Category Archives: Tech

Apple, iPad, iPhone, Mac, OS Software, Tech

The Vision of Steve Jobs for the Future of Apple has Barely Begun to Emerge

Apple’s innovation is not waning, it’s just getting started

Often the simplest ideas are the most powerful, and sometimes, the most popular idea is just plain wrong. But it can take decades to realize which is the better path. Take the outdated and barely-still-remembered rivalry between Windows / PCs and Apple.

Microsoft and Bill Gates were touted as being genius for seeing that the market for software, in the case of windows, system software, separate from hardware, and the associated costs and effort to build it, was an unnecessary burden.

Now Google / android uses the same playbook, allowing a variety of hardware makers to build that hardware around the freely available software.

The “genius” of this was simply put, money. Not just getting paid to build software ( or in the case of android finding hidden ways to monetize system control) but the “brilliant” concept of creating code only and then selling it infinitely with not cost of manufacture.

In 2021, 2022 and beyond Apple will prove, definitively, that this idea, far from brilliant or genius, was simply short sighted and wrong. As most ideas are that are based on greed alone.

Greed, plus a lack of a drive to innovate, but rather being satisfied to stagnate creatively as long as the bottom line is satisfied, turns out to be a failure of monumental proportions.

It can even be argued that virtually all massive tech firms would not exist without apple innovation.

Though a subject for another article, this belief that greed as a business model could be genius and is superior to the old fashioned idea that creating a “whole widget” was, ultimately, better will eventually die across the board (Hello facebook and google search).

Apple is doubling down, with the M1 and soon M2 chips and in the end through creating a better product will also win in the marketplace, bigly.

Apple, in contrast to MS and Android, has never charged for system software. Every year, like clockwork the various systems; macOS, iOs, iPad OS, watchOS, tvOS and now, soon, homeOS (rumor) are all upgraded, sometimes in a major way.

Starting on Monday June 7th, 2021 and running until the 11th, WWDC2021 went into great detail regarding just what the completely free updates hold in store.

Example: iPhone influence has barely started to have its impact felt

Even if you don’t accept the fact that android devices are knock-offs of the iPhone or that Windows was literally plagiarized from early versions of the Mac system (and the pending law suit to that effect was settled by Microsoft in 1997, out of court for peanuts, ironically saving Apple from bankruptcy) the influence of the iPhone since its initial appearance in 2007 has been immense.

As big as the impact has been until now, the facts point to this influence having barely begun. There are entire categories of communication and interaction that could not be imagined without a world of iPhone owners out there learning about and using each new upgrade and improvement.

Nearly all of social media, but especially apps like TikTok rely not only on the high end features of the iPhone but even more so on the growing sophistication of the user base, and the desire to get more and more out of the potential that Apple has unleashed in order to express themselves more fully and communicate with each other more successfully.

Indeed, it is that idea of making the whole widget that is beginning to take this unending progression toward more and more quality and features to a whole new level.

And this is happening across consumer level and semi-pro to pro simultaneously. Try to imagine how another company would try to monetize each small software feature – such as the new “center stage” feature that was just rolled out the the iPad pro.

This feature, while it is, in some respects, designed to boost sales for the new iPad Pro, is also one that uses machine learning, the power of the new faster 8 core cpu on the M1 chip (75x faster) and the upgraded system to give the millions that are now communicating via video, and in particular a self-facing camera to publish to YouTube and TikTok.

More than the whole widget

By following the path first laid out by Steve Jobs when he held fast, against all odds at the time, to the belief that the only path toward real progress and innovation will always lie in the power of being able to create, design and control the “whole widget”.

This concept has not only not been abandoned or watered down by Apple under Tim Cook but with the new Apple Silicon and the massive dividends that are emerging out of the deep integration between software and various hardware enhancements (machine learning , AI and the intersection of the hardware and software that power them) it is becoming all encompassing.

After decades to being characterized as wrong about the necessity of this approach for any real innovation, the fruits of Steve Job’s vision have only just barely begun to grow.

User adaptation is bigger than technical progress and will become even more important in the future

The way we live and work has already been changed massively and rapidly, and that change accelerated after 2007 and the iPhone.

Now there is talk of living in a metaverse which at a “stone-age” level people already do. It is Apple that is pointing the way, in terms of building the tools to make this possible and a more expansive reality, more than any other company or entity.

The shift to some kind of metaverse is one that would have far reaching and almost incomprehensible meaning for nearly the entire globe. It also, perhaps not coincidentally, comes at a time when the very existence of humanity on the planet is being treatened.

While many could see it as a diversion or escape from a dying, depressing reality, Steve Job’s vision and belief was building tools for human beings.

“When we invented the personal computer, we created a new kind of bicycle…a new man-machine partnership…a new generation of entrepreneurs.” — Steve Jobs, c. 1980

New jobs and new lifestyles to reach a new ideal for humanity

This original vision has never changed but only become all pervasive in the Apple path of innovation.

As the importance of global networked communication grows exponentially, Apple is at the forefront of building the tools to make that communication more accessible to people everywhere.

Ultimately it is the human interface, that technology must adapt to and mirror, not the other way around.

The increasing complexity of the process of building the “bicycle of the mind” derives its importance from the need to make the role of the human being ever simpler and more intuitive.

Having the creation of appropriate tools for enjoyable and more expansive human communication as the end goal of all, rather than the bottom line of greed and pride over charging as much as possible while delivering as little as possible, is turning out, in the end to be more than just a more successful business strategy, it is a strategy that may be a part of the last hopes for our planet.

Utopia or Oblivion

Few would argue, unless working for the fossil fuel industry, that sustainable energy solutions are essential to reverse global warming and the ever expanding climate threats we face.

Soil regeneration, solar power, sustainable energy transportation systems, these are all the future of our technology if we are to survive as a species.

But what about the internet, the idea of the metaverse and the potential social, political and educational that could come from more evolved, more intuitive and more powerful communication systems, systems that trace back to the first personal computing devices and the first networks. Do they have a role to play?

While Apple has pursued innovation and Steve Jobs vision of the whole widget for business reasons and as a part of a belief in building tools, being a major force for a potential path toward a more utopian world, rather than part of the lemming-like decent to oblivion, is surely one that Steve Jobs would approve of, if we were able to ask him what his thoughts are today.

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Twitter

Elon Musk’s Real Reason for Buying Twitter is…

Revealed by Kyrstin Munson (ex-Tesla)

According to her LinkedIn page Kyrstin Munson worked at Tesla for over 10 years. In her twitter feed she lays out her (obviously unauthorized) idea of the “real” reason Elon Musk bought Twitter.

With all the political and random madness surrounding the short time since Musk took over the bird, this explanation, is in a strange way perhaps the least crazy of all.

Perhaps (probably?) she is projecting the Tesla philosophy, one that has been extremely successful, onto this new seemingly spontaneous endeavor, but as odd as it sounds, it could very well be the thinking behind it all.

Buying Twitter to try to improve communication, and in particular, communication around climate change and how we can overcome its massive challenges, but couched in a format that is “disguised … as something awesome and way more fun”, does seem like something a guy hoping to “die on mars” might do.

Crazy like a Shiba Inu

This bizarre take on his motives is perhaps just crazy enough to make some kind of sense. Only thing is with polls measuring how many bots want Trump’s account re-instated and various other insane actions and ultimatums, it’s harder than ever to picture any kind of real communication going on, “awesome and way more fun” or not!

The full extremely long series of tweets (twenty tweets and self-replies) can be seen at her account @ThisisKyrstin and, it does ramble on with little to offer other than a sort of pro Elon take on the whole debacle. Accordingly, the replies to her tweet barrage were mostly mildly negative, if not out and out slams. Some, very positive, and all in all another oddball ride into the current chaos on the platform.

https://twitter.com/catacc22/status/1593499590757687297?s=46&t=7Lkh72LTFFoZ7bo-kFbo4g

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Apps, Entertainment, Music, Social Media, TikTok, Videos

Billie Eilish Strikes again on TikTok: “Slumber Party” Rehearsal (X)

Video

“we r hot” show dance rehearsal with commentary (hilarious sexy fun)

After her wild Ukulele post popped up on her crazy subterranean TikTok account and a couple of random posts since, today Billi Eilish posted what appears to be a impromptu reversal video with some hilarious commentary. Set to the song “Lost Cause” (very hot now).

The account which only has 8 videos since it first popped up has 29.6 million followers (of course!) and 122.2 millions likes, and the video (below) already has 3.2 million in the first hour. Today’s video dropped around 4:30 PM Pacific time on June 3, 2021. The first full video on the account – other than the Ukulele post mentioned above. That one went live on November 13, 2020.

It’s pretty clear from the humor, voice over and the attitude that Billie loves the vibe and spontaneity of TikTok and this video and her rogue account style fits right in!

LInk to Video on TikTok

Even at the relatively elderly summit of 19 her sultry, dark style along with top of the world presence continues to command loyalty and love for her music and style. Her recent biographical photo book was also a hit and the new songs will likely continue at the top of our summer list. The documentary is great also.

Oh, and the WORLD TOUR starts in September! Starting off, where else? Las Vegas.

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Apple, iOS 15, iPhone, iPhone 13 Pro, Mac, MacBook Pro, Tech, Videos

Oh. So. Pro.: Apple’s new slogan for iPhone 13 Pro is both Obvious and an Infinite Enigma

Video

Above: Photo Collage / Apple / Lynxotic

Simple, to the point, yes. But what is the point?

Why go pro? Well, anyone who uses an iPhone in a work or business context can clearly benefit from the power under the hood (A15), and the new, better ways to communicate (messages, FaceTime, email improvements, etc) and manage information exchanges (notes upgrade, photo searching, live text, etc.).

