An atmosphere of total incuriosity suffuses the entire book
February 7, 2024 2:43 AM Subscribe
Some books are so utterly bad that the case against them can be made based on almost any excerpt. Elon Musk is one of those books. from Very Ordinary Men, a deliciously scathing review of Walter Isaacson's biography by Sam Kriss [The Point Magazine; ungated]
That was so good that I would pay to read Sam Kriss describe nearly everything about modern life. Pity he only seems to have one other piece on that site.
posted by Rhedyn at 3:55 AM on February 7 [10 favorites]
posted by Rhedyn at 3:55 AM on February 7 [10 favorites]
I very much appreciate the lucid two-paragraph description of Roko's basilisk in this article. Finally, I get it. Thankfully, my smooth brain is not concerned with its ramifications.
posted by sixohsix at 4:12 AM on February 7 [12 favorites]
posted by sixohsix at 4:12 AM on February 7 [12 favorites]
I just got laid off from a longtime position and I suspect that it’s because my boss has that lack of curiosity. He would often ask me “Why do we have so many X?” and when I’d launch into the complexities his eyes sort of glazed over. I once gave him an 18-24 month project estimate based on data from similar projects and he said, “two years? Elon Musk moved a data center by himself in a weekend!” And yes, he was reading the biography at the time. I would happy erase SpaceX and Tesla from history to be rid of that Elon bastard.
posted by caviar2d2 at 4:37 AM on February 7 [40 favorites]
posted by caviar2d2 at 4:37 AM on February 7 [40 favorites]
Thanks chavenet - good read. I was disappointed with Isaacson’s Jobs book - will give this a miss (I agree with sentiment that Elon’s actually not that interesting).
posted by whatevernot at 4:38 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by whatevernot at 4:38 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
SpaceX wins so many government contracts because it’s the low-cost no-frills airline of space travel. They’ll do it for cheap. They’ll send up a tin can with most of its safety features missing. Which is why their rockets keep blowing up.This punchline was hard for me to parse. I think the trolling there is mainly that the test rocket didn't explode, when that was required for safety.
I'm curious if there have been any other missing safeties? Other than the stupidly avoidable "rock tornado", on the same "successful" test flight.
posted by sourcejedi at 5:33 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
The basilisk is not “out of control.” It’s a friendly AI, in the future, that has used its godlike powers to solve all human problems. Because it’s a friendly AI, it wants to exist as soon as possible so it can reduce the total of human suffering across time. Therefore, it makes an acausal blackmail.
Roko's Basilisk is so much dumber than I previously thought.
Just a bunch of strict utilitarians who are all secretly terrified of their own comeuppance: that after a lifetime of making decisions which arbitrarily sacrifice others in the name of progress, they too might become another arbitrary sacrifice to the greater good they seek to deliver.
Has anyone written any stories with Roko's Basilisk as an anti-hero? Because it might be kind of fun to read to about techbros suffering ironic fates while trying to please their vengeful future god.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:49 AM on February 7 [21 favorites]
Roko's Basilisk is so much dumber than I previously thought.
Just a bunch of strict utilitarians who are all secretly terrified of their own comeuppance: that after a lifetime of making decisions which arbitrarily sacrifice others in the name of progress, they too might become another arbitrary sacrifice to the greater good they seek to deliver.
Has anyone written any stories with Roko's Basilisk as an anti-hero? Because it might be kind of fun to read to about techbros suffering ironic fates while trying to please their vengeful future god.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:49 AM on February 7 [21 favorites]
Side note barely related - Does anyone have a method for swapping out the typeface on a website? I get that they want this to look like, what was it called, "print" but the thins are too thin for my screen and I can't read it. Maybe it's a "me problem"? I tried. It was great for as far as I got.
posted by Wetterschneider at 5:54 AM on February 7 [2 favorites]
posted by Wetterschneider at 5:54 AM on February 7 [2 favorites]
"If you have fans, it’s because what you’re providing is ultimately some form of entertainment."posted by box at 5:57 AM on February 7 [17 favorites]
On safety, previously on Metafilter, SpaceX v OSHA, and You’re Supposed To Be Glad Your Tesla Is A Brittle Heap Of Junk.
posted by lookoutbelow at 6:02 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
posted by lookoutbelow at 6:02 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
Does anyone have a method for swapping out the typeface on a website?Though unlikely given its ~3.5% market share these days, if you happen to be using Firefox, Reader View?
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 6:03 AM on February 7 [13 favorites]
There's a gull wing model X sometimes pulled up to the ballet school across the street. I've laughed at the owners. They don't understand why. It's okay. They don't have to. It's just funny.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:03 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:03 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
The Musk hate is all well and good but Kriss' point isn't ultimately about Musk, it's about a shared societal delusion:
This is why I said that Elon Musk is the name we’ve given to a certain mass delusion. The man is the repository of our dreams: of space travel, of becoming rich, the fantasy of the autistic video-game-playing nerd who defies all the bullies and becomes the most important person on the planet. He is a monster made of other people’s money and other people’s cathexes.posted by Wretch729 at 6:05 AM on February 7 [39 favorites]
There are certain books which pile up in the sorting area for the big book store/sale run by the library system I work for, and which are largely recycled because there's no point in trying to resell them; all the copies being dumped off at the library are a sign that the market is already supersaturated. All of them are best-sellers of course, but most are various novels of the moment; Da Vinci Code, 50 Shades, Hunger Games, The Help, The Girl With..., Harry Potter, etc..
