe something is wrong, and that makes them want to do something about it.

But where Tony Stark depictions fail I think, is that they don’t let him be anything more than what weird nerds make of Elon Musk as some kind of hip tech/business-savvy savior. Tony is only allowed to be dubious enough to hook people in before it’s played off as lovable asshole comedy, or for major things like the Superhuman Civil War he turns out to have been right all along to (reads notes) criminalize his only friends and continue making weaponry exclusively for people who agree with him. Just look at how he gives awkward teenager MCU Peter Parker a suit that rapidly shanks people as prelude to the orbital drone army and privacy invading hacking tech.

And the thing is: those moves could absolutely be intriguing if he was allowed to be that sort of character Howard is. Someone who very much tries to do good but they’re so deep into draconian systems that their idea of right and wrong still comes from high society and the letter of the law-- even when they try to buck those things, it’s been ingrained into them over the years by their father figures and environments. 

Where Tony goes beyond Howard is that as one of Marvel’s OG characters he lives by the idea that he is a human trying to deal with something he considers to have made him a god. Versus DC’s OGs being godlike beings who aspire to be more like the humans they walk among. Where being Batman gives the disconnected Bruce Wayne a chance to interact with people on the street, the Iron Man armor and founding Avenger status further distance Tony from humanity than his upbringing and wealth have already done.

Tony Stark can solve engineering problems, short term like supervillains and whatnot. And he can even come up with some long-term infrastructure, charity efforts sometimes. 2019′s “Marvel Comics Presents #7″ features him attempting to work within the system (and failing) to stop another billionaire from a massive subprime mortgage moneymaking scheme-- eventually just giving the other man his own iron man armor so they can duke it out-- highlighting Tony’s struggle to enact something positive on his terms.

It’s a noteworthy subversion of golden age comic book heroes, as in the 1940s would have entirely sidestepped the legal system in recognition of its inability to exact justice, and directly attacked the mortgage man until he surrendered. The story ends before the power armor battle occurs, but the ultimate fate of both the villain and his scheme are up in the air for interpretation. The damage could be too late to counteract or he goes on to own up to it and do something. Maybe the mortgage man got away with his free armor and it’s going to come back to haunt everyone later.

Armor Wars (Iron Man #225-#232, 1987-1988) is a personal favorite of mine. A storyline where Tony attempts to track down and take out supervillains with power armor or advanced technology at the first sign that his designs were stolen and used by others. His response is filled with good intentions, but even at the prologue to the crusade it is as much a spiral of panic as one of Tony’s first moves is to question reformed supervillain Carl Walker (AKA Force) at his newly formed electronics company, later phoning him in the middle of the night to haunt him with memories of casualties brought on during his supervillain days.

The storyline eventually reaches a point where Tony is no longer content with simply going after supervillains, antagonizing SHIELD agents and attacking fellow Avenger Stingray, who he discovered after the fight did not even actually use his designs on his own costume. The West Coast Avengers team attempted to intervene, along with Captain America who Tony would subdue while going after wearers of the mandroid armor at a maximum security supervillain prison. He even goes to Russia and nearly causes an international incident when he picks a fight with supervillains turned state operatives in Titanium Man and a friendlier iteration of the Crimson Dynamo. All ending with a boss fight against one last bad guy in power armor. Tony makes a new suit, but in the process has alienated himself from the rest of the superhero community.

This once more mirrors how in s5/s6 Howard Hamlin attempts to make amends with Jimmy as he begins doing business as Saul Goodman. He offers not only a corporate position, but fails to take the time to understand why Kim and Jimmy are public defender/solo practice instead of the traditionally preferable position at the top of a successful firm. And then following Kim and Jimmy’s attempts to discredit Howard in front of fellow firm lead Cliff Main, Howard has his own spiral at the thought that his actions have cultivated no tangible good results.

And another aspect of Howard that I believe would stick with a Tony Stark characterization are attacks on his character even when he’s only done good-- a quality he used to share with the rest of the roster of Marvel superheroes in the first few decades, the 60s/70s/80s. But what makes it uniquely his is that it is not simply as Iron Man that he is castigated, but Tony’s ethos as a businessman is also called into question-- given how the majority of his super-colleagues were rarely in his position of affluence or technological superiority. This is made easier by the fact modern Tony doesn’t have a secret identity anymore.

The 2010s have leaned into his fame between the movies and comic runs like Dan Slott’s 2018 run. And as recently as Christopher Cantwell’s Iron Man run (2020-- the year of release, not Arno Stark) even gives him that Muskesque twitter bullying and an odd fit for love interest in Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat. A far cry from the challenge, the intrigue of Armor Wars or Demon in a Bottle.

idk anymore perceptions of businessmen and techbros are wild

[m0tel6mxzzy]

do you think what azealia did is a slay or a nay

honestly no. like i 100% am aware azealia has mental issues the general public loves to mock (and at one point in 2020 people were celebrating when she was suicidal and saying on ig that she was going to attempt.) like black women’s mental health is never taken seriously and often perceived as a joke. i feel the same way abt banks as i do lovelypeaches. two people i disagree w the actions of most of the time (although peaches is a child abuser which is incredibly different from banks who mostly says inflammatory stuff online) however, they’re basically turned into caricatures for being black women who openly struggle mentally. i just think it’s a lot of misogynoir (anti blackness + sexism) going on and ppl use their controversies as excuses for how they treat mentally ill black women in general. by disregarding them and seeing them as jokes when they are a serious danger to themselves and others.

as for the skai jackson thing i was initially talking abt-i distinctly remember it started bc banks was saying racist stuff about zayn malik and all skai did was tell her that it wasn’t the right thing to do—prompting azealia to harass skai who was a minor at the time. azealia was a grown adult and should’ve known better.

the only time i felt she had any sort of justification in her actions was when she called out elon musk and grimes for trying to lure her into a three way at their house under the pretenses of grimes collabing with banks and never actually getting to the collab. like that is so creepy and weird and has to be sexual harassment by some measure seeing as azealia also expressed feeling incredibly uncomfortable and pressured by them and she wasn’t allowed to leave. but bc grimes gets hailed as cute alien musician and elon is Cool Rocket Billionaire Who Smokes Weed ppl found the entire situation quirky and way less serious than it actually was

[thedeadpoetsson]

I’ve grown tired of the redundant mass hysteria and the figure heads leading them.

All I ask if for a house with a large porch hugged by nature in the middle of nowhere, away from all this screaming and crying and spells of nonsense. away from mass industrialisation and Elon Musks fucking agenda.

Far away from the religious sense of impending doom constantly loomed over or heads like carrots tied to strings. The rush of arriving on time makes me sick, my stomach turns and cripples within me because it truly is all for nothing, we are all doomed according to the writing on the walls.

“Oh hail the all forgiving!” They cry to the moon! They lead their children to evangelism! There is no other path but that of a wooden mantle disguised in golden paint.