And, let’s be honest, who that uses an iPhone for business doesn’t always want the newest and best? And who actually does have the funds to pay the lofty prices? On the face of it the slogan and the superficial idea it proposes is a simple extension of the demographics of Apple’s customer base.

The motto iPhone 13 has received is just the newest in a venerable pantheon of slogans created for some of the most successful and forward thinking ad campaigns. There are even those that feel that steve jobs had even more talent for choosing a marketing strategy than for anything else. Starting with the now historic super bowl ad for the original mac, which to this day is heralded as one of the best one-minute commercials ever Apple has ever since been known as a cult-like company that took an unfamiliar product, at a time when desk-top computers were virtually non-existent and sold them as something that could magically bestow a better life, and even contribute to the building of a better world.

The ad told the story of the apple home computer as the next big thing, and cast the macintosh product line as a true hero that would stand up to a projected story of corporate tyranny, embodied in IMB, Apple’s rival at the time. This was potentially the first tv commercial to sell a corporate identity, the Apple story as a cultural story, rather than as the first low cost microcomputer system.

Based on George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984 the ground breaking ad had one of the most unusual business mottos as the closing credit; “On January 24th Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984.’ “

Though the commercial has been considered a huge success ever since, the rest of the story is that the general population was not quite ready for apple’s iconic game-changer at the time, and the high price of the first product version was, responsible for poor sales ultimately a commercial disaster.

Nevertheless, the technical revolution of the product, including the first graphic command interface, would eventually create millions of Apple fans, imbue the public with a sense of identification with the company as underdog, and the commercial would gain its rightful place as the best marketing tool of that era.

Decades later the legacy would be part of the road that Apple took to becoming a profitable company and eventually one of the world’s most powerful global enterprises.

The second, and possibly even more influential and best marketing campaigns would be ‘think different’ slogan, launched on August 8th, 1997.

This motto and the ad campaign that famously followed represented a whole new vision for not only how to promote the brand and increase sales without featuring a single Apple product, but also served to introduce apple fans to the idea of a different kind of change.

It signaled a new direction, both internally with the return of ad agency TBWA Chiat/Day after a ten year hiatus, but also making clear reference to the break from the downward trajectory that company had faced in the absence of Steve Jobs between 1985 and 1997, both leaving and returning on the same day, September 16.

This eternally iconic campaign with it’s clever yet engaging slogan, emphasized the concept of iconic misfits, and how they, as the “crazy ones” would embrace new ideas and change the world.

‘Think different’ ultimately became the most successful and famous tagline in the history of Apple. The text from one of the first commercials in the campaign had a brilliant script, read by Richard Dreyfuss;

“Here’s to the crazy ones,” Dreyfuss intoned. “The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers — the round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

Among the 17 great historical icons whose images were used in the first one minute ad, meant to link Apple innovation to the worlds all time great 20th century thinkers and doers, were; Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Martin Luther King, Bob Dylan, Amelia Earhart, Mahatma Gandhi, Maria Callas, Richard Branson, Muhammad Ali, Jim Henson (and Kermit the Frog), Ted Turner, Thomas Edison, Martha Graham, Frank Lloyd Wright and John Lennon (with Yoko Ono).

Subsequent to the launch other tv ads as well as print, posters and billboards featured a variety of these plus additional icons.

Here’s what Apple says about the A15 Bionic chip in the iPhone 13 Pro:

With 5-nanometer technology, A15 Bionic — the fastest chip in a smartphone — features a new 5-core GPU in the Pro lineup that brings the fastest graphics performance in any smartphone, up to 50 percent faster than the leading competition, ideal for video apps, high-performance gaming, and the slate of new camera features.

On the surface then, it’s all good, the three terse words evoke the natural and logical, it’s a simple, clever slogan that targets the upper “Pro” demographic with an expensive but really cool device.

Lurking beneath is a mountain of meaning that connects to decades of research and innovation at Apple

But, wait, all the new iPhone 13s, along with any that use iOS 15, share many of the same “Pro” features, and thus we must all adapt to the embarrassment of riches, on some level.

Many questions arise; with “Pro” cameras (3x +) and software that leverages advanced chips, the neural engine, machine learning to extend our senses further in multiple directions at once, is there more going on here than meets the (camera’s) eye?

neural

Here’s more from Apple about the A15 Bionic chip in the iPhone 13 Pro:

A faster Neural Engine in A15 Bionic, new ISP, and advancements in computational photography power the all-new camera features on iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. Photographic Styles allows users to bring their personal photo preferences to every image while still benefitting from Apple’s multiframe image processing.

If we are all aspiring toward a Pro iPhone for our Pro digital lives are there trade-offs and lurking benefits that are not as obvious as better photos, videos and more digital eye candy? If we are all destined to be Pro then is Pro destined to be just “normal”?

The evolution from analog to digital to a pre-metaverse life

Work from Home has now been dubbed “Fully Distributed Workforce”, meaning work from anywhere. This is conceivable due to the accelerated transition to an economy where everything is digital, computerized and removed from atoms (other than robot assisted tasks like building Teslas, etc).

Less than total, but more and more pervasive, the lives we lead are not enhanced by our cyborg extensions (previously known as “smart phones”) but rather the life itself takes place in this soon to be enhanced alternate reality.

The new 6-core CPU with two new high-performance cores and four new high-efficiency cores, is up to 50 percent faster than the competition and handles demanding tasks smoothly and efficiently. A new 16-core Neural Engine capable of 15.8 trillion operations per second enables even faster machine learning computations for third-party app experiences, as well as features like Live Text in Camera with iOS 15. And major advancements to the next-generation ISP provide improved noise reduction and tone mapping.

Long before a video-game-like AR and VR metaverse emerges, we are already experiencing a large part of our waking hours, both for work and “leisure” through the portal of our devices and the internet.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/iphone-13-pro-cinematic-mode/large_2x.mp4

In many ways, this is so obvious as to need no mention, and yet, what is a Pro life in this digital universe worth compared to a “non-Pro” version of the same life?

The new Apple silicon hardware / software and all eco-system transition – already long underway and projected to converge into an early stage Kurzweilian Singularity of Apple in around 2024, is what will determine the nature of existence for the rest of the decade.

With software, hardware, and now AI and machine learning, all having a continuous and presumably infinite upgrade cycle, isn’t that like a kind of eternal life, at least for our digital selves, if not for our biological baggage?

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/iphone-13-pro-promotion/large_2x.mp4

Enter the iPhone 13 Pro; suddenly the experiences we wear as we take part in the fully distributed workforce sparkle and dazzle and become more effective and pleasurable to navigate.

The human link in the chain, absorbing, adapting, learning, digesting all these upgrades and improvements and how they change our work and play is a game of catch-up that will never end.

At this moment, the new “memories” feature in photos, combined with the new cameras in the iPhone 13 Pro Max are going to change how I view my immediate past (as reflected in the “memories” created by AI and machine learning forays into my ever growing photo library).

And that will make my ancient iPhone 5 photos seem as antiquated as a polaroid from 1984. And how will the current, insanely crisp, macos lensed food snaps look next to my “only great” iPhone 12 Pro portrait mode plates?

Not that these are weighty problems or even musings, but when your world is in the pre-metaverse of the Apple ecosystem in 2021, these thoughts do arise.

Are we all heading to a life where everything is Pro?

While, on the one hand, the goal of eternally enhanced digital communication is a very useful and important one, a possibly essential upgrade to our species just in time to prevent a climate apocalypse, on the other hand, how will the fully distributed workforce look once we are all Pro.

The transition from brink & mortar, skin, sinew and gray matter to a digitally enhanced cyborg communication center in our pocket is at a very early stage, to be sure.

At the same time things, including the relentless Apple upgrade cycle are going very, very fast, indeed.

If we are all destined to measure our contributions to work and society based on enlarged, enhanced communication capabilities, that enhancement will include what was once called “multi-media”. Hi resolution photos and videos, video calls with portrait mode, hell, feature films we shoot on the weekend, all the bells and whistles that once seems like a “hobby” for pleasure and in a rare case profit, all will now be central to our very existence.

Starting now, we are all Pro. The brightest and best will be more, they will be Oh. So. Pro.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/photographic-styles-iphone-13-pro/large_2x.mp4

Apple @ Lynxotic:

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Crypto, Elon Musk, Twitter

Bitcoin’s Origins get Well-timed Mention in Elon Musk Tweet

The ‘why’ of Bitcoin is back in the news

Bitcoin’s history and origination is an important factor for more than just true believers and maximalists. Created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and with evidence that it was intended, by its founder, known only as Satoshi Nakamoto, as remedy for the failed system that had nearly collapsed the world economic system at that time.

In a recent CoinDesk post, Nathan Thompson wrote: Bitcoin’s genesis block is historic, not just because it contained the first 50 bitcoins, but because it had a message coded in the hash code: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

The bank bailouts and various financial system failures were integral, then, in the creation and purpose of bitcoin, and one could even say, coins and systems that followed, starting with Ethereum in 2015.

After a few weeks of tweets revolving around the Twitter buyout brouhaha, Elon Musk, in a reply, added, in a more introspective tone than has been seen of late, some of his thoughts on the subject;

Interesting timing and a nice shift from the obsession with prices

The recent “crash” and panicked voices over the drop of the bitcoin price below $30k is the unspoken background addressed in this exchange, it appears.

Decrying the erroneous belief that “prices only go up” held by the public at large during the doomed run up to the 2008-2009 crisis could be seen as a hint that, perhaps, prices of assets like Bitcoin, and Tesla shares, for that matter, can not “only go up” and anyone who seeks such a preposterous nirvana is digging their own graves, having failed to learn from all the times in history that fools took the path of peak greed and self-delusion.

Worse, and worth being singled out specifically, are those that profited from the delusion of others in “predatory lending” practices, which Elon Musk “doesn’t support”.