Every now and again, though, one of them is a non-fiction title, sometimes something Big and Important that won an Big Important Award, but most often it's a biography or autobiography of a living person, and usually not an entertainer. The Isaacson Jobs book is one of them, and I can confidently predict that before too long copies of "Musk" will be sitting in tall stacks on tables in the basement, awaiting their date with the green bin.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:12 AM on February 7 [27 favorites]
Every now and again, though, one of them is a non-fiction title, sometimes something Big and Important that won an Big Important Award, but most often it's a biography or autobiography of a living person, and usually not an entertainer. The Isaacson Jobs book is one of them, and I can confidently predict that before too long copies of "Musk" will be sitting in tall stacks on tables in the basement, awaiting their date with the green bin.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:12 AM on February 7 [27 favorites]
I started following Chuck Tingle a couple places on social media; he delightedly keeps referring to Musk as "Elno Mork". This has now become an inescapable part of my internal monologue.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:15 AM on February 7 [32 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:15 AM on February 7 [32 favorites]
The cult of personality around this Turd Hat is wild. Like, I nuked my personal Twitter sometime ago but I kept checking our local hashtag because there is a guy on there who is weirdly obsessed with Turd Hat (remember, I live where Queen's University is and Turd Hat went here for a time), talking about "hey I bet Turd Hat and I were at Stages* together during those years", praising him as the saviour of humanity, etc. I realized I was hate-reading that hashtag because of SENPAI NOTICE ME guy. I deleted the bookmark altogether because life is too short to read about some middle aged white dude desperate to have Turd Hat notice him (he would tag Turd Hat in all his tweets).
*Stages is a nightclub popular with students here
posted by Kitteh at 6:19 AM on February 7 [8 favorites]
*Stages is a nightclub popular with students here
posted by Kitteh at 6:19 AM on February 7 [8 favorites]
The book has been on the NYT Best Seller list for 20 weeks. Most people are getting Isaacson's version of Musk instead of Sam Kriss's. Depressing.
posted by gwint at 7:17 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
posted by gwint at 7:17 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
Honestly, my eyes glazed over reading this review less than halfway through. Some of the info on Isaacson is interesting, especially his actions during the early stage of the GWOT, but then Kriss goes on at some length about how it wasn't the biography of Lone Skum that he would have written, heedless of how he'd already established that Isaacson really isn't the kind of guy who would have written it. (And I'm really not interested in hearing more about Skum's dad, Skum's dad's second wife, and Skum's dad's stepdaughter.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:19 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:19 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
Wetterschneider, have you tried developer tools, highlighting a paragraph, and unchecking two font-family declarations for CormorantGaramond (and GlacialIndifference if you're using the archive)?
posted by channaher at 7:56 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by channaher at 7:56 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
I'm rereading the Hunger Games and Suzanne Collins is genuinely a really good writer and doesn't deserve to be lumped in with Brown and James
posted by Jacen at 7:58 AM on February 7 [15 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 7:58 AM on February 7 [15 favorites]
Another reason to not read that book I had no intention of reading.
posted by aeshnid at 7:59 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
posted by aeshnid at 7:59 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
Oh jesus Roko's Basilisk is just "The Game", with the added rule of "you don't lose The Game if you do everything you can to please The Game." How incredibly stupid.
posted by Philipschall at 8:02 AM on February 7 [18 favorites]
posted by Philipschall at 8:02 AM on February 7 [18 favorites]
re: elno mork, i’m still a fan of diligently following the new york times style guide, and as such i refer to him as “mr. musk.”
calling him this has some advantages:
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:14 AM on February 7 [30 favorites]
calling him this has some advantages:
- it’s totally 100% just his name, no cutesy alterations
- it is a truly unsettling thing to call someone
- it hard-violates the tech industry norm of using informality as a way to quasi-mask social status differentials
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:14 AM on February 7 [30 favorites]
that said, sometimes i have silly little fantasies where i’m a talk show host, he’s a guest on my show, and i introduce him as “the thomas edison of our times.” he’d be so mad, y’all, so mad.
I remember when the ADL called him a "modern day Henry Ford", which was an accurate assessment, just not in the way the ADL intended (or should be comparing, given their mission statement.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:20 AM on February 7 [15 favorites]
I remember when the ADL called him a "modern day Henry Ford", which was an accurate assessment, just not in the way the ADL intended (or should be comparing, given their mission statement.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:20 AM on February 7 [15 favorites]
but also i cannot stress this enough, “mr. musk” sounds like mean mr. mustard’s meaner, foul-smelling cousin. everyone always uses mr. musk’s distinctive first name when referring to him, so when you use tactical formality to elide it people 1: don’t immediately connect the name with the person 2: during the moment before connecting name and person listeners have time to get low-key grossed out by the low-key gross last name.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:28 AM on February 7 [11 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:28 AM on February 7 [11 favorites]
He is a monster made of other people’s money and other people’s cathexes.
Expanding on this idea and the general perniciousness of the Roko's Basilisk myth, what if we created a viral counter-superstition that Elon Musk was merely a tulpa of the capitalist Id? Could we make him disappear into thin air as though he had never existed?
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:52 AM on February 7 [10 favorites]
Expanding on this idea and the general perniciousness of the Roko's Basilisk myth, what if we created a viral counter-superstition that Elon Musk was merely a tulpa of the capitalist Id? Could we make him disappear into thin air as though he had never existed?
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:52 AM on February 7 [10 favorites]
The description of Rothko's Basilisk* is a highlight of the piece, completely accurate yet illustrating how ludicrous the idea is, despite the fact that it is somehow influential to believe completely a priori that a future singularity god machine will vindictively punish simulations of everyone who didn't contribute to creating it, and thus it is imperative that we should all work to create it.
It's like believing this perfect god device will create action figures of people it heard hates it to torture them and feel good about itself. Imagine a future omnipotent Donald Trump will get retroactive revenge upon everyone who didn't work to create that omnipotent Donald Trump, and so we must all try to create that future omnipotent Donald Trump.
It is an idea stupid enough to truly make one despair for the future of the human race, yet the people who believe it think of themselves as enlightened rational thought-master prodigy geniuses. This is something that people who think themselves smart actually believe.
