So "X" - nothing to see here. Elon's in control - Part XXX

Bass Reeves

I remember a joke being told nearly 40 years ago. The characters in it were Gorbachev, Regan, the Pope and a hitchhiker. You could replace Gorbachev and Reagan with Putin and Elon. So here goes

On a plane flying over the Russian steppes are Putin, Elon, The Pope and this Hitchhiker. The audio speaker comes on

''This is your Captain speaking, if you look out over the RHS wing you will see an engine on fire and the second one with smoke coming out of it about to go on fire''

The four passengers look out to the RHS to confirm what is happening

'' on the LHS if you look out you will find the same'' . Again the passengers rush over to confirm.

The Captain continues '' if you look back on the LHS behind the plane you will see 3-4 small white mushrooms, the plane is on auto pilot, it will continue flying for about ten minutes before crashing, the mushrooms are me and the crew parachuting to safety. There is three more parachutes in the overhead lockers so one of you will have to stay behind''

With this Vladimir Putin and Elon Mush jumps up and grab two of the parachutes. Putin stops at the door before jumping and shouts back '' I Vladimir Putin, I am the leader of the Russian people, they need me so I must save myself for the Russian people''

Elon is stuck for words for a few seconds at the door but shouts back. ''I am Elon Musk the brainest man in the world I must save myself to save humanity,'' then jumps out.

The Pope turns to the young hitchhiker and say ''young man I am old and have lived a full life. Take the other parachute and save yourself. Go with the blessing of God from me and have a full life''

The young man turns to the Pope with tears in his eye's but a smile in his face. '' Holy father he says, you have restored my faith in Humanity and in the Catholic church'' as he starts to to put a parachute on the old man who tries to prevent him.

He continues '' However we will both survive, the brainest man in the World just jumped out the door with my rucksack on his back''.

I think it very apt with the way Elon has continued over the last week.

erlichbachman

So who was the protagonist 40 years ago that Elon replaced?

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119848844#Comment_119848844

Ronald Reagan. Its much better with Elon

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119848566#Comment_119848566

This is his masterplan: short-term - take over Twitter and stop all misinformation/false news curbs, thus allowing climate change deniers thwart any progress to the point where non-electric cars are banned and he has the monopoly.

Long-term - totally render the planet uninhabitable to the point we have to all move to a new one. And guess who has exclusive rights on the new one....

Some men just want to watch the world burn (and they might not be as insane as you think....)

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119848844#Comment_119848844

Another man that the looney left went crazy about because he absolutely destroyed them

marieholmfan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119848684#Comment_119848684

I do but the first thing I noticed was the pigeons. Think that's the joke. Three Unread Messages. A box with three carrier pigeons.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119848912#Comment_119848912

But those pigeons were in service to the Third Reich, literally carry Nazi messages from Hitler. Literally Nazi pigeons

Possibly.

Maybe.

Psychedelic Hedgehog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119848873#Comment_119848873

Jesus, it's like the plot of Total Recall.

Snake Plisken

Great to see user growth already under Elon 👍

https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1589727809005817856?s=19

US elections driving an activity spike, and totally independent and auditable stats, I assume.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849059#Comment_119849059

And it seems disputed by MIT? Who say they have actually lost 1 Million users (or bots heck)

https://masslive.com/news/2022/11/mit-reports-twitter-lost-over-1-million-users-since-elon-musks-takeover.html

“MIT Technology Review reported that Bot Sentinel analyzed 3.1 million accounts on Twitter and “believes that around 877,000 accounts were deactivated and a further 497,000 were suspended between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1. That’s more than double the usual number.””

Quin_Dub

Independent external traffic analysis says that user numbers are dropping but an internal Sales FAQ says things are going great..

Which one to believe , so hard to know which one to trust.

MisterAnarchy

Interesting thread this and it confirms what I have reiterated for years, that Trump was Twitters biggest advert and saved Twitter from financial ruin.

https://twitter.com/stevekrenzel/status/1589700721121058817

Most people don't really appreciate how close Twitter was to shutting down. The 2016 election was the only thing that saved them and made them relevant again (to the detriment of us all).

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119848937#Comment_119848937

I was thinking more along the lines of a James Bond movie myself with Monty Burns as the villian...

Overheal

Heh.

https://twitter.com/chaser/status/1589853148679929857?s=46&t=OP8_jmFKVrfpjbjD3BjLGQ

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849153#Comment_119849153

Lord Elon peotector of the truth obviously.