Ultimately for this tweet thread, it was Elon Musk’s Twitter buddy @BillyM2k that nailed it with a series of tweets explicitly spelling out the divergence between the founders and believers in the original, positive, intent of bitcoin and the massive bubble of speculators and scammers that has, in his view unfortunately, grown up around it.

The Best Books on Cryptocurrency

Pointing out that DogeCoin, as an example, was created to highlight the stupidity of speculation and excess greed that came with the avalanche of meme-coins and “shitcoins” etc, that flooded the market and, to a great degree, obscured the original, positive force that bitcoin and decentralized finance was invented to be.

https://twitter.com/BillyM2k/status/1525274042592202752?s=20&t=yenGWhR_EZDBYDoUwOhnZg

Maybe, some of the various challenges and stumbles that Elon Musk is experiencing lately, seemingly for the first time, after a string of incredible triumphs, culminating with the Person of the Year designation and the buyout launch that is now in limbo, will inspire him to be more reflective and use his powerful position as a “Twitter-sage” to draw more attention to the need for a voice of “reason”, rather than as a cheerleader for the bonfires of vanity and speculation.

https://twitter.com/BillyM2k/status/1525277905319628801?s=20&t=yenGWhR_EZDBYDoUwOhnZg

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News, Tech, web3

Curious Kids: what are NFTs – and why are they so expensive?

What is the purpose of making NFTs and what makes some of them so costly? – Tanvi, aged 16, Delhi, India

An NFT is a technology that proves who the owner of a digital object is. This digital object could be a song, a picture, a video, a tweet – or even a piece of digital land in an online game or virtual world. Recently, pieces of digital land in a forthcoming virtual world called Otherside sold for nearly US$6,000 (£4,791) each. What’s more, people were so keen to buy them that they also paid thousands of dollars in transaction fees.

NFT stands for non-fungible token. If something is non-fungible, this means that it cannot be replaced or exchanged for something of identical value. An example of something fungible is a current coin, such as a one pound coin, because this can be exchanged for another pound coin. It doesn’t matter which of the coins you have – you still have £1.

Something like a painting, though, is non-fungible. That particular painting only exists once. If you bought a painting, you could take that painting and hang it up in your bedroom. It would be yours – no one else would own that exact painting.

Owning something is more tricky for digital objects, because they can be copied. For instance, if you find a picture online that you like, you can right-click it, save it in your computer, and use it as a background if you want. This is where NFTs come in.

If you bought an NFT of a digital painting from the person who made it, a record of your purchase is kept in the blockchain. The blockchain is a giant database maintained by many people in their computers, and it is almost impossible to alter. Once the blockchain keeps a record of a transaction, it’s there forever. Everyone can see that you bought the NFT – and it proves that you are the only owner of the digital painting.

High values

Some digital objects have been bought for large sums of money. For instance, in 2021, the first tweet ever sent was sold for almost US$3 million. But why would someone pay so much money for an NFT?

First of all, most NFTs actually have a low price. We just only get to hear about them whenever there has been a record sale. It is the same with physical art. We hear about it when someone paid millions for a painting by a famous artist like Picasso, and never about all the paintings sold for much less.

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Like physical things, the value of digital art or other digital objects depends on how much someone is willing to pay for it – and that can come down to a lot of factors.

The person buying it might think it is very beautiful or important, and so is happy to pay a lot of money for it. The person who bought the first tweet, businessman Sina Estavi, wrote about it on Twitter, saying, “This is not just a tweet! I think years later people will realise the true value of this tweet, like the Mona Lisa painting”.

The Mona Lisa, a painting by the Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, is one of the most famous pieces of art in the world. It hangs in the Louvre gallery in Paris, and millions of people go to see it each year.

As well as the fact that the first tweet is unique and historical, buying it is also a matter of status. Only one person in the world can say that they own the first tweet ever sent.

In a bubble

Another reason NFTs might be so expensive is because of something economists call a bubble. We say that there is a bubble in a market when investors buy things with the main prospect of selling them shortly afterwards at a higher price. This pushes the price up.

Bubbles tend to occur whenever new technology appears. Plenty of investors come with their money after hearing about the astronomical price of a new technology, or about celebrities buying them. They buy them without fully understanding them, just attracted by the money they might be able to make by selling them on. Some people think this is what is happening with NFTs.

This is not to say that NFTs have no value: it is to say that some of the people buying them are doing so solely to obtain a profit, not because they are interested in owning an image.

Another reason NFTs might be so expensive is because of the potential they have to link with the metaverse. The metaverse is a virtual universe in which people would be represented by avatars and own digital space, like the digital land sold in the Otherside virtual world.

In the future, NFTs could be displayed in this digital space, in the same way we might hang a painting up in a physical house. It will probably also be possible to convert some of them into unique avatars that the owner can use to interact in that world. Since Otherside is owned by the same company that created a famous collection called the Bored Ape Yacht Club, maybe there will be a way in future for avatar versions of these apes and other NFTs to move around in the Otherwise metaverse.

Francesc Rodriguez-Tous, Lecturer in Banking, City, University of London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Elon Musk, Twitter

Elon Musk’s Latest Tweet Says it All, or Does it?

Perhaps in a moment of incoherence, this three-tweet set was launched. It is just plain goofy (unless he is buttering up “the right” for after mid-terms…?)

In what looks like some kind of twisted attempt at being diplomatic, Elon Musk’s latest tweet manages to clarify his stance regarding “free-speech“ about as much as a mud bath clarifies a cupcake.

Leading off with a bizarre attack on what he Calls “the far left “, he explains that it is his contention that they “hate everyone including themselves”.

Standing alone this is already a bizarre statement, which seems like a far right talking point, typical of the Joe Rogan school of anti-cancel culture and anti-so-called “woke-mob”.

He follows this up with a disclaimer of sorts, as bland as it can be stating that he is “no fan” of the far right, either.

One would have to be forgiven if they thought that this implied, in its very wording, an actual bias toward the far right which is what many already believe.

Ending his three-tweet soufflé on the flat “Let’s have less hate and more love” the responses, not surprisingly, were a very loving mix of WTF and ????

To be fair, there were also lots like this:

And this:

But, the way his tweets were so oddly posted, there was definitely a sense among “lefties” that he was biased. And it didn’t take a genius, but merely @cjwalker21, to retort:

It actually seems odd, that Elon Musk would wade (or dive head first) into a “left vs. right” argument that has no hope of any kind of resolution. And pretending that the disagreements are equal on some level and love can just be ratcheted up as if it was cheap rocket fuel, seems odd…

Then, in what’s gotta qualify as “far left’ in Elon’s book, this gem:

https://twitter.com/Grizzy_333/status/1520210804330704897?s=20&t=4N4AdzxcqVPa3BiO9XkCjg

Honestly, if you just look at the numbers, maybe you don’t see taxes as the answer, but considering the company Elon is in (Zuckerberg and Bezos?) there’s clearly something wrong with this picture?

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Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics, Tech

‘Declaration for the Future of the Internet’ Launched to Promote Open Web for All

The United States, the European Union, and dozens of other countries on Thursday launched a global Declaration for the Future of the Internet vowing online protection of human rights, respect for net neutrality, and no government-imposed shutdowns that was applauded by progressive advocates for a more open and democratic web.

“If acted upon,” the declaration “would ensure that people everywhere can connect, communicate, organize, and create new and amazing things that will benefit the entire world—not entrench the power of unaccountable billionaires and oligarchs.”

“Today, for the first time, like-minded countries from all over the world are setting out a shared vision for the future of the internet, to make sure that the values we hold true offline are also protected online, to make the internet a safe place and trusted space for everyone, and to ensure that the internet serves our individual freedom,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.

“Because the future of the internet,” she said, “is also the future of democracy, of humankind.”

The unveiling of the three-page document came months after President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy at which his administration was reportedly mulling the launch of an Alliance for the Future of the internet. It also comes amid swelling scrutiny over the power of big tech corporations and continued attacks to online access imposed by authoritarian regimes.

The nonbinding declaration references a rise in “the spread of disinformation and cybercrimes,” user privacy concerns as vast troves of personal data is collected online, and platforms that “have enabled an increase in the spread of illegal or harmful content.”

It further promotes the internet operating “as a single, decentralized network of networks—with global reach and governed through the multistakeholder approach, whereby governments and relevant authorities partner with academics, civil society, the private sector, technical community and others.”

Signed by over 55 nations—including all the E.U. member states, the U.K, and Ukraine—the document states in part:

We affirm our commitment to promote and sustain an internet that: is open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure and to ensure that the internet reinforces democratic principles and human rights and fundamental freedoms; offers opportunities for collaborative research and commerce; is developed, governed, and deployed in an inclusive way so that unserved and underserved communities, particularly those coming online for the first time, can navigate it safely and with personal data privacy and protections in place; and is governed by multistakeholder processes. In short, an internet that can deliver on the promise of connecting humankind and helping societies and democracies to thrive.

The declaration won plaudits from U.S.-based digital rights group Free Press, whose co-CEO Craig Aaron said it “points to a vision of the internet that puts people first” and that, “if acted upon… would ensure that people everywhere can connect, communicate, organize, and create new and amazing things that will benefit the entire world—not entrench the power of unaccountable billionaires and oligarchs.”

“We’re encouraged by the declaration’s strong statements of support for net neutrality, affordable and inclusive internet access, and data-privacy protections, and its decisive stance against the spread of hate and disinformation,” he added.

Aaron called on the U.S. to “take the necessary steps to live up to these ideals—protecting the free flow of information online, safeguarding our privacy, ending unlawful surveillance, and making broadband affordable and available to everyone.”

The Center for Democracy & Technology also welcomed the declaration, describing it in a Twitter thread as “an important commitment by nations around the world to uphold human rights online and off, advance democratic ideals, and promote an open Internet.”