* I can't read that term without putting "Modern" in the middle of it. Rothko's Modern Basilisk, devoting eternity to torturing simulations of Heffer and the Bigheads.
posted by JHarris at 8:56 AM on February 7 [20 favorites]
It's like believing this perfect god device will create action figures of people it heard hates it to torture them and feel good about itself. Imagine a future omnipotent Donald Trump will get retroactive revenge upon everyone who didn't work to create that omnipotent Donald Trump, and so we must all try to create that future omnipotent Donald Trump.
It is an idea stupid enough to truly make one despair for the future of the human race, yet the people who believe it think of themselves as enlightened rational thought-master prodigy geniuses. This is something that people who think themselves smart actually believe.
* I can't read that term without putting "Modern" in the middle of it. Rothko's Modern Basilisk, devoting eternity to torturing simulations of Heffer and the Bigheads.
posted by JHarris at 8:56 AM on February 7 [20 favorites]
rothko's basilisk is a total joke all it does is eternally torture big blotches of color my kid could do that
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:10 AM on February 7 [49 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:10 AM on February 7 [49 favorites]
> I'm rereading the Hunger Games and Suzanne Collins is genuinely a really good writer and doesn't deserve to be lumped in with Brown and James
No slight intended, that was just a list of the books which have sold in such mass quantities that they wash up on our shores, good, bad or indifferent.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:20 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
No slight intended, that was just a list of the books which have sold in such mass quantities that they wash up on our shores, good, bad or indifferent.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:20 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
Honestly, my eyes glazed over reading this review less than halfway through.
I'm with Halloween Jack here. Yes, Musk is awful and so is Isaacson, but the reviewer really, really needs to take a vacation.
And as far as I'm concerned, Roko S. Basilisk is an ex-cop turned community organizer in Jeph Jacques' Questionable Content.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 9:29 AM on February 7 [12 favorites]
I'm with Halloween Jack here. Yes, Musk is awful and so is Isaacson, but the reviewer really, really needs to take a vacation.
And as far as I'm concerned, Roko S. Basilisk is an ex-cop turned community organizer in Jeph Jacques' Questionable Content.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 9:29 AM on February 7 [12 favorites]
I think Musk is awful, but the Falcon 9 is on the longest streak of successful launches of any rocket ever. It is unfortunate to have something stuck in the article that undermines some of the other takedowns of that asshole.
posted by snofoam at 9:37 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 9:37 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
It's like believing this perfect god device will create action figures of people it heard hates it to torture them and feel good about itself.
And why wouldn't it? If torturing those action figures cleared the god-device's mind enough such that it could brainstorm prototypes for a zero point energy generator which would provide the world with unlimited energy, isn't that kind of a net-win in the grand scheme of things? We're talking about people who absolve everything they do in the pursuit of wealth by using that money to do great things for humanity. Anything goes so long as it provides utility in the long run. .
That's kind of why find Roko's Basilisk so fascinating. It really is the vengeful deity that the people who created it deserve.
Imagine a future omnipotent Donald Trump will get retroactive revenge upon everyone who didn't work to create that omnipotent Donald Trump, and so we must all try to create that future omnipotent Donald Trump.
Hold on there. I think you just described the current Republican party platform.
And as far as I'm concerned, Roko S. Basilisk is an ex-cop turned community organizer in Jeph Jacques' Questionable Content.
Same here. QC has become one of my all-time favorite scifi series for that reason.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:47 AM on February 7 [5 favorites]
And why wouldn't it? If torturing those action figures cleared the god-device's mind enough such that it could brainstorm prototypes for a zero point energy generator which would provide the world with unlimited energy, isn't that kind of a net-win in the grand scheme of things? We're talking about people who absolve everything they do in the pursuit of wealth by using that money to do great things for humanity. Anything goes so long as it provides utility in the long run. .
That's kind of why find Roko's Basilisk so fascinating. It really is the vengeful deity that the people who created it deserve.
Imagine a future omnipotent Donald Trump will get retroactive revenge upon everyone who didn't work to create that omnipotent Donald Trump, and so we must all try to create that future omnipotent Donald Trump.
Hold on there. I think you just described the current Republican party platform.
And as far as I'm concerned, Roko S. Basilisk is an ex-cop turned community organizer in Jeph Jacques' Questionable Content.
Same here. QC has become one of my all-time favorite scifi series for that reason.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:47 AM on February 7 [5 favorites]
re: elno mork, i’m still a fan of diligently following the new york times style guide, and as such i refer to him as “mr. musk.”
Someone else in the thread refers to him as "Turd Hat", I'm assuming we all have unique nicknames for the guy.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:49 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
Someone else in the thread refers to him as "Turd Hat", I'm assuming we all have unique nicknames for the guy.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:49 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
Roko's basilisk is 3 Pascal's wagers in a trench coat and not a good one either.
posted by heyforfour at 10:09 AM on February 7 [33 favorites]
posted by heyforfour at 10:09 AM on February 7 [33 favorites]
I think Musk is awful, but the Falcon 9 is on the longest streak of successful launches of any rocket ever.
When talking online about some bad person, you can always count on someone to chime in with the "but then again." It takes a whole lotta good to outweigh even a tiny bit of bad, and Falcon 9 is not enough to make up for all that toxicity, destroying Twitter* and our discourse, platforming nazis, naming his children things that will drive copyeditors and hapless programmers up the wall for decades, etc.
(To forestall the response of "wasn't that a good thing," Twitter, for all its faults, was also the home of a vibrant black community, helped boost other marginalized peoples, and helped spread a lot of important voices. All of those things are now lost, like beers on a plane.)
posted by JHarris at 10:12 AM on February 7 [28 favorites]
When talking online about some bad person, you can always count on someone to chime in with the "but then again." It takes a whole lotta good to outweigh even a tiny bit of bad, and Falcon 9 is not enough to make up for all that toxicity, destroying Twitter* and our discourse, platforming nazis, naming his children things that will drive copyeditors and hapless programmers up the wall for decades, etc.
