Notes for Week 34, 2024

Song of the week:

Notes

  • Very late posting for the week (technically into the following week) due to a long weekend bestowed upon myself. I did this to fully enjoy the spectacle that is the Dunmore East Bluegrass festival. I'm sure I noted it last year. But basically it's a festival of bands I've never heard of covering songs I vaguely recognise in pubs in the town where our holiday residence is located. It's great fun. And weirdly coincides with the Leaving Cert night, so it gets a bit hectic!
  • After a bit of a break, for schedule and travel reasons, I cycled to work a good bit during the week. I just wasn't in the office otherwise. And oh my word, the traffic was ludicrous. This is before we hit peak traffic, when the kids go back to school (next week, I think!). People skipping lights, I saw a car overtaking another car on a normal two-way 50kph road, etc. etc. It's a small miracle I don't see more crashes (I'm loathe to call them accidents).
  • Starbucks has a new CEO. And his plan is to not relocate, but to "supercommute" from California to Seattle on a private jet. Which is a disaster for the climate, but just a wonderful example of how some folks feel there are rules for them, and other rules for us. I'm ok with business class flights, and flights in general. Don't begrudge people the ability to see the world or do productive work elsewhere. But this is atrocious.

  • I joined Twitter in 2008. I left it the second the $46bn deal went through, and routed my 'efforts' to mastodon. I had admired the work of Musk for a long time. I envied Tesla owners until I managed to join the club myself. I bought my first Model 3 in 2019. It was the fifth such car in Ireland (it would have been the first but I was slightly late getting to Sandyford!). That sent me on a 5-year long journey with the Irish EV Owners Association where I held a number of roles, changed a bunch of their operating model and left as Chair about a year ago. I've since had another Tesla; a Model Y. Because my family grew during Covid and literally getting the buggies, chairs and paraphernalia into the M3 just didn't work. I say all of this to say, I'm coming from a good place. But I spotted Elon going nuts, sliding into poor behaviours and not focusing on innovation for the species. He got selfish, jealous and weird.
    • The purchase of Twitter was a big 'last straw' moment for me. I sold off my holding of the best product Tesla had ever, $tsla (which turned out to be a godsend decision) and the purchase of the social media company wound up with me getting a small payday from that.
    • I could smell toxins in the water from a mile away. And now, "X" has had to declare it's investors and it's actually worse than I suspected. And completely articulates why the platform is jammed with right-wing folks, bots and AI systems there purely to push propaganda and drive derision and hate in society.
    • Irish politicians have started socialising the idea that maybe we should ban social media for under-16s. And I don't see a reason why we wouldn't do that. Not until the companies themselves can guarantee the algorithm and content machines are protective. Much like YouTube has to do YouTube Kids.
    • Even more, the deal could have been worse than Lehman for the bankers that bankrolled it.

(via mastodon)

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Published on: 26th August, 2024

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