While it “hit on the right priorities” including protection of personal data privacy and a commitment to a multistakeholder internet governance process, the group called on each signatory to “review their own laws and policies against admirable standards articulated in the Declaration.”

“For the Declaration to have any persuasive power,” said the group, “the U.S. and other nations need to get their own houses in order.”

Jennifer Brody, U.S. advocacy manager at Access Now, also greeted the document with a tepid welcome.

“Of course we support calls in the declaration, like refraining from shutting down the internet and reinvigorating an inclusive approach to internet governance, but we have seen so many global principles and statements come and go without meaningful progress,” she said. “The burden is on the Biden administration and allies to do more than talk the talk.”

Originally published on Common Dreams and republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Elon Musk, Twitter

Everybody either Hates or Loves that Elon Musk bought Twitter: Everybody’s Wrong

Even for Twitter the reaction is bizarre to the extreme

Wow. The big news came, simple and straightforward, on Monday afternoon. Eastern time. From the official press release: “Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction”

What came next was a tsunami of extreme emotions – mostly negative by casual observation. The happiest seemed to be MAGA dreamers that somehow think that Elon Musk will be all about enabling Trump and his minions to get back into social media shenanigans, a.k.a. “free speech’. Which is, to put it mildly, doubtful.

To get the color of this intense reaction here are just a few example headlines:

Oddly, the most ferocious detractors of this deal are the “left” and those that are also believing the nonsense that somehow this is a big win for the right and for Trump (huh?) and therefore – the friend of my enemy is my enemy, or some such thing.

‘A Real Threat to Democracy’

We All Know Elon Musk Is Buying Twitter To Help Him Get Away With Stock Fraud, Right?

“Why the oligarch Elon Musk is a threat to independent media’

and so on

Then the oddly stilted semi-jubilation from the right:

https://twitter.com/crimsonjester/status/1518787555835056129?s=20&t=LX-W1cn7nl8vtM6CQdzixg

Naturally, Trump says he would not tweet again even if invited since he has his own useless and failed app. This is the basic problem of 90% of the reactions – the more extreme they are the more ridiculous the assumptions as to what Elon Musk will actually do.

Bots, often controlled by foreign actors, were the issue in 2020, not the tweets by actual people

If you were on twitter in 2020 during the run-up to the election, or in 2016 for that matter, the biggest issue was not the real tweets from Trump and others of his ilk, no matter how stupid and deranged those tweets were.

It was, instead, the thousands of fake accounts amplifying the “message” and creating a wall of lies and disinformation. Those bots would attack any anti-Trump or Pro-Biden (or Pro-Hillary) tweets and applaud all pro-Trump messages with likes, re-tweets etc. And they still exist to today.

They were ridiculously obvious as fake, for anyone who bothered to check, but the massive number and the fact they they were allowed to run-rampant made this stupid, primitive method of perverting actual free speech and behavior bizarrely successful.

This is just one small point. The idea that Elon Musk bought Twitter so that he can re-instate Trump and his bot-army goes against literally everything that is known about him as well as what he has actually said.

Of course anyone can say that Musk is not sincere, etc. But stating unequivocally that he will defeat the bots is a step in the right direction. Bots and fake accounts are epidemic in all social media and are likely tolerated for nefarious reasons – the least negative of which would be that it’s too expensive to care.

The fact that he would make mention of the “shadow ban council” also shows an awareness of the problems associated with algorithms that have agendas that punish and shadow ban at the whim of those in charge as being important- < it is > – that’s a huge plus, at least in terms of transparency or dialog about actual problems that exist.

And let’s not forget that Elon Musk is not beholden to a specific political party (everyone accuses him of being on the other side or of being a libertarian, and that maybe a good fit for some of his expressed views, but he has not specifically aligned himself with a particular party).

What this all boils down to – as alluded to in the title, is that there’s a strong sense that nearly all these opinions and much of the outrage is dead wrong about what will actually happen.

Can Elon Musk ‘Fix’ Twitter?

It would be equally insane, however, to assume that anyone, even the world’s richest person, can just buy Twitter, or any other huge tech platform (Web2 platform) and then fix all the problems.

Can anyone even agree on what Twitter is or what it should be? And so many of the problems that twitter has are baked-in to the whole huge-Web2-platform-defacto-monopoly thing that makes life online so frustrating and, at times, hopeless.

But what a private company, run by a “brash” gazillionaire is, at least, is something different. Well, sort of. That’s where it comes down to a probably crazy experiment in just how much worse can it get… Zuckerberg, Bezos, the Google Twins? Tough acts to follow?

Some have pointed out that Elon Musk will have even more power and control over Twitter than, for example, Zuckerberg has over FaceBook-er-Meta. And that is, for some, a scary and infuriating concept. On the other hand, what if more control, in the hands of someone who at least appears to have a sincere desire to see Twitter succeed as a “Town Square” and communication tool for humanity is actually what it takes to get things on the road to betterville…?

It’s hard to give a guy with $350 billion the benefit of the doubt, I get it

In other words, instead of seeing Twitter as a battleground between left and right, where one or the other should “win”, there is at least the possibility that Elon Musk sees it as much more than that.

That he sees it a bit closer to what it was created to be – a tool for people to communicate is a novel way.

Call it micro-blogging or shit-posting or memeifycation of life or what you will, the idea is, that if it were possible to create a tool that did indeed allow and even encourage actual online free speech is one that could at least be an experiment worth trying.

Is ‘this guy’ the right person to do it? Maybe not. Is a public company, with the explicit primary goal of enriching shareholders a better way? Not so far in any known example.

In fact this seems to be the ‘secret’ that is hiding in plain sight, that an altruistic goal by a super-rich private individual who decides to take over a social media company, to try to do something never done before – might actually be exactly what it takes to begin a new way for people to communicate online.

And, regardless of how skeptical we may be of that idea, the fact is that extreme change is urgently needed – leads to the reality that anything new and different should at least be tolerated and tried before it is condemned and attacked.

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Elon Musk, Twitter

Elon Musk owns Twitter after $44 Billion: What’s Next?

Video

Freedom of Speech is declared driving force for Takeover

Twitter Inc. announced that it has agreed to be acquired by an entity that is wholly owned by Elon Musk. The news comes after it was widely leaked that negotiations were underway over the weekend and that a deal was imminent.

Going forward the company will be privately held and current stockholders will be compensated at $54.20 for each share of common stock that they own as of completion of the deal. This represents a 38% premium over the closing price on April 1st when Musk’s 9% stake was announced.

The board voted unanimously to the proposal and, though subject to the approval of Twitter’s shareholders, and applicable regulatory approvals the agreement is expected to go through in 2022.

What will follow is unknown, but speculation is rampant

Since the announcement on April 1st that Elon Musk had purchased approximately 9% of Twitter and this Saga began, there has been a busier than usual frenzy of speculation regarding the possibility that has now come to pass.

On the most superficial level, there was an odd kind of measured jubilation on the political Right, with speculation that Musk might re-instate Trump and others who have been permanently banned (although Trump himself indicated that he would decline if invited back) and a sense of horror on the Left – with an implied mistrust of the world’s richest human, connecting this situation to ongoing debates over wealth taxes and economic inequality overall.

On a deeper track are those closer to the situation – such as Jack Dorsey, who expressed support and openly criticized the current board and public structure in elucidating tweets, such as the one below.

Looking back at some of the harmony and love shared over bitcoin and other major topics an alliance, or at least a consulting status for @Jack could be amazing in terms of what could come of this – a private Twitter with Musk at the helm, in terms of a new direction for social media and all online business and how they evolve going forward.

While it may seem presumptuous to think it won’t be a disaster, there are deeper issues that would indicate that a lot more thought might have gone into this than a superficial look reveals.

Elon Musk has proved, and explained to anyone that will listen, that his motives and goals for any business endeavor are in a new category of entrepreneur, and his success, often against incredible odds, are a testament to the power of this mindset.

With Tesla, he took on nothing less than the most powerful, entrenched (and arguably corrupt) special interest group in history, the fossil fuel industry, and somehow, due perhaps as much to timing as to any particular strategy or plan, prevailed.

That this takeover could mark the beginning of real change in “Web2” and social media, regarding of the risk of a private individual excepting near absolute control, it is a welcome change, based on the reality that the status quo, at Twitter and basically all the so-called internet giants could not be any worse.

Let’s hope that the public and very visible lead up to this deal will be followed in the near future by a continuation of that openness and that changes and plans will be announced as they happen, which would be entertaining at the least, and exhilarating at best.

There’s a lot more to unpack in this, not just in the reactions and opinions that will surely flood now that the next step is upon us. but in a fruitful and valuable deeper look into the real motivations and potential of this new deal.

For that, please stay tuned, and for now, please let me know what you think about Twitter’s decision and new owner.

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Climate Solutions, Earth Day, Social Media

Social Media Giants’ Climate Misinformation Policies Leave Users ‘In the Dark’: Report

“Despite half of U.S. and U.K. adults getting their news from social media, social media companies have not taken the steps necessary to fight industry-backed deception,” reads the report.

Weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified disinformation as a key driver of the planetary crisis, three advocacy groups published a report Wednesday ranking social media companies on their efforts to ensure users can get accurate data about the climate on their platforms—and found that major companies like Twitter and Facebook are failing to combat misinformation.

The report, titled In the Dark: How Social Media Companies’ Climate Disinformation Problem is Hidden from the Public and released by Friends of the Earth (FOE), Greenpeace, and online activist network Avaaz, detailed whether the companies have met 27 different benchmarks to stop the spread of anti-science misinformation and ensure transparency about how inaccurate data is analyzed.