(To forestall the response of "wasn't that a good thing," Twitter, for all its faults, was also the home of a vibrant black community, helped boost other marginalized peoples, and helped spread a lot of important voices. All of those things are now lost, like beers on a plane.)
posted by JHarris at 10:12 AM on February 7 [28 favorites]
Teaching in an urban high school, and it's all like this. Some of my students today told me I should work for Elon Musk, because I'm smart enough to write on their papers upside down.
Elon Musk isn't that smart, I told them. He's just rich.
How is he rich if he isn't smart?
His father owned a very shady emerald mine in Africa.
I can't google that, I don't think that's true.
It is true, and he also didn't start Tesla, he just bought it and in the contract wrote that he should be referred to as the founder.
That's not true either! I can't google it!
And so on and so forth. Like to these kids Elon IS the encapsulation of a genius. He's a rich nerd who makes a lot of money on techy things, he must be a genius, more or less.
posted by subdee at 10:17 AM on February 7 [23 favorites]
Elon Musk isn't that smart, I told them. He's just rich.
How is he rich if he isn't smart?
His father owned a very shady emerald mine in Africa.
I can't google that, I don't think that's true.
It is true, and he also didn't start Tesla, he just bought it and in the contract wrote that he should be referred to as the founder.
That's not true either! I can't google it!
And so on and so forth. Like to these kids Elon IS the encapsulation of a genius. He's a rich nerd who makes a lot of money on techy things, he must be a genius, more or less.
posted by subdee at 10:17 AM on February 7 [23 favorites]
Oh yay, another set of extremely wrong facts that I'll be correcting people about for the rest of my rapidly waning life, well done media.
posted by JHarris at 10:24 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 10:24 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
A few years ago, one of my son’s elementary teachers told me that my son could be the next Elon Musk, and I got agitated—he does his own work! He’s not a bully! But then my wife quietly told me that it was meant as a compliment.
posted by sleeping bear at 10:24 AM on February 7 [31 favorites]
posted by sleeping bear at 10:24 AM on February 7 [31 favorites]
falcon 9 is a goddamned miracle and the biography i want to read is the one about gwynne shotwell that most likely can’t be written until after mr. musk has overdosed ideally as his security team death-of-stalin style stands outside the door not doing anything while he slowly dies on the floor in a puddle of his own urine.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:25 AM on February 7 [14 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:25 AM on February 7 [14 favorites]
The description of Rothko's Basilisk* is a highlight of the piece, completely accurate yet illustrating how ludicrous the idea is
That was my favourite bit as well. A chain letter/Samara inspired boogie man for the age of AI.
It is an idea stupid enough to truly make one despair for the future of the human race, yet the people who believe it think of themselves as enlightened rational thought-master prodigy geniuses. This is something that people who think themselves smart actually believe.
Reminds me of how the most active MBTI-based subreddit is /r/INTJ. "The mastermind."
posted by Stoof at 10:34 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
That was my favourite bit as well. A chain letter/Samara inspired boogie man for the age of AI.
It is an idea stupid enough to truly make one despair for the future of the human race, yet the people who believe it think of themselves as enlightened rational thought-master prodigy geniuses. This is something that people who think themselves smart actually believe.
Reminds me of how the most active MBTI-based subreddit is /r/INTJ. "The mastermind."
posted by Stoof at 10:34 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
Snofoam: maybe, but he's not taking down SpaceX, or even Elon. He's taking down the biographer.
Good read, would read again.
posted by flamewise at 10:42 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
Good read, would read again.
posted by flamewise at 10:42 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
> Like to these kids Elon IS the encapsulation of a genius. He's a rich nerd who makes a lot of money on techy things, he must be a genius, more or less.
My 12 year-old nephew haaaaates ol' Musky because his dad hipped him to all that, and the whole thing is an outrage to his straightforward little kid sense of fairness.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:48 AM on February 7 [12 favorites]
My 12 year-old nephew haaaaates ol' Musky because his dad hipped him to all that, and the whole thing is an outrage to his straightforward little kid sense of fairness.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:48 AM on February 7 [12 favorites]
Sometimes I think the most important division in politics, even in this semi-post-religious age, is between those who feel no need for gods to worship, and those who do; those who see systems of authority as unfortunate, albeit inescapable, necessities, and those who yearn for a place in one, be it never so humble, as long as they are above someone else; those who feel the force of Lincoln's "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master" in their chests, and those who don't.
Musk is just one of the increasingly grotesque figures engineered to capture the loyalties of the latter group.
I don't think Kriss's analysis of the book's place in cultural history is quite right, though. I seem to recall the "inspirational" (auto)biography of business figures going well back into American history, at least to Franklin. It's just that the underlying ideas seem so much stupider when they use only the language of capitalism.
posted by praemunire at 11:10 AM on February 7 [17 favorites]
Musk is just one of the increasingly grotesque figures engineered to capture the loyalties of the latter group.
I don't think Kriss's analysis of the book's place in cultural history is quite right, though. I seem to recall the "inspirational" (auto)biography of business figures going well back into American history, at least to Franklin. It's just that the underlying ideas seem so much stupider when they use only the language of capitalism.
posted by praemunire at 11:10 AM on February 7 [17 favorites]
By now it should be clear the only reason this biographer keeps writing books is that he wants to continue to be invited to the orgies. And I don't want to read someone's pre-cum. I really don't.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:16 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:16 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
Yeah, Musk is a reactionary idiot, but the dunking on SpaceX in this article is pretty distracting. "Which is why the rockets keep blowing up", except they don't, they're wildly successful, safer than any rockets before them, and at a much, much lower cost. It's totally a valid discussion to have whether this excuses Musk's, well, very existence (I don't think it does), but SpaceX is really the absolute best at what they do, and their impact has been extremely significant.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:46 AM on February 7 [8 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:46 AM on February 7 [8 favorites]
As long as SpaceX is owned by Musk, SpaceX is fair game.