Yes, I think we should all believe the sales people who want to tell us how great the platform is doing.

That would be utterly reasonable. Nothing to see here at all. Everything's fine!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849153#Comment_119849153

US midterms are apparently bumping it up a bit.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849312#Comment_119849312

And post election denial could drive it up more.

AndrewJRenko

This is the kind of liability that a due diligence process shows up, in the professional world.

https://twitter.com/cearta/status/1589973879245910017?s=46&t=0Xeaucg1oN-yVj9sVoYWPA

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849312#Comment_119849312

Honestly watching people pile on Elon is also a lot of fun. He comes across as a terrible person without much in the way of thick skin. Both of those will get old pretty quickly when the elections are over and Elon makes more changes so advertisers won't be running back and he hasn't started charging for the blue tick yet so he can't even monetise it even if the increase in traffic is true.

https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1589730279161475072

AOC continues to run rings around the Dear Leader.

MisterAnarchy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849369#Comment_119849369

I suspect Twitter will be a very interesting place next week after the Dems lose both houses and a former President announces he is rerunning for election.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849369#Comment_119849369

I dont understand why people think advertisers WILL be running back - if they're worried about being cancelled, they're still going to be worried.

It's at the point where there was serious academic discussion in Canada about planning for how they'd deal with a scenario where the US really went into complete meltdown.

Twitter may only be the canary (or whatever kind of bird it is) in the mine.

Bass Reeves

Really good article here about what Chris Sacca thinks about the way things are being handled

whathttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/11/07/twitter-investor-chris-sacca-says-elon-musk-is-alone-right-now.html

AndrewJRenko

More equal speech principles shining through

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/8/23446972/tesla-twitter-ad-ban-dawn-project-dan-odowd-elon-musk

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849488#Comment_119849488

There are multiple things at play.

Advertising spend will be decreasing across the board as the economies around the world tighten up so companies are going to want to be very sure about the return on any spend they do make.

If Twitter is unable to properly moderate the content then no advertiser is going to want their company/products appearing on the same page as some really nasty stuff posted by some troll.

On the flip side , if the "pay for blue check-mark" thing actually launches and a reasonable number of people actually sign up for it then potentially that's a plus for advertisers as you would assume that Twitter would have much better data about a paid up member than a random anonymous one making it easier to prove Ad value etc.

Now that is a huge "maybe" as it doesn't seem remotely clear how/when/if they are going to implement this nor if anyone will actually be interested in paying for it.

On balance there doesn't seem to be any easy way for Musk to drive increased ad revenue in the short to medium term and he has just saddled the company with a 20 fold increase in their debt repayments so his chances of making the company profitable are pretty darn slim.

Faugheen

I love how those here to applauded him for free speech are now going so quiet when he’s actively blocking people just because he take the piss out of him a little bit.

What a sad, pathetic little man.

Beasty

Overheal threadbanned

Tesla share price tanking.

Their share holders must be looking on in horror at the Twitter takeover disaster.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849799#Comment_119849799

Also interesting to see that the volume of shares traded is way up in the last week or so.

Current stock price is back to where it was 2 years ago , which was just shortly after the share price started to go nuts.

Prior to early 2020 the Tesla stock price had been bouncing along in the mid to high teens and then around March it went wild , hitting over $200 by the end of the year and getting to nearly twice that by the end of 2021.

I can absolutely see a scenario where the Tesla stock keeps declining back down to the mid double digits - ~$50 or so , which would actually be a more reasonable reflection of P/E and market share etc.

The impact that would have on Musks ability to pay the bill for Twitter would be catastrophic.

No wonder Tesla share-holders are suing him for being an "absentee landlord" as it were.

jimmybobbyschweiz

Musk is the emporer with no clothes. There are plenty of them that rose to prominence during the 10s boom years (Cathy Wood for instance, ironically just a Musk fangirl), but there was never anything particularly impressive about Musk's Tesla company and it was vastly overvalued in comparison to the more traditional car companies that only the blind could claim that the valuation was justified.

I always maintained that Musk and his ventures got popular because the Tony Stark movie character was also popular during the same time as Musk was getting popular and Musk's fans / believers saw him as some sort of Tony Stark with what he was doing. That is the most simple explanation I can come up with for how Musk got so popular the last ten years.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849666#Comment_119849666

That sounds terrible, what did he do?