“Despite half of U.S. and U.K. adults getting their news from social media, social media companies have not taken the steps necessary to fight industry-backed deception,” reads the report. “In fact, they continue to allow these climate lies to pollute users’ feeds.

The groups assessed five major social media platforms—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and TikTok—and found that the two best-performing companies, Pinterest and YouTube, scored 14 out of the 27 possible points.

As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Pinterest has won praise from groups including FOE for establishing “clearly defined guidelines against false or misleading climate change information, including conspiracy theories, across content and ads.”

“One of the key objectives of this report is to allow for fact-based deliberation, discussion, and debate to flourish in an information ecosystem that is healthy and fair, and that allows both citizens and policymakers to make decisions based on the best available data.”

The company also garnered points in Wednesday’s report for being the only major social media platform to make clear the average time or views it allows for a piece of scientifically inaccurate content before it will take action to combat the misinformation and including “omission or cherry-picking” of data in its definition of mis- or disinformation.

Pinterest and YouTube were the only companies that won points for consulting with climate scientists to develop a climate mis- and disinformation policy.

The top-performing companies, however, joined the other firms in failing to articulate exactly how their misinformation policy is enforced and to detail how climate misinformation is prioritized for fact-checking.

“Social media companies are largely leaving the public in the dark about their efforts to combat the problem,” the report reads. “There is a gross lack of transparency, as these companies conceal much of the data about the prevalence of digital climate dis/misinformation and any internal measures taken to address its spread.”

Twitter was the worst-performing company, meeting only five of the 27 criteria.

“Twitter is not clear about how content is verified as dis/misinformation, nor explicit about engaging with climate experts to review dis/misinformation policies or flagged content,” reads the report. “Twitter’s total lack of reference to climate dis/misinformation, both in their policies and throughout their enforcement reports, earned them no points in either category.”

TikTok scored seven points, while Facebook garnered nine.

The report, using criteria developed by the Climate Disinformation Coalition, was released three weeks after NPR reported that inaccurate information about renewable energy sources has been disseminated widely in Facebook groups, and the spread has been linked to slowing progress on or shutting down local projects.

In rural Ohio, posts in two anti-wind power Facebook groups spread misinformation about wind turbines causing birth defects in horses, failing to reduce carbon emissions, and causing so-called “wind turbine syndrome” from low-frequency sounds—a supposed ailment that is not backed by scientific evidence. The posts increased “perceptions of human health and public safety risks related to wind” power, according to a study published last October in the journal Energy Research & Social Science.

As those false perceptions spread through the local community, NPRreported, the Ohio Power Siting Board rejected a wind farm proposal “citing geological concerns and the local opposition.”

Misinformation on social media “can really slow down the clean energy transition, and that has just as dire life and death consequences, not just in terms of climate change, but also in terms of air pollution, which overwhelmingly hits communities of color,” University of California, Santa Barbara professor Leah Stokes told NPR.

As the IPCC reported in its February report, “rhetoric and misinformation on climate change and the deliberate undermining of science have contributed to misperceptions of the scientific consensus, uncertainty, disregarded risk and urgency, and dissent.”

Wednesday’s report called on all social media companies to:

  • Establish, disclose, and enforce policies to reduce climate change dis- and misinformation;
  • Release in full the company’s current labeling, fact-checking, policy review, and algorithmic ranking systems related to climate change disinformation policies;
  • Disclose weekly reports on the scale and prevalence of climate change dis- and misinformation on the platform and mitigation efforts taken internally; and
  • Adopt privacy and data protection policies to protect individuals and communities who may be climate dis/misinformation targets.

“One of the key objectives of this report is to allow for fact-based deliberation, discussion, and debate to flourish in an information ecosystem that is healthy and fair, and that allows both citizens and policymakers to make decisions based on the best available data,” reads the report.

“We see a clear boundary between freedom of speech and freedom of reach,” it continues, “and believe that transparency on climate dis/misinformation and accountability for the actors who spread it is a precondition for a robust and constructive debate on climate change and the response to the climate crisis.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by JULIA CONLEY  and republished

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Business, Elon Musk

Do poison pills work? A finance expert explains the anti-takeover tool that Twitter hopes will keep Elon Musk at bay

Poison pills usually work, but Elon Musk appears undeterred. screenshot from china launch video

Tuugi Chuluun, Loyola University Maryland

Takeovers are usually friendly affairs. Corporate executives engage in top-secret talks, with one company or group of investors making a bid for another business. After some negotiating, the companies engaged in the merger or acquisition announce a deal has been struck.

But other takeovers are more hostile in nature. Not every company wants to be taken over. This is the case with Elon Musk’s US$43 billion bid to buy Twitter.

Companies have various measures in their arsenal to ward off such unwanted advances. One of the most effective anti-takeover measures is the shareholder rights plan, also more aptly known as a “poison pill.” It is designed to block an investor from accumulating a majority stake in a company.

Twitter adopted a poison pill plan on April 15, 2022, shortly after Musk unveiled his takeover offer in a Securities and Exchange filing.

I’m a scholar of corporate finance. Let me explain why poison pills have been effective at warding off unsolicited offers, at least until now.

What’s a poison pill?

Poison pills were developed in the early 1980s as a defense tactic against corporate raiders to effectively poison their takeover efforts – sort of reminiscent of the suicide pills that spies supposedly swallow if captured.

There are many variants of poison pills, but they generally increase the number of shares, which then dilutes the bidder’s stake and causes them a significant financial loss.

Let’s say a company has 1,000 shares outstanding valued at $10 each, which means the company has a market value of $10,000. An activist investor purchases 100 shares at the cost of $1,000 and accumulates a significant 10% stake in the company. But if the company has a poison pill that is triggered once any hostile bidder owns 10% of its stock, all other shareholders would suddenly have the opportunity to buy additional shares at a discounted price – say, half the market price. This has the effect of quickly diluting the activist investor’s original stake and also making it worth a lot less than it was before.

Twitter adopted a similar measure. If any shareholder accumulates a 15% stake in the company in a purchase not approved by the board of directors, other shareholders would get the right to buy additional shares at a discount, diluting the 9.2% stake Musk recently purchased.

Poison pills are useful in part because they can be adopted quickly, but they usually have expiration dates. The poison pill adopted by Twitter, for example, expires in one year.

A successful tactic

Many well-known companies such as Papa John’s, Netflix, JCPenney and Avis Budget Group have used poison pills to successfully fend off hostile takeovers. And nearly 100 companies adopted poison pills in 2020 because they were worried that their careening stock prices, caused by the pandemic market swoon, would make them vulnerable to hostile takeovers.

No one has ever triggered – or swallowed – a poison pill that was designed to fend off an unsolicited takeover offer, showing how effective such measures are at fending off takeover attempts.

These types of anti-takeover measures are generally frowned upon as a poor corporate governance practice that can hurt a company’s value and performance. They can be seen as impediments to the ability of shareholders and outsiders to monitor management, and more about protecting the board and management than attracting more generous offers from potential buyers.

However, shareholders may benefit from poison pills if they lead to a higher bid for the company, for example. This may be already happening with Twitter as another bidder – a $103 billion private equity firm – may have surfaced.

A poison pill isn’t foolproof, however. A bidder facing a poison pill could try to argue that the board is not acting in the best interests of shareholders and appeal directly to them through either a tender offer – buying shares directly from other shareholders at a premium in a public bid – or a proxy contest, which involves convincing enough fellow shareholders to join a vote to oust some or all of the existing board.

And judging by his tweets to his 82 million Twitter followers, that seems to be what Musk is doing.

[Like what you’ve read? Want more? Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter.]

Tuugi Chuluun, Associate Professor of Finance, Loyola University Maryland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Food and Cooking, Lifestyle, TikTok

Spokane-Style Pizza is Either Lit, or Just Plain Weird; You Decide

Video

I don’t know if this is legitimate or some kind of food prank or food “trend”, however, a TikTok video has been getting some major attention surrounding the mysterious “pizza” dish supposedly from Spokane. 

The ingredients are not anything that I would ever think to put on my pizza. The following ingredients are purportedly piled atop the pizza dough: fry sauce, canned salmon, green bell peppers, onions and fresh strawberries. 

Real or a monumental spoof, it’s hard to say, check the evidence below

This is almost 100% not a real thing but you can certainly check out the original video below to see for yourself. 

@mythicalkitchen

Now here’s a pizza style you probably never ever heard about. #fyp #foryou #pizza #spokanestylepizza #food

♬ original sound – Mythical Kitchen

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Apps, Business, Crypto, Tech

New Block Cash App Feature called ‘Paid in Bitcoin’ announced at Miami Bitcoin 2022

During the 2022 Bitcoin conference in Miami the mobile payment service Cash App (developed by Block, Inc.) announced they would allow its customers to receive their paycheck earnings in bitcoin.  The feature is called “Paid in Bitcoin”.

‘Paid in Bitcoin’ would allow customers with Cash Cards to customize an amount, a percentage (1% to 100%) of their direct deposits which would then automatically be invested into the cryptocurrency, effective starting April 7. Cash App integrated with Lightning Network, the decentralized blockchain payment portal in January with plans to further expand to make it even easier for customers to make instant bitcoin transfer via QR codes.

Jack Dorsey, founder of Block (formerly named Square) and a Bitcoin Maximalist spoke at the 2021 conference and said he was committed to making the crypto “the native currency for the internet”. 

In addition to the Cash App feature that will convert your paycheck to bitcoin, the company has more features they plan to roll out in the following weeks including ‘Round Ups’.  Round Ups would enable customers to automatically invest in either bitcoin, stocks or exchange traded funds with the change (rounded to the nearest dollar) from a debit transaction. 

These new roll outs also come on the heels of a major data breach, where more than 8 million Cash App customers may have had their personal information compromised, possibly as a result of a former employee that downloaded internal reports without permission.