At the end of the day everything they do, no matter how remarkable on it's own merits, supports Musk's agenda. And as long as SpaceX is owned by Musk, it's tainted by whatever fascist, dispshit things he says or does. To use a sports metaphor, SpaceX has an asterisk.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:06 PM on February 7 [14 favorites]
At the end of the day everything they do, no matter how remarkable on it's own merits, supports Musk's agenda. And as long as SpaceX is owned by Musk, it's tainted by whatever fascist, dispshit things he says or does. To use a sports metaphor, SpaceX has an asterisk.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:06 PM on February 7 [14 favorites]
To use a sports metaphor, SpaceX has an asterisk.
To extend the sports metaphor: when you criticize Pete Rose, stick to the gambling. Don't argue that he was bad at baseball.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 12:14 PM on February 7 [14 favorites]
To extend the sports metaphor: when you criticize Pete Rose, stick to the gambling. Don't argue that he was bad at baseball.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 12:14 PM on February 7 [14 favorites]
And to be fair, lots of organizations involved in space travel have asterisks (see NASA and Operation Paperclip) but SpaceX is wholly controlled by theirs and he also delights in taking all the personal credit for everything they do.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:14 PM on February 7 [4 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:14 PM on February 7 [4 favorites]
At the end of the day everything they do, no matter how remarkable on it's own merits, supports Musk's agenda. And as long as SpaceX is owned by Musk, it's tainted by whatever fascist, dispshit things he says or does. To use a sports metaphor, SpaceX has an asterisk.
Oh, I don't disagree with this at all. I'm just annoyed by the constant insistence of people who want to dunk on Musk (very understandable, I fully support) to keep saying factually wrong things like SpaceX's rockets keep blowing up, are badly made, are unsafe because the company cuts corners, etc.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:22 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
Oh, I don't disagree with this at all. I'm just annoyed by the constant insistence of people who want to dunk on Musk (very understandable, I fully support) to keep saying factually wrong things like SpaceX's rockets keep blowing up, are badly made, are unsafe because the company cuts corners, etc.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:22 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
Isn't there an incredibly lax safety culture at SpaceX that has resulted in numerous, often serious worker injuries?
Or do we only consider the safety records of rockets when they're in the air?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:29 PM on February 7 [23 favorites]
Or do we only consider the safety records of rockets when they're in the air?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:29 PM on February 7 [23 favorites]
A nice way to rev up the article:
Walter Isaacson is the perfect writer for the biographies of our times because he appears to be a born sycophant, and fate decreed that he would be in the right position, at the right moment, to spread as much propagandistic bullshit as possible.
posted by doctornemo at 12:30 PM on February 7 [5 favorites]
Walter Isaacson is the perfect writer for the biographies of our times because he appears to be a born sycophant, and fate decreed that he would be in the right position, at the right moment, to spread as much propagandistic bullshit as possible.
posted by doctornemo at 12:30 PM on February 7 [5 favorites]
Or do we only consider the safety records of rockets when they're in the air?
Well, there might well be issues with worker safety at SpaceX, I wouldn't be surprised. But that's not what this article is dunking on SpaceX for, and that's not what the general "Hurr hurr rocket blow up" crowd talks about, so that wasn't what I was talking about here.
SpaceX, like many American corporations, especially ones built on the Silicon Valley techbro ethos, probably doesn't give a shit about its workers, especially not the rank and file ones. Worker safety should be regulated, and corporations flouting those regulations should be fined, or, if serious enough, shut down.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:34 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
Well, there might well be issues with worker safety at SpaceX, I wouldn't be surprised. But that's not what this article is dunking on SpaceX for, and that's not what the general "Hurr hurr rocket blow up" crowd talks about, so that wasn't what I was talking about here.
SpaceX, like many American corporations, especially ones built on the Silicon Valley techbro ethos, probably doesn't give a shit about its workers, especially not the rank and file ones. Worker safety should be regulated, and corporations flouting those regulations should be fined, or, if serious enough, shut down.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:34 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
i think our generation deserves a better wernher von braun than the one we’ve got. like basically if we gotta have a wernher von braun we should at least have one who’s an engineer who designs things rather than a money guy who buys up the right to say he designed things.
on edit: despite my dissatisfaction with our cut-rate wernher von braun i want to make clear that actually i don’t think any generation deserves to be saddled with any wernhers von braun whatsoever, neither cut-rate or actual.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:43 PM on February 7 [14 favorites]
on edit: despite my dissatisfaction with our cut-rate wernher von braun i want to make clear that actually i don’t think any generation deserves to be saddled with any wernhers von braun whatsoever, neither cut-rate or actual.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:43 PM on February 7 [14 favorites]
like von braun was a literal ss monster and although it was nice of him to make possible all those large pensions for the widows and orphans in old london town it would nevertheless be neat to invent a hell for him to burn in.
but even so no one can say “he built the falcon 9” about mr. musk in the same tone in which people talking about von braun can say “he built the saturn v” without making a damned fool of themselves
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:55 PM on February 7 [5 favorites]
but even so no one can say “he built the falcon 9” about mr. musk in the same tone in which people talking about von braun can say “he built the saturn v” without making a damned fool of themselves
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:55 PM on February 7 [5 favorites]
rothko's basilisk is a total joke all it does is eternally torture big blotches of color my kid could do that
On the other hand Rothko's Chapel is really cool, and you should visit it next time you're in Houston.
(I'm sorry, but the misspelling's been bugging me throughout the discussion.)
posted by Spike Glee at 12:58 PM on February 7 [8 favorites]
On the other hand Rothko's Chapel is really cool, and you should visit it next time you're in Houston.
(I'm sorry, but the misspelling's been bugging me throughout the discussion.)
posted by Spike Glee at 12:58 PM on February 7 [8 favorites]
sure, rothko’s chapel seems great — until you remember that all the large fields of color that seem to shimmer and glow from within all around you are being tortured through all time
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:01 PM on February 7 [11 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:01 PM on February 7 [11 favorites]
the misspelling was riffed on in the very next comment!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:01 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:01 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
Joke's on me* for thinking Roko's Basilisk was based on the concept of a graphic image that was mathematically constructed to induce insanity (created by a computer presumably) and not dumb fanfiction about a hypothetical AI future and Machine Hell.