But before your reply, let us repeat the mantras of the last five years: freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences, there's no such thing as cancel culture and a private company can choose who gets to use their platforms

With that in mind, pray continue.

Quin_Dub

Tesla was a stone in the shoe of the car industry. They were the irritant that forced the Industry to move faster in the shift towards EV's and that was a good thing.

They created a market and hype around Electric cars and made them "cool" etc. but they were never ever going to be able to compete with the heavy hitters once they got going.

People got caught up in the hype and exploded the stock price , but the bald reality is that once GM, Ford , Toyota and Nissan etc. got rolling on EV's that was always going to be that for Tesla.

The big guns just have too much experience and heft in the basics of volume manufacturing - Supply chain , Quality , Time to Market and so on.

There are multiple better options out there now for each Tesla model and the volume will go with the big players.

Tesla may survive , but they will be a niche player , like a Jaguar or similar - Nice cars targeting a certain buyer but not a volume player anywhere.

The Stock price is starting to reflect that impending reality.

bokale

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849969#Comment_119849969

Exactly! People seemed to think Musk was gonna #freespeech it up when he took over and reinstate Trump and the boys.

Maybe he will, but so far it's not working out that way.

AndrewJRenko

Who’s got the popcorn?

Could be an interesting few months ahead

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/

joseywhales

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850065#Comment_119850065

So I can attest to the fact that code lives in human brains not in text files. If you end up in a situation with a calcified mountain of code that everyone is afraid to refactor because they can't possible be subject matter experts on all code, well then the job will be a nightmare and break will grow exponentially. Coders will start accumulating targeted hotfix on top of hotfix as they can't get the time to really analyse the whole system.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850164#Comment_119850164

And when you bounce loads of coders with almost no warning , there will be next to no documentation and updates will either take way longer than they should or they will break things because the dependencies weren't fully documented etc.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850065#Comment_119850065

Very interesting. I noticed bits of loss of functionality over recent days. This explains it.

I bet Russian hackers are have a celebration party ahead of a potential major site attack on Twitter. With so many staff gone I bet there are chinks in the armour.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850164#Comment_119850164

Not forgetting they will be expected to work 80 hour weeks. Overworked, stressed engineers working on code they are not familiar with. Mistakes will be made.

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850223#Comment_119850223

What, do you think they fight the hackers hand to hand, or how you see it in the movies, they start to frantically type "code" faster that the attacker? If it was secure before musk it still is, unless some of the discarded left backdoors behind. And if it wasn't, it still isn't, regardless of who's the CEO and owner.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850169#Comment_119850169

It was always assumed it was only a hardware issue. Microsoft stopped doing back up to a Windows version a d if you had one the viruses would get in

I remember one time working with with a Telecoms guy in the late noughties who had a system and the program for it was on a Windows 98 labtop. He told me he used to have to keep it hidden from the IT guys.

They had stopped paying support for the actual Tele system as they had changed provider but the IT guys would still have seized the laptop.

bokale

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850258#Comment_119850258

Just because code was secure doesn't mean it still is.

New CVEs often need people with knowledge of the system to identify the parts which may be susceptible to the exploit and know a path to mitigating it.

joseywhales

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850244#Comment_119850244

If they are smart, which they are, you will just get a malaise. They will realize that operational risk is increased and you will see ambition drop off a cliff. They will become lazy and disenfranchised. I've see it a lot. Then you have to rehabilitate them, give them easy tasks, get their confidence back. We all have ups and downs. Not possible when understaffed.

MisterAnarchy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850561#Comment_119850561

80 hours a weeks is simply madness, especially in a mental heavy job like engineering.

The quality of the work will be poor.

I've done 80 hour plus weeks for months on end myself in the past and it takes a serious toll on the body.

You don't get lazy but you do get seriously disheartened and burnt out and its very hard to reverse the damage done.

joseywhales

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119851100#Comment_119851100

Yeah, I guess lazy is a harsh word. Really you get defensive coding, fear of unintended consequences, peanut brain from the intense pressure, silo'd expertise because there is no time to cross train. I'd be looking for another job.

AndrewJRenko

So harsh

https://www.theonion.com/please-like-me-1848674003

lmao10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119850420#Comment_119850420

I'm not sure he knows what a CVE is, going off his post.