Protesters disrupted Pelosi’s appearance in Seattle on Thursday to call for an end to Israel‘s assault on Palestine. Vocal demonstrators have also been appearing regularly at President Joe Biden’s events. Pelosi said that she would like the FBI to investigate whether Russia is financing these groups....
Starting a private company and then selling it to some tool doesn’t make these guys great people.
Engineering a practical prototype for an electric sports car in the year 2003 makes you pretty cool, if nothing else.
Lacking the easy access to low-interest credit and being hedged out of the SUV-heavy American car market doesn’t make them bad people.
They exploited their employees and sold the company to some guy to exploit some more
The company had exactly three people in it when Elon Musk arrived with $6.5M in Series A investment cash. They were both forced out of the company in 2008, as the Series B funding was exhausted and Elon was leveraging his fundraising clout to monopolize control of the board. This was long before the Gigafactory and the big labor abuses we’re familiar with today.
I wouldn’t call them geniuses or pretend they were irreplaceable. These were a couple of car hobbyists who stumbled into a cut-throat industry and got their work snatched out from under them.
But then I wouldn’t call the Tesla a particularly amazing piece of technology. Just something a couple of car hobbyists realized was possible with existing technology and made a (small) fortune scaling up.
The real genius in the end was scamming the Department of Energy out of billions of dollars and helping gas guzzlers fake their EV quota.
The fundamental problem with these businesses is that they are Too Big To Fail. Which is to say, they’ll have a low-interest line of credit and enormous historic revenue streams that carry them decades past what should be an expiration date.
If a better Search Engine pops up, Google can either buy them out or vexatiously litigate them into the ground. If they start losing ground to Microsoft or Facebook, their treasury can simply hedge the losses by purchasing their rivals’ stock. If they face an outside challenger - a ByteDance or a Pinstorm - they can lobby the Feds to lock out the competition or buffer their weak sales by winning more federal contracts from the PRISM program.
And, in the end, they’ll always have their IP. Decades of accumulated “we developed a special coding technique for pressing a button, so now you owe us money any time you press a button” basic legacy infrastructure that everyone else will be forced to license by a captured judiciary/regulatory body.
Like GE and Walt Disney and Authentic Brands Group, they don’t actually have to make anything in the end. They can reap tens of billions of dollars by collecting rents on the company legacy.
Just zombie firms feasting on the brains of smaller businesses and retail customers forever and ever and ever.
On the evening of May 13, 1985, longstanding tensions between MOVE, a black liberation group, and the Philadelphia Police Department erupted horrifically. That night, the city of Philadelphia dropped a satchel bomb, a demolition device typically used in combat, laced with Tovex and C-4 explosives on the MOVE organization, who were living in a West Philadelphia rowhome known to be occupied by men, women, and children. It went up in unextinguished flames. Eleven people were killed, including five children and the founder of the organization. Sixty-one homes were destroyed, and more than 250 citizens were left homeless.
Folks familiar with this incident had a remarkably different take on the Waco siege and subsequent fire that resulted when the FBI surrounded David Koresh’s church compound. Same with the Ruby Ridge US Marshal slaying of a white nationalist’s wife and son, during an investigation into gun sales.
Then there’s the assassination of Fred Hampton and Malcolm X, the police storming of the Occupy Wall Street camps in New York, the COINTELPRO operations that targeted anti-war movements during the Bush Administration, the incredibly violence by police in Ferguson and Baltimore during the BLM marches, police kidnappings in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and LA during the George Floyd protests.
I got to personally witness the mass arrest of protesters in Houston, after they were surrounded and kettled in Discovery Green Park.
America is a cursed land. Something something maybe don’t build your country on an ancient indian burial ground something something.
With the maintenance cost and taxes, I’m actually losing money or breaking even depending on the year.
My tenants are living in a house that they wouldn’t be able to afford on their own in today’s market.
Literally the hottest real estate market in history, after we just came out of the lowest interest rate market in history, and my man up here still can’t even break even on a residence he is renting out to someone else out of the pure kindness of heart.
Maybe you are the rare, golden One Good Landlord, or maybe you’re just some asshole on the internet posting utter bullshit. Who can say?
But I’ve never met any landlord like you IRL. Hell, I’ve never actually met a landlord who owned the property I rented. They always went through property management companies that do all the work for the owner and just forwarded on a chunk of my rental payment at the end of every month.
A judge in Washington state has blocked video evidence that’s been “AI-enhanced” from being submitted in a triple murder trial. And that’s a good thing, given the fact that too many people seem to think applying an AI filter can give them access to secret visual data.
State media reported that a grouping of ships from Russia’s Pacific Fleet, led by the Varyag cruiser, arrived at the Iranian port of Chabahar on Monday ahead of the drills that will see representatives from the navies of Azerbaijan, India, Kazakhstan, Oman, Pakistan and South Africa act as observers....
The year is 2006 and Republicans are killing a compromise deal that they all admitted they actually liked.