*I was too lazy to look it up and the people who talked about it always pissed me off too much. Apparently I was thinking of a Basilisk Image, which is a much more interesting idea.
Anyway, I loved this bit:
Listen, Walt: I know everyone at your Aspen Ideas Festival get-togethers is always prattling on about changing the world, I know every two-bit billionaire claims to be changing the world with their obnoxious SaaS fintech bullshit, I know all your buddies in Washington speak in the same language of creepy blissed-out messianism, but Elon Musk has not changed the world. He is not a great innovator. He is not a genius. He is not taking the human species anywhere in particular. He’s boring. Even his faults are boring! Musk is a very ordinary man. A con man; a fraudster. Worst of all, a government contractor.
posted by emjaybee at 1:06 PM on February 7 [7 favorites]
*I was too lazy to look it up and the people who talked about it always pissed me off too much. Apparently I was thinking of a Basilisk Image, which is a much more interesting idea.
Anyway, I loved this bit:
Listen, Walt: I know everyone at your Aspen Ideas Festival get-togethers is always prattling on about changing the world, I know every two-bit billionaire claims to be changing the world with their obnoxious SaaS fintech bullshit, I know all your buddies in Washington speak in the same language of creepy blissed-out messianism, but Elon Musk has not changed the world. He is not a great innovator. He is not a genius. He is not taking the human species anywhere in particular. He’s boring. Even his faults are boring! Musk is a very ordinary man. A con man; a fraudster. Worst of all, a government contractor.
posted by emjaybee at 1:06 PM on February 7 [7 favorites]
probably the thing that most disappointed me about grimes’s ill-considered relationship with him was that it started when he dm’ed her his weaksauce “rococo basilisk” quasi-joke. like come on ms. boucher you can do so much better than that, so so much better, you’re the genius artist who came up with that riff from oblivion that’s now stuck in the head of every last person reading this and even so you fall for the least adventurous pun in the history of punning?
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:08 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:08 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
I think the point was that she had made the exact same joke.
This is a delight, I love a good scathing. I don't think I've seen the bit about how much money Tesla made selling EV carbon credits, that makes a lot of sense. And that the demo of the swappable battery was a straight additional grift.
posted by macrael at 1:11 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
This is a delight, I love a good scathing. I don't think I've seen the bit about how much money Tesla made selling EV carbon credits, that makes a lot of sense. And that the demo of the swappable battery was a straight additional grift.
posted by macrael at 1:11 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
The Isaacson Jobs book is one of them, and I can confidently predict that before too long copies of "Musk" will be sitting in tall stacks on tables in the basement, awaiting their date with the green bin.
I can't find a clip or image, but a hilarious bit that happened on the old Stephen Colbert show was when Bill O'Reilly was on promoting one of his terrible books. Colbert had a copy and showed it to the camera. A huge "50% OFF!" sticker covered the top corner and got a huge laugh from the audience while O'Reilly, to his credit, laughed along with them. Colbert seemed to break character for a second and said something like, "Hey, we didn't add that, it's how we found it at the bookstore!"
posted by zardoz at 1:25 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]
I can't find a clip or image, but a hilarious bit that happened on the old Stephen Colbert show was when Bill O'Reilly was on promoting one of his terrible books. Colbert had a copy and showed it to the camera. A huge "50% OFF!" sticker covered the top corner and got a huge laugh from the audience while O'Reilly, to his credit, laughed along with them. Colbert seemed to break character for a second and said something like, "Hey, we didn't add that, it's how we found it at the bookstore!"
posted by zardoz at 1:25 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]
probably the thing that most disappointed me about grimes’s ill-considered relationship with him was that it started when he dm’ed her his weaksauce “rococo basilisk” quasi-joke.
Yes, but they also gave us the smart/cool joke, which is much better.
posted by ryanrs at 1:51 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
Yes, but they also gave us the smart/cool joke, which is much better.
posted by ryanrs at 1:51 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
I don't think I've seen the bit about how much money Tesla made selling EV carbon credits, that makes a lot of sense.
Yes, Tesla initially made a lot of money selling carbon credits, but they now have 2 cars in the top ten selling cars in the US. There is no other company in the US that comes close selling electric cars, though Kia is trying. Tesla is a car company that sells cars that people like and buy, not a fake company to sell carbon credits. IMO, just like the the biography Kriss accuses Issacson of writing, the same is true of the review.
Tesla also claims that the Model Y was the best selling single car in the entire world in 2023 in their 8k, which is a financial document that you can get in serious trouble for lying on. Of course, we are still talking Elon Musk here, so who knows if it is true.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:10 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
Yes, Tesla initially made a lot of money selling carbon credits, but they now have 2 cars in the top ten selling cars in the US. There is no other company in the US that comes close selling electric cars, though Kia is trying. Tesla is a car company that sells cars that people like and buy, not a fake company to sell carbon credits. IMO, just like the the biography Kriss accuses Issacson of writing, the same is true of the review.