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Apps, Elon Musk, Social Media, Twitter

New Elon Musk tweets Confirm he will not be a Silent Stakeholder: Board Seat Declined

In another weekend explosion, this time, revealing the hands on bent of ideas for TWX project

Once again the weekend is seeing a barrage of tweets from Elon Musk, this time with a solid bulls-eye on Twitter itself and changes he has on his wishlist. Implementation schedule appears to be, well, immediate.

https://bookshop.org/a/565/9780553418835

The first tweet we are featuring was a preview of just how much of an activist shareholder he is planning to be.

Looking forward to the first board meeting he will attend since his $2.9 billion 9.2% stake in the bird platform – Musk reposted a meme of his infamous “Ganja weed” interview – essentially creating an instant meme of memes:

**note – on Sunday night (April 10th, 2022) it was revealed that Elon Musk joining the board would not be a thing, after all. Most likely reason sited in the avalanche of reactions? A board seat would have capped the maximum investment / stake percentage at 14.9% and brought potentail legal issues. As the largest shareholder the door remains open to his acquiring the company outright, and continuing the activist direction clearly indicated in the tweets below…

Next, the constructive criticism started, first taking note (perhaps already up his sleeve as he contemplated shelling out 3 bil of pocket change) of how many of the accounts with the most followers post “very little content”. Summing up his thoughts with the question “Is Twitter dying?”

Next, in replies to himself he got granular, citing two very specific examples, how @taylorswift13 and @justinbieber are remiss when it comes to staying active and tweeting on a regular basis…

Apparently, the day was just beginning to get interesting, cause he posted a Yogi Berra-like conundrum next, pointing out that statistics, including this very one, presumably, are very often false. Posted at 1:14 PM he may have had a siesta and found himself ready to rumble cause with the next tweet at 5:03 PM things started to cook…

He dug into his infographic trove of insights and pulled out this re-tweeted gem, showing how the Weather Channel is distrusted by nearly 50% of Republicans and about 35% percent of Democrats.

This tweet is an interesting one as there has been a lot of hand wringing and dire predictions made in the “media” that Elon Musk, known as having a Libertarian prediliction, will somehow be Trump’s savior and that his idea of “free speech” is similar to those that are somewhere to the Right of Q-anon.

This, I would venture, is highly unlikely. It’s far more likely that his idea of free speech might actually be closer to, well what it sounds like, less censorship. Oddly both the left and the right are anticipating disappointment, and perhaps, that is one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for things.

The tweets of April 9th, seem to bear out the idea that he will be active, vocal and, above all, amusing, but unlikely to follow any faction or party.

Next came more specific and sort of practical tweets, like this one suggesting twitter “sell” the authentication checkmark as part of the Twitter Blue $3 subscription package. This, bizarrely, is a great business concept, and might actually happen, crazy as it sounds.

After reflecting briefly on the idea, it became clear that the invention of a new plebian version of the coveted mark is needed, lest it be confused with the rare and hard to acquire “public figure” or “official” accounts.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512957577092608004?s=21&t=p5FTMofYfTHgM4X5Gm2n8Q

A quick followup tweet with self replies included the observation that the edit tweet feature that has had much action this week is already a done deal in the future paid Twitter landscape.

Then, as if out of the blue like a bolt of lightening Elon decides that there should be no ads! Ok, so this does make sense in a genius billionaire kind-of-way here’s the new breakdown:

  1. Everybody pays $3 per moth
  2. Advertising is cancelled
  3. We all get checkmarks and an edit tweet feature
  4. Corporations stop “dictating policy”
  5. Twitter SF HQ is converted into a homeless shelter (unhoused refuge)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512962115270754306?s=21&t=p5FTMofYfTHgM4X5Gm2n8Q

Good idea?:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512966135423066116?s=21&t=p5FTMofYfTHgM4X5Gm2n8Q

Then, in a semi-final, inspired burst of sunshine, there’s a great suggestion – actually a tweet from earlier in the am – 7:39 to be exact but pinned for now, the man who must be heeded points out that “crypto scam accounts” represent a large percentage that should be subtracted from the real accounts. ow if they can just remove the 3 billion fake accounts across all social media…

Apparently not able to quit while ahead, or maybe under the influence of jet lag or substances, this gem dropped:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1513045405029711878?s=21&t=Rw_ry5HVOGgsmXRxJJzSbA

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Apps, News, Tech

More Than 50 U.S. Gig Workers Murdered on the Job in Five Years

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

New report lists Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Grubhub worker victims, and the tally is likely even higher

When the St. Louis police arrived on the scene last April, Lyft driver Elijah Newman was already dead. Officers found him in the driver’s seat of his car with a gunshot wound to his torso. In a probable cause statement provided to The Markup by the Circuit Attorney’s office, detectives say they located a bullet casing next to Newman’s body and a Lyft light affixed to the front dashboard.

“It was like a fist to the gut,” Elizabeth Hylton, Newman’s long-time friend and roommate, said when she heard the news.

Newman, an immigrant from Ghana, was one of more than 50 gig workers murdered while on the job over the past five years in the U.S., according to a new study published by worker advocacy group Gig Workers Rising. 

The study draws data from The Markup’s report on 124 carjackings of ride-hail drivers, as well as news articles, police documents, legal filings, GoFundMe fundraisers, and other online searches. Gig Workers Rising said the study fills the void of any company or government data on the dangers of gig work. The Markup independently verified the incidents listed in the report. 

“These are not one-off incidents,” said Lauren Jacobs, executive director of a coalition of nonprofits that focus on inequality, PowerSwitch Action, which contributed to the report. The companies don’t seem to be concerned enough with worker safety, she added. 

“This is a pattern.”

According to a spreadsheet that Gig Workers Rising provided to The Markup, 22 of the workers were driving for Uber when they were killed, and four were couriers for Uber Eats. Seventeen were working for Lyft, eight for DoorDash, two for Instacart, one for Grubhub, and one for Postmates (which is owned by Uber). The Markup also independently verified the incidents in the spreadsheet, a handful of which the companies said happened after the worker had logged off the app. 

It’s estimated that more than one million people in the U.S. work for one or more of these gig companies. The assaults happened across the country, from Arizona to Kentucky to Pennsylvania, and the majority happened in 2021, with 28 reported homicides. Seven murders tracked by Gig Workers Rising occurred in the first two months of this year alone. 

Some of the workers were accidentally caught in drive-by shootings, others in road rage incidents or botched carjackings and robberies. While cities across the country have seen a rise in carjackings and associated crimes over the last couple of years, these incidents appear to be happening to gig workers at an especially high rate.

“Gig work is becoming increasingly dangerous,” said Bryant Greening, an attorney and co-founder of Chicago-based law firm LegalRideshare, who says he gets calls from gig workers who’ve been carjacked on a weekly basis. “Criminals see rideshare and delivery workers as sitting ducks, susceptible to carjackings, robberies, and assaults.” 

Uber spokesperson Andrew Hasbun said, “Given the scale at which Uber and other platforms like ours operate, we are not immune from society’s challenges, including spikes in crime and violence.” He added that “we continue to invest heavily in new technologies to improve driver safety,” and “each of these incidents is a horrific tragedy that no family should have to endure.” 

Lyft spokesperson Gabriela Condarco-Quesada said, “Since day one, we’ve built safety into every part of the Lyft experience. We are committed to doing everything we can to help protect drivers from crime, and will continue to invest in technology, policies and partnerships to make Lyft as safe as it can be.”

DoorDash spokesperson Julian Crowley, Instacart’s senior director of shopper engagement Natalia Montalvo, and Grubhub spokesperson Jenna DeMarco provided similar comments, saying that the companies take safety seriously and have protocols in place for emergency situations. 

Gig Workers Rising said the tally of more than 50 workers “is not comprehensive and likely excludes many workers.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics and most police departments don’t compile data specifically on gig worker deaths. None of the gig companies The Markup contacted would say how many of their workers have been killed on the job. Uber’s Hasbun and Lyft’s Condarco-Quesada pointed The Markup to company safety reports, both of which had some data on fatal physical assaults for riders and drivers. The most recent data was from Lyft in 2019.

Gig Workers Rising said its spreadsheet includes only reported homicides, not traffic accidents or other causes of death. Most of those killed—63 percent—were people of color, according to the group, which also reported that several families say they received little support from the companies after the incidents. 

Gig workers are treated as independent contractors by the companies, so they’re not given employee benefits like workers’ compensation, full company health insurance, or death benefits. When something goes wrong during rides or deliveries, workers and their families are often the ones shouldering medical costs, car payments, and funeral expenses.

Two drivers told The Markup that after they were carjacked, Uber and Lyft offered to help with some of their expenses only if they agreed to sign nondisclosure agreements.

Uber’s Hasbun didn’t respond to questions about nondisclosure agreements but said that “every situation is unique, we have programs in place to support families, including with insurance.” Similarly, Lyft’s Condarco-Quesada said, “While every situation is unique, our specialized group of trained Safety advocates work with the driver’s family to determine their specific needs and provide meaningful support to them directly.” Crowley, Montalvo, and DeMarco also said DoorDash, Instacart, and Grubhub reach out to support workers’ families in these instances and both DoorDash and Instacart offer injury protection insurance for free to eligible workers.

Along with its report, Gig Workers Rising demanded reforms from the companies, which included workers’ compensation for all drivers and couriers, the end to forced arbitration clauses in contracts so that workers can publicly pursue legal claims in court, and a requirement that the gig companies report worker deaths annually.

“No one when they show up to work should be killed,” Cherri Murphy, a former Lyft driver and organizer with Gig Workers Rising, said in a statement. “The lack of care for these workers is a direct outcome of a business model set up to milk as much as possible for executives.”