The year is 2014 and Republicans are killing a compromise deal that they all admitted they actually liked.
The year is 2024 and the GOP is about to win in a landslide on the “Democrats never get anything done” platform, so I guess you can’t argue with their results.
The active registered voters with the Florida Democratic Party fell by 467,337 voters or nearly 10 percent. The active registered voters with the Republican Part of Florida decreased by 153,369 or approximately three percent....
People who keep trying to do Socialism in a Capitalist system are doomed to fail, because Socialism produces enormous surpluses and Capitalists love to just gobble that shit up.
Its just a generic filler article that gets posted about young people every year or two.
“Quiet Quitting” was the thing in 2022.
“Great Resignation” was the thing in 2021
You can find articles about this in 2019, 2016, omfg all over the place in the wake of 2008, “Jobless Recovery” from 2004 to 2006, in the 90s it was “Slackers” and in the 80s it was “Punks” and in the 70s and 60s it was “Hippies” and then back to Beatniks and Anarchists and of course, the old crowd favorite, Pinko Commies.
This is just a more recent mash up of the “China Bad” and “Nobody Wants To Work Anymore” meme
SSDE (lemmy.world)
"Portal" Between Dublin and NYC Shut Down After OnlyFans Model Flashes It (ca.news.yahoo.com)
Don't make me turn this car around! (files.catbox.moe)
Pelosi Wants FBI to Investigate Pro-Palestine Protesters for Financial Ties to Russia (www.rollingstone.com)
Protesters disrupted Pelosi’s appearance in Seattle on Thursday to call for an end to Israel‘s assault on Palestine. Vocal demonstrators have also been appearing regularly at President Joe Biden’s events. Pelosi said that she would like the FBI to investigate whether Russia is financing these groups....
How times change (lemmy.world)
How police officers preyed on teens in the Boy Scouts’ police Explorer program (www.nbcnews.com)
The last known person to see Sandra Birchmore alive was a police officer....
Labour threatened with legal action over ‘voter fraud’: Sam Tarry, Angela Rayner’s former partner, claims online voting system has been used to disadvantage candidates (www.telegraph.co.uk)
Sam Tarry, Angela Rayner’s former partner, claims online voting system has been used to disadvantage Left-wing candidates...
Thomas Edison was the Elon musk of his era (lemmy.world)
I bet that rich dumb ass would love this comparison.
Tesla to lay off everyone working on Superchargers, new vehicles (arstechnica.com)
Google layoffs: Sundar Pichai-led company fires entire Python team for ‘cheaper labour’ (www.hindustantimes.com)
Google layoffs: The company plans to set up a new team in Munich, Germany which would act as “cheaper” labour, the report claimed.
Possible snipers seen at OSU. Administration says they're not snipers but should be treated like they are. (midwest.social)
Update, yes there are snipers:...
Get rid of landlords... (lemmy.world)
Court Bans Use of 'AI-Enhanced' Video Evidence Because That's Not How AI Works (gizmodo.com)
A judge in Washington state has blocked video evidence that’s been “AI-enhanced” from being submitted in a triple murder trial. And that’s a good thing, given the fact that too many people seem to think applying an AI filter can give them access to secret visual data.
House passes bill that could lead to TikTok ban in broad bipartisan vote (www.cbsnews.com)
www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/…/7521...
China, Iran and Russia hold joint war games in Gulf of Oman in response to threats to coastal trade (www.aljazeera.com)
State media reported that a grouping of ships from Russia’s Pacific Fleet, led by the Varyag cruiser, arrived at the Iranian port of Chabahar on Monday ahead of the drills that will see representatives from the navies of Azerbaijan, India, Kazakhstan, Oman, Pakistan and South Africa act as observers....
Have enough money to solve almost any social issue, but put on a weird black latex suit and beat up the mentally unstable at night instead. (feddit.de)
Shocker: Republicans Admit in Private That They Killed a Good Deal (newrepublic.com)
News (lemmy.world)
Author: εunnie
1 million voters have been purged from Florida's rolls as number of registered Democrats drops by nearly 10% while Republicans only lose 3% of registered voters (www.dailymail.co.uk)
The active registered voters with the Florida Democratic Party fell by 467,337 voters or nearly 10 percent. The active registered voters with the Republican Part of Florida decreased by 153,369 or approximately three percent....
"There are thousands of volunteers who donated their labour to Duo... Bit by bit all of our work was hidden from us as Duolingo became a publicly-traded company." (aus.social)
China’s Youth Are Quitting the Rat Race to ‘Let It Rot’ (www.wsj.com)
Young people in China are becoming more rebellious, questioning their nation’s traditional expectations of career and family
How to stop mass shootings in a nutshell by one political party (lemmy.world)
Blinken says he asked Qatari PM to rein in Al Jazeera war coverage, per sources (www.axios.com)
White Wolf / Onyx Path games in Foundry
I'm currently working on a campaign for the Onyx Path system Exalted, and I wanted to build out a Foundry companion for running the game online....
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