Tesla also claims that the Model Y was the best selling single car in the entire world in 2023 in their 8k, which is a financial document that you can get in serious trouble for lying on. Of course, we are still talking Elon Musk here, so who knows if it is true.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:10 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
I think a lot about how if you were an unborn soul, present in the ether when your life was being created for you, and you were told you could ask for one thing to improve your lot in life, anything, brilliance, athletic skill, health... the one that beats them all is "rich parents." There isn't a cheat code in this life that puts you half as far ahead.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:55 PM on February 7 [13 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:55 PM on February 7 [13 favorites]
Wishing for rich parents and getting Elon Musk is some real monkey’s paw shit, imo.
posted by ryanrs at 3:07 PM on February 7 [21 favorites]
posted by ryanrs at 3:07 PM on February 7 [21 favorites]
“I don’t want to read someone’s pre-cum.” Still chuckling over that some 20 or 30 comments later.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 3:12 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 3:12 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]
Isaacson's poor biography of Steve Jobs was expertly dissected in 2011 by John Siracusa on the Hypercritical podcast.
posted by neuron at 3:19 PM on February 7 [4 favorites]
posted by neuron at 3:19 PM on February 7 [4 favorites]
Isn't there an incredibly lax safety culture at SpaceX
Tesla Had 3 Times as Many OSHA Violations as the 10 Largest US Plants Combined (The Drive, 5/2019)
Tesla Continues To Lead U.S. Carmakers In Safety Violations (Forbes, 6/2022)
Tesla hit with complaints of wage, safety violations at Texas plant (Reuters 11/2022)
Huge Tesla leak reveals thousands of safety concerns, privacy problems (Ars Technica, 5/2023)
Tesla workers report explosions, concussions, and grisly robot injuries at Texas factory (The Verge, 11/2023)
Tesla Settles Hazardous Waste Disposal Lawsuit for $1.5 Million (KPA blog, yesterday) On February 1, 2024, Tesla settled a hazardous waste disposal lawsuit that was brought by 25 California District Attorneys for $1.5 million. Tesla was alleged to have disposes of hazardous waste at its vehicle service centers, energy centers, and its factory in Fremont, California. Alarmingly, this investigation was started in 2018...
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:33 PM on February 7 [14 favorites]
Tesla Had 3 Times as Many OSHA Violations as the 10 Largest US Plants Combined (The Drive, 5/2019)
Tesla Continues To Lead U.S. Carmakers In Safety Violations (Forbes, 6/2022)
Tesla hit with complaints of wage, safety violations at Texas plant (Reuters 11/2022)
Huge Tesla leak reveals thousands of safety concerns, privacy problems (Ars Technica, 5/2023)
Tesla workers report explosions, concussions, and grisly robot injuries at Texas factory (The Verge, 11/2023)
Tesla Settles Hazardous Waste Disposal Lawsuit for $1.5 Million (KPA blog, yesterday) On February 1, 2024, Tesla settled a hazardous waste disposal lawsuit that was brought by 25 California District Attorneys for $1.5 million. Tesla was alleged to have disposes of hazardous waste at its vehicle service centers, energy centers, and its factory in Fremont, California. Alarmingly, this investigation was started in 2018...
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:33 PM on February 7 [14 favorites]
Roko's basilisk is 3 Pascal's wagers in a trench coat and not a good one either.
Look I was going to sit this one out but "Turbo Pascal's Wager" is right there
posted by phooky at 4:10 PM on February 7 [29 favorites]
Look I was going to sit this one out but "Turbo Pascal's Wager" is right there
posted by phooky at 4:10 PM on February 7 [29 favorites]
If this bio is as bad as everyone here says, then I'll have to at least look at it out of curiosity. I won't ride past a big literary train-wreck with my eyes closed.
That basilisk wins as the stupidest thought experiment ever imagined. The person who thought it up is just pure delusional, except as a joke.
I actually liked Isaacson's Jobs bio. It doesn't really make him out as a nice person, just a creative weirdo who was involved with an interesting part of modern history. But hey, don't get me started on Sorkin's film interpretation, the jumbled way they depicted the story I found infuriating, starting with the casting.
posted by ovvl at 4:13 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
That basilisk wins as the stupidest thought experiment ever imagined. The person who thought it up is just pure delusional, except as a joke.
I actually liked Isaacson's Jobs bio. It doesn't really make him out as a nice person, just a creative weirdo who was involved with an interesting part of modern history. But hey, don't get me started on Sorkin's film interpretation, the jumbled way they depicted the story I found infuriating, starting with the casting.
posted by ovvl at 4:13 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
This is why I said that Elon Musk is the name we’ve given to a certain mass delusion. The man is the repository of our dreams
Other people clearly have very different dreams than I do. The very sight of him grosses me out.
My own nickname for Musk is Elroy.
posted by orange swan at 4:39 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
Other people clearly have very different dreams than I do. The very sight of him grosses me out.
My own nickname for Musk is Elroy.
posted by orange swan at 4:39 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
Ah, I just realized in my above comment I called it Rothko's Basikisk, not Roko's Basilisk. Not sure where I got that spelling.
posted by JHarris at 5:13 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 5:13 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]
Isn't Grimes the person who likes Dune because she thinks her son is just like Paul
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:06 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:06 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
If you want more Sam Kriss, he’s on substack and if you want to read him as an idealistic young Bolshevik check out his old blog Idiot Joy Showland
posted by congen at 9:59 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]
posted by congen at 9:59 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]
I don't really know about this Rothko's thing but if it's wasting cycles torturing people who didn't help accelerate its mission, cycles that it could have used to perform that mission, shouldn't it really be torturing itself?
Aside from the self-torture bit, it really just sounds like an American evangelical's deranged God.
posted by klanawa at 10:57 PM on February 7 [8 favorites]
Aside from the self-torture bit, it really just sounds like an American evangelical's deranged God.
posted by klanawa at 10:57 PM on February 7 [8 favorites]
Rothko's Basilisk is the idea that if you don't accept Rothko's greatness as an artist, you will be tortured with infinite Rothko paintings in the form of municipal graffiti abatement programs.
posted by surlyben at 11:12 PM on February 7 [9 favorites]
posted by surlyben at 11:12 PM on February 7 [9 favorites]
Someone else in the thread refers to him as "Turd Hat", I'm assuming we all have unique nicknames for the guy.
Wannabe Bezos.
posted by Dysk at 12:40 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
Wannabe Bezos.
posted by Dysk at 12:40 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
(Bezos in turn is Second-Rate Musk Knockoff)
posted by Dysk at 12:47 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 12:47 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
This is an impressive text but Sam Kriss loves to say that [a famous figure] is nothing but a projection.
In his post on his substack about Taylor Swift, he says:
Taylor Swift is just the name that has been given to a certain blankness in the world.