Some families have filed wrongful death lawsuits against the companies. Among them are the relatives of Uber driver Cherno Ceesay, a 28-year-old immigrant from Gambia who was allegedly fatally stabbed by two passengers while driving in Issaquah, Wash., and the family of Beaudouin Tchakounte, a 46-year-old Cameroonian immigrant who also drove for Uber and was allegedly shot to death by a passenger in Oxon Hill, Md. 

A federal district court judge in Maryland dismissed Tchakounte’s case in February, but the family is appealing. Ceesay’s case is pending trial in a Washington federal district court later this year.

Uber’s Hasbun didn’t respond to requests for comment on the lawsuits.

Isabella Lewis was 26 years old when she was allegedly killed by a passenger in August 2021 near Dallas, Texas. According to Gig Workers Rising, Lyft hasn’t assisted the family, which started a GoFundMe page to raise money for Lewis’s funeral. Lewis’s sister, Alyssa Lewis, told Gig Workers Rising, “My sister lost her life over a Lyft trip that totaled … 15 dollars.”

Lyft’s Condarco-Quesada didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether the company provided support to Lewis’s family. 

The Markup previously found that many gig drivers who were victims of carjackings were elderly, immigrants, and women. In addition to the 124 carjackings we first compiled, we also found that in Minneapolis alone nearly 50 Uber and Lyft drivers were carjacked during a two-month period from August to October 2021.

Some of the carjackings were random incidents, we found, but the majority of the attacks happened after drivers were paired with their would-be assailants by Uber’s or Lyft’s app—often with the passengers using fake names and fake profile pictures. Neither company requires riders to use a valid ID to sign up for the service, so passengers can be anonymous. The suspect in Elijah Newman’s case reportedly used a false name. Gig Workers Rising said this happened in some of the cases it tracked too. 

Uber’s Hasbun said the company now requires new riders who sign up for the app and use anonymous forms of payment, like a gift card, to provide a valid ID. Lyft also has this requirement in a few U.S. cities. Neither Hasbun nor Lyft’s Condarco-Quesada responded to questions about why the companies don’t require all passengers to upload a valid ID.

“While the companies publicly tout their commitments to safety, workers quickly discover an alternative reality,” said LegalRideshare’s Greening. “Simply stated, gig workers and their families are left to fend for themselves.”

This article was originally published on The Markup By: Dara Kerr and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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D.I.Y., Tech

How QR codes work and what makes them dangerous – a computer scientist explains

QR codes are visual patterns that store data smartphones can read. Photo- Adobe Stock

Scott Ruoti, University of Tennessee

Among the many changes brought about by the pandemic is the widespread use of QR codes, graphical representations of digital data that can be printed and later scanned by a smartphone or other device.

QR codes have a wide range of uses that help people avoid contact with objects and close interactions with other people, including for sharing restaurant menus, email list sign-ups, car and home sales information, and checking in and out of medical and professional appointments.

QR codes are a close cousin of the bar codes on product packaging that cashiers scan with infrared scanners to let the checkout computer know what products are being purchased.

Bar codes store information along one axis, horizontally. QR codes store information in both vertical and horizontal axes, which allows them to hold significantly more data. That extra amount of data is what makes QR codes so versatile.

Anatomy of a QR code

While it is easy for people to read Arabic numerals, it is hard for a computer. Bar codes encode alphanumeric data as a series of black and white lines of various widths. At the store, bar codes record the set of numbers that specify a product’s ID. Critically, data stored in bar codes is redundant. Even if part of the bar code is destroyed or obscured, it is still possible for a device to read the product ID.

QR codes are designed to be scanned using a camera, such as those found on your smartphone. QR code scanning is built into many camera apps for Android and iOS. QR codes are most often used to store web links; however, they can store arbitrary data, such as text or images.

When you scan a QR code, the QR reader in your phone’s camera deciphers the code, and the resulting information triggers an action on your phone. If the QR code holds a URL, your phone will present you with the URL. Tap it, and your phone’s default browser will open the webpage.

QR codes are composed of several parts: data, position markers, quiet zone and optional logos.

The QR code anatomy: data (1), position markers (2), quiet zone (3) and optional logos (4). Scott Ruoti, CC BY-ND

The data in a QR code is a series of dots in a square grid. Each dot represents a one and each blank a zero in binary code, and the patterns encode sets of numbers, letters or both, including URLs. At its smallest this grid is 21 rows by 21 columns, and at its largest it is 177 rows by 177 columns. In most cases, QR codes use black squares on a white background, making the dots easy to distinguish. However, this is not a strict requirement, and QR codes can use any color or shape for the dots and background.

Position markers are squares placed in a QR code’s top-left, top-right, and bottom-left corners. These markers let a smartphone camera or other device orient the QR code when scanning it. QR codes are surrounded by blank space, the quiet zone, to help the computer determine where the QR code begins and ends. QR codes can include an optional logo in the middle.

Like barcodes, QR codes are designed with data redundancy. Even if as much as 30% of the QR code is destroyed or difficult to read, the data can still be recovered. In fact, logos are not actually part of the QR code; they cover up some of the QR code’s data. However, due to the QR code’s redundancy, the data represented by these missing dots can be recovered by looking at the remaining visible dots.

Are QR codes dangerous?

QR codes are not inherently dangerous. They are simply a way to store data. However, just as it can be hazardous to click links in emails, visiting URLs stored in QR codes can also be risky in several ways.

The QR code’s URL can take you to a phishing website that tries to trick you into entering your username or password for another website. The URL could take you to a legitimate website and trick that website into doing something harmful, such as giving an attacker access to your account. While such an attack requires a flaw in the website you are visiting, such vulnerabilities are common on the internet. The URL can take you to a malicious website that tricks another website you are logged into on the same device to take an unauthorized action.

A malicious URL could open an application on your device and cause it to take some action. Maybe you’ve seen this behavior when you clicked a Zoom link, and the Zoom application opened and automatically joined a meeting. While such behavior is ordinarily benign, an attacker could use this to trick some apps into revealing your data.

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It is critical that when you open a link in a QR code, you ensure that the URL is safe and comes from a trusted source. Just because the QR code has a logo you recognize doesn’t mean you should click on the URL it contains.

There is also a slight chance that the app used to scan the QR code could contain a vulnerability that allows malicious QR codes to take over your device. This attack would succeed by just scanning the QR code, even if you don’t click the link stored in it. To avoid this threat, you should use trusted apps provided by the device manufacturer to scan QR codes and avoid downloading custom QR code apps.

Scott Ruoti, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Climate Solutions, Politics, Science, Tesla

Revolutionary changes in transportation, from electric vehicles to ride sharing, could slow global warming – if they’re done right, IPCC says

Electric vehicle sales are growing quickly. Michael Fousert/Unsplash

Alan Jenn, University of California, Davis

Around the world, revolutionary changes are under way in transportation. More electric vehicles are on the road, people are taking advantage of sharing mobility services such as Uber and Lyft, and the rise in telework during the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the way people think about commuting.

Transportation is a growing source of the global greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change, accounting for 23% of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions worldwide in 2019 and 29% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

The systemic changes under way in the transportation sector could begin lowering that emissions footprint. But will they reduce emissions enough?

In a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released April 4, 2022, scientists examined the latest research on efforts to mitigate climate change. The report concludes that falling costs for renewable energy and electric vehicle batteries, in addition to policy changes, have slowed the growth of climate change in the past decade, but that deep, immediate cuts are necessary. Emissions will have to peak by 2025 to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F), a Paris Agreement goal, the report says.

Costs are falling for key forms of renewable energy and EV batteries, and adoption of these technologies is rising. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

The transportation chapter, which I contributed to, homed in on transportation transformations – some just starting and others expanding – that in the most aggressive scenarios could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions from transportation by 80% to 90% of current levels by 2050. That sort of drastic reduction would require a major, rapid rethinking of how people get around globally.

The future of EVs

All-electric vehicles have grown dramatically since the Tesla Roadster and Nissan Leaf arrived on the market a little over a decade ago, following the popularity of hybrids.

In 2021 alone, the sales of electric passenger vehicles, including plug-in hybrids, doubled worldwide to 6.6 million, about 9% of all car sales that year.

Strong regulatory policies have encouraged the production of electric vehicles, including California’s Zero Emission Vehicle regulation, which requires automakers to produce a certain number of zero-emission vehicles based on their total vehicles sold in California; the European Union’s CO2 emissions standards for new vehicles; and China’s New Energy Vehicle policy, all of which have helped push EV adoption to where we are today.

Pickups, Vans and SUVs, which typically have much lower gas mileage than cars, make up the majority of new car sales in the U.S. Electric versions could be game-changers for emissions.

Beyond passenger vehicles, many micro-mobility options – such as autorickshaws, scooters and bikes – as well as buses, have been electrified. As the cost of lithium-ion batteries decreases, these transportation options will become increasingly affordable and further boost sales of battery-powered vehicles that traditionally have run on fossil fuels.

An important aspect to remember about electrifying the transportation system is that its ability to cut greenhouse gas emissions ultimately depends on how clean the electricity grid is. China, for example, is aiming for 20% of its vehicles to be electric by 2025, but its electric grid is still heavily reliant on coal.

With the global trends toward more renewable generation, these vehicles will be connected with fewer carbon emissions over time. There are also many developing and potentially promising co-benefits of electromobility when coupled with the power system. The batteries within electric vehicles have the potential to act as storage devices for the grid, which can assist in stabilizing the intermittency of renewable resources in the power sector, among many other benefits.

Other areas of transportation are more challenging to electrify. Larger and heavier vehicles generally aren’t as conducive to electrification because the size and weight of the batteries needed rapidly becomes untenable.

For some heavy-duty trucks, ships and airplanes, alternative fuels such as hydrogen, advanced biofuels and synthetic fuels are being explored as replacements for fossil fuels. Most aren’t economically feasible yet, and substantial advances in the technology are still needed to ensure they are either low- or zero-carbon.