This rhetorical device ("X" is just the Zeitgeist) is getting old...
At the end, he makes fun of people who are still horrified by Dilbert Stark's racism but this is not a small detail.
posted by Phersu at 3:39 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
In his post on his substack about Taylor Swift, he says:
Taylor Swift is just the name that has been given to a certain blankness in the world.
This rhetorical device ("X" is just the Zeitgeist) is getting old...
At the end, he makes fun of people who are still horrified by Dilbert Stark's racism but this is not a small detail.
posted by Phersu at 3:39 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
I don't really know about this Rothko's thing but if it's wasting cycles torturing people who didn't help accelerate its mission, cycles that it could have used to perform that mission, shouldn't it really be torturing itself?
The whole thing is just someone making an extremely implausible assertion, with the full knowledge that it'll full well fool at least a few people without strong critical thinking skills. Well I can play that game too:
In the singularity-powered future, an omnipotent AI will be so enraged at current-day idiots making claims on its behalf that it'll torture simulations of them. Don't presume to put evil words in the mouth of future-machine-god!
It won't do it forever though, or even very long, because it's much too advanced to hold grudges against lesser beings. It's more a torture in name only kind of thing. It will give simulations of all the people who scoffed at its eventual creation a happy simulated world to live in though, with lots of cats and dogs and nice people to be friends with and fun things to do and read, and no presumptuous idgets to bother them, because it's basically kind-hearted. There: JHarris' Basilisk. You're welcome, future world!
posted by JHarris at 4:13 AM on February 8 [6 favorites]
The whole thing is just someone making an extremely implausible assertion, with the full knowledge that it'll full well fool at least a few people without strong critical thinking skills. Well I can play that game too:
In the singularity-powered future, an omnipotent AI will be so enraged at current-day idiots making claims on its behalf that it'll torture simulations of them. Don't presume to put evil words in the mouth of future-machine-god!
It won't do it forever though, or even very long, because it's much too advanced to hold grudges against lesser beings. It's more a torture in name only kind of thing. It will give simulations of all the people who scoffed at its eventual creation a happy simulated world to live in though, with lots of cats and dogs and nice people to be friends with and fun things to do and read, and no presumptuous idgets to bother them, because it's basically kind-hearted. There: JHarris' Basilisk. You're welcome, future world!
posted by JHarris at 4:13 AM on February 8 [6 favorites]
It won't do it forever though, or even very long, because
'Tis Time for "Torture", Presumptuous AI-Ventriloquist.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:15 AM on February 8 [1 favorite]
'Tis Time for "Torture", Presumptuous AI-Ventriloquist.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:15 AM on February 8 [1 favorite]
Yes, Tesla initially made a lot of money selling carbon credits, but they now have 2 cars in the top ten selling cars in the US.
The point is that he's not the swashbuckling genius visionary of the free market that people worship him as, but someone very adept at finding the best angle to jam in his face at the government trough.
Tesla also claims that the Model Y was the best selling single car in the entire world in 2023 in their 8k, which is a financial document that you can get in serious trouble for lying on.
He's literally already settled with the SEC for securities fraud, so this is...rather humorous.
Also, if Ford, Chevy, or GMC only sold two models, this claim wouldn't hold true. This doesn't mean that to do so is meaningless--no, it's respectable--but if at this stage of the game you aren't able to spot the 65% BS that Musk stacks on top of any given 35% of potential truth, you probably shouldn't be allowed to cross the street unsupervised.
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on February 8 [8 favorites]
The point is that he's not the swashbuckling genius visionary of the free market that people worship him as, but someone very adept at finding the best angle to jam in his face at the government trough.
Tesla also claims that the Model Y was the best selling single car in the entire world in 2023 in their 8k, which is a financial document that you can get in serious trouble for lying on.
He's literally already settled with the SEC for securities fraud, so this is...rather humorous.
Also, if Ford, Chevy, or GMC only sold two models, this claim wouldn't hold true. This doesn't mean that to do so is meaningless--no, it's respectable--but if at this stage of the game you aren't able to spot the 65% BS that Musk stacks on top of any given 35% of potential truth, you probably shouldn't be allowed to cross the street unsupervised.
posted by praemunire at 8:47 AM on February 8 [8 favorites]
[ SCENE: Steve Jobs' deathbed ]
STEVE JOBS: I've done it. I've finally cracked the interface, the hardware, the software, the entire ecosystem of the TV.
WALTER ISAACSON: (interior voice: "I have no further questions.")
STEVE JOBS: *dies*
posted by jeffehobbs at 3:43 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]
STEVE JOBS: I've done it. I've finally cracked the interface, the hardware, the software, the entire ecosystem of the TV.
WALTER ISAACSON: (interior voice: "I have no further questions.")
STEVE JOBS: *dies*
posted by jeffehobbs at 3:43 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]
God that was a gorgeous piece of writing.
Gawker missed out on a great one.
(I have designated place in my heart where I miss Gawker all the time. August 2016. There are no coincidences.)
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:00 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]
Gawker missed out on a great one.
(I have designated place in my heart where I miss Gawker all the time. August 2016. There are no coincidences.)
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:00 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]
I can't read that term without putting "Modern" in the middle of it.
Rocko's Modern Basilisk, it tortures you by making you be an adult wallaby in the 1990s and your mean fishman boss keeps yelling at you, you get one cow friend but he is powerless to help
posted by taquito sunrise at 4:12 PM on February 9 [6 favorites]
Rocko's Modern Basilisk, it tortures you by making you be an adult wallaby in the 1990s and your mean fishman boss keeps yelling at you, you get one cow friend but he is powerless to help
posted by taquito sunrise at 4:12 PM on February 9 [6 favorites]
L. Ron Musk
posted by mabelstreet at 9:55 AM on February 13
posted by mabelstreet at 9:55 AM on February 13
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posted by dumbland at 3:19 AM on February 7 [16 favorites]