Other ways to cut emissions from transportation

While new fuel and vehicle technologies are often highlighted as decarbonization solutions, behavioral and other systemic changes will also be needed to meet to cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically from this sector. We are already in the midst of these changes.

Telecommuting: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the explosion of teleworking and video conferencing reduced travel, and, with it, emissions associated with commuting. While some of that will rebound, telework is likely to continue for many sectors of the economy.

Shared mobility: Some shared mobility options, like bike and scooter sharing programs, can get more people out of vehicles entirely.

Car-sharing and on-demand services such as Uber and Lyft also have the potential to reduce emissions if they use high-efficiency or zero-emission vehicles, or if their services lean more toward car pooling, with each driver picking up multiple passengers. Unfortunately, there is substantial uncertainty about the impact of these services. They might also increase vehicle use and, with it, greenhouse gas emissions.

New policies such as the California Clean Miles Standard are helping to push companies like Uber and Lyft to use cleaner vehicles and increase their passenger loads, though it remains to be seen whether other regions will adopt similar policies.

Public transit-friendly cities: Another systemic change involves urban planning and design. Transportation in urban areas is responsible for approximately 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Efficient city planning and land use can reduce travel demand and shift transportation modes, from cars to public transit, through strategies that avoid urban sprawl and disincentivize personal cars. These improvements not only decrease greenhouse gas emissions, but can decrease congestion, air pollution and noise, while improving the safety of transportation systems.

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How do these advances translate to lower emissions?

Much of the uncertainty in how much technological change and other systemic shifts in transportation affects global warming is related to the speed of transition.

The new IPCC report includes several potential scenarios for how much improvements in transportation will be able to cut emissions. On average, the scenarios indicate that the carbon intensity of the transportation sector would need to decrease by about 50% by 2050 and as much as 91% by 2100 when combined with a cleaner electricity grid to stay within the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) target for global warming.

These decreases would require a complete reversal of current trends of increasing emissions in the transportation sector, but the recent advances in transportation provide many opportunities to meet this challenge.

Related Reading:

Alan Jenn, Assistant Professional Researcher in Transportation, University of California, Davis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Elon Musk, Observation, Social Media, Twitter

Elon Musk’s Epic Sunday Tweet Barrage Spans the Scope of Human Consciousness

Video

So many topics, reactions, memes and insights, so little time!

Sunday April 3, 2022 will, perhaps be remembered in the history of twitter as the day that Elon Musk finally came out of his shell (wink). Tweeting, replying, commenting, liking, a quick look at all the activity and it’s apparent that, even for the prolific techno king, this was a day of days.

Nor has it only been the quantity of engagement and activity, the breath and wingspan of the subject matter was truly epic. The storm has finally slowed, with the following cryptic tweet at approximately 1:45 PM PDT, meaning shortly before 11pm in Berlin (in case that’s where he’s been tweeting and responding from.

On Saturday there was a series of somewhat typical (a-typical really, which is typical) meme and humor oriented tweets. These were interesting enough for us to post the report below with, in our estimation, the Dogecoin video repost as the highlight.

Elon Musk Pumps Dogecoin Video in Tweet: ‘Explains Everything’

Next a unique and unexpected shift toward un-twitter-like substance and gravitas

Soon after the activity took a turn towards the profound and thoughtful. First Elon started a thread (or joined it’s hard to tell) about a favorite subject, the lack of population growth and referenced an article from Scientific American entitled ‘The Pandemic caused a Baby Bust, Not a Boom“.

Naturally this created an ongoing explosion of reactions and retweets that continues as we go to press:

Next came the topic of “peace” and why people who actually aspire towards it reject the word and its, presumable, inappropriate use:

And then, as if to rise above the fray and conclude with a transcendental observation a tweet above twitter came forth…

Somehow, amidst this clarity and provocative yet introspective message, he also took the time to comment, positively on a variety of replies and tweets where he had been tagged (which no doubt happens thousands of times per minute).

His fairly straightforward endorsement, for example, of this video posted by Popular Mechanics, will be a huge boost for that publication and no doubt cause the video views to hit the stratosphere tonight… ‘Good summary’ was Elon’s take on the clip.

Check out the clip of Elon Musk responding thoughtfully on “zero-sum mindset” during a recent interview with Lex Fridman and edited for length and content by our own video dept.:

Or this video, that Elon also praised in a reaction tweet when tagged by the author, Cleo Abram. This video is, indeed, fantastic and relates to sustainable energy infrastructure, and how it must be rapidly expanded. Not just to stave off a climate catastrophe, but as the initial baseline towards increased energy use, which it is pointed out in the clip, will have a highly beneficial effect on humanity, since green renewables are, by definition, unlimited.

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Elon Musk, Social Media

Elon Musk waxes Philosophic in Tweet: ‘That is what drives me’

Video

Using Language that evokes his well known comments regarding the reasons why a mission, and eventually colony, on Mars is his passion, Elon Musk just tweeted that he is inspired by curiosity.

Further, that it is curiosity that drives him.

And then, in a more generalized summation of his thoughts regarding human consciousness, he implores us to join him in a journey leading to an expansion of the ‘scope and scale of consciousness’, “that we may aspire to understand the universe”.


After a weekend barrage of humorous and meme oriented tweets and replies such a serious and thoughtful note comes across as a rare and special occurrence.

Although just an anecdotal and non-scientific study a random browsing of his account also shows a seemingly large increase in the number of replies comments and other interactions with accounts of all types.


He seems to be in a truly jovial and generous mood this weekend showering compliments on random posts related or even unrelated to him personally.

It’s fantastic to see this, and must be incredible for some of the lucky individuals and organizations that he is bringing attention to via his 80 million followers.
He even posted replies to his initial tweet above:

And weighing in on nearly anything he reads:

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Coronavirus, Tech

DoorDash’s “Pizza Arbitrage” Exposes Systemic Faults in Delivery App Economy

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

It’s All Fun & Games, but what about Reality?

On May 17th, economics reporter Ranjan Roy of The Margins shared a story about a friend of his— a New York City pizzeria owner who realized a hole in DoorDash‘s business model and decided to take advantage of it.

The story went something like this… Roy’s friend runs AJ’s NY Pizzeria, a dine-in and take-out pizza joint in Manhattan. The restaurant does not do delivery, but the owner somehow started getting complaints about faulty orders coming to their houses. After some investigation, it became clear that the deliveries were carried out via DoorDash, an app that set up a delivery option right on the restaurant’s Google Listing without permission.

What was more conspicuous, however, was that DoorDash was charging $16 for pizzas that should have costed $24. At Roy’s suggestion, AJ’s owner decided to do a little experiment, ordering a large number of pizzas from his own store using DoorDash. Because of the app’s underpricing, AJ’s ended up turning a profit by doing this. Testing the app even further, the owner started ordering more pizzas from himself, but began filling the boxes with nothing but dough. DoorDash never caught on, and he flipped an easy $8 for every “pizza” that the delivery driver came to pick up.

Ultimately, AJ’s made a couple risk-free hundred bucks from this trial. Roy dubbed the story “Pizza Arbitrage,” a fun parable of a local business beating out the corporate middleman. Nevertheless, as Roy and other economics reporters have fleshed out, AJ’s DoosDash experiment demonstrates the immense flaws in the seemingly ubiquitous delivery app economy.

Read More: Zuckerberg Promises Change as Facebook Value plummets $56 Billion 

DoorDash’s underpricing of AJ’s pizzas was a mistake. However, its shortsightedness, exploitation, and wastefulness exhibited throughout the situation were not anomalous. First off, the fact that DoorDash unwarrantedly inserted itself into AJ’s Google Listing is business-as-usual for most apps of the kind. Even through AJ’s does not do delivery itself, DoorDash has made it look like a seamless part of the restaurant’s platform. Therefore, if DoorDash messes up on a delivery, it still ends up reflecting poorly on AJ’s from a consumer’s limited point of view.

The app operates similarly for restaurants that offer delivery as well, yet this creates even more damage, as DoorDash then takes away from that established aspect of the business. Suddenly, restaurants are not profiting off of their delivery service, facing a twisted internal competition as their own employees are cheated out of essential work and tips.

Then, even when things go according to plan for DoorDash, it rarely turn a sufficient profit for itself. In the longterm, these apps are hardly sustainable. DoorDash reportedly lost $450 million in 2019. Similar services like GrubHub, Uber Eats, and Postmates saw comparable losses, and a clear rebound is not on the horizon for any of them.

Phantom Toll Both or Actual Service Upgrade?

For all the damage these apps do by intervening with small businesses and rerouting the economy in unstable directions, the sad reality is that they are not even subsisting well enough for themselves. Mergers and buyouts seem like the only possibility for these companies to stay relevant in the future, but given their deplorable track records, it’s questionable whether even that is a good idea.

Essentially, these apps are only staying alive for the sake of competition rather than profit right now. Economics 101 will tell you that such is not a suitable business model in a capitalist system. In the end, economists reckon that the only winner amongst the delivery apps will be whatever service lasts the longest and beats out the others. At that point, though, it would probably just be easier—and more economical—for the delivery economy to go back to its fundamental roots, with in-house delivery rather than these intermediary apps.

Read More: Lynxotic Tech Coverage

DoorDash, UberEats, and other apps in this system are all vying to be the Amazon of their niche field. They are in a giant game of Monopoly, and everyone is losing. Another sad truth is that Amazon itself is overdue for an antitrust suit. Thus, these apps are fighting for a legally (not to mention ethically) dubious fantastical endgame. Even if a sole delivery service does survive this nonsensical competition, it may find out that its efforts were too exploitative to persist in a fair and equitable society all along.

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