A Large Regular

Many a truth is said in jest.

- Heh Heh

- Facebook's AI

- Funny because it's true

- Also funny because its true!

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- VDH on Who is "Destroying Democracy in Darkness?" Keep earing Roger Daltrey of The Who singing "Won't get fooled again" when I read this.

- Glenn Reynolds on Health Moms following RFK Jr. to Trump's team.

- Zuckerberg admits that Facebook faced government censorship from the Biden Administration. It also seems to be coming apart of the Biden family.

- Tucker Carlson and RFK Jr.

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Venezuela's post WW II GDP

- No matter your politics you must call for President Joe Biden to stand up for the Venezuelan people now!

- Jonathan Turley on the effort to "reform" the Supreme Court.

- Facebook acknowledges that it "mistakenly" censored iconic Trump assassination attempt photo. How come all there Big Tech "errors" always seem to favor one party?

Many a truth is said in jest.

- Funny because it could be true!

- Funny because it was true!

- I'm an awful person for laughing at this

- I feel seen.

Many a truth is said in jest.

- This was not a jest.

- Funny but you know somewhere a price list exists.

- Some of these are pretty good.

- Heh Heh

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share,

- Tucker Carlson Episode 70 with Russell Brand.

- The rise of techno-authoritarianism.

- Jeff Hafley leaves BC football for the Packers. College ball has become more about raising money than about football.

- Morgan Housel with A Few Thoughts on Spending Money

 Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Elon Musk plans to donate $100 million towards STEM schools in Austin. Texas based Tesla needs smart people and the traditional schools aren't providing them.

- Tucker Carlson Episode 51

- Facebook DEI chief found guilty of $4 million kickback scheme. Shocker!

- Morgan Housel on Long-term News. To quote William Goldman, "No one knows anything."

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Sam Altman on How to be Successful. Long but impactful read that should be taken to heart. (HT Tim Ferriss)

-  A look at the post Frank Beamer struggles at Virginia Tech. Interesting read that subconsciously makes the case for relegation in college football.

- Dan Wetzel on how state governments are using NIL to juice in-state recruiting.

- Reminder - the more you use something like Facebook/Meta the worse you feel

More stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Truflation is a site you should check periodically.

- Matt Taibbi on Facebook allowing the Biden White House to censor content.

- I wasn't aware I was in need of a new conspiracy theory but there you go.

- Shocker - not one 8th grade student at Lebron James' I Promise School has passed state's math test in 3-years. Either these scores are due to the school only being 5-years old, the school starting in 8th grade (and the failure is really on who was "teaching" the students before) or James is much better at PR than education. Not sure.

 Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"It's impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows." - Epictetus

"The man at the top of the mountain didn't fall there." - Vince Lombardi

"It's funny how everyone agrees that Facebook is called Meta now, but nobody really believes Google is Alphabet." - Noah Smith

"In a better world we'd get to hear what Michael Crichton and Christopher Hitchens had to say about the WEF." - Joel Engel

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

-  CDC had Facebook censor speech and debate about Covid too

- Yesterday was Dolly Parton's 77th birthday. She's an American treasure.

- This is what real journalism looks like

- Morgan Housel on FOMO: the worst financial trait

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- The Twitter Files - The FBI Connection. "Twitter's contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if they were a subsidiary."

- Fathers and sons.

- Don't think Biden would ever push back on Xi like this

- Facebook is also shadow banning.

Facebook/Meta to lay off 11,000 (13% of their workforce). Stock has dropped "more than 71% since the beginning of the year and the stock now trades at levels last seen in 2015." In a prepared statement Mark Zuckerberg admitted, "Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected." Ya think?

Don't feel too bad for the laid off employees as they "will receive 16 weeks of base pay, plus two additional weeks for every year with the company." In addition they will receive 6 months of paid health insurance and compensation for any unused PTO. Not a bad deal. 

Two additional notes; found it interesting that the AP article referred to Elon Musk as "billionaire Elon Musk" but did not apply the same adjective to Zuckerberg. Second, we should remember that a year ago about this time Zuckerberg declared that Facebook was "going to war" with Apple over Apple's new privacy policies. Guess it's now clear who won that war. 

A new rigorous study confirms what most of us knew already. Why anyone is still on Facebook (aka Meta) is beyond me.

The article is from the Harvard Business Review. Is there any irony in the fact that Facebook was born at Harvard?  

This is hilarious. I don't think Meta's going to be a big success. Someone should have asked the chatbot about Meta's stock.

Also reminded of the quote of when someone tells you who they are - believe them. The chatbot may have just told the world what Meta (and Mark Zuckerberg) really are. I believe the chatbot. 

HT Digg

Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so." - Ennius

"Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose." - Eckhart Tolle

"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see it stays there." - George Orwell

"God only knows what it's [social media] doing to our children's brains." - Sean Parker (Facebook's first President)

When Mark Zuckerberg is shoveling $10 billion into a product he can't accurately describe - you do have to think scam. Saying, "Oh I'll just trust Mark Zuckerberg" is probably not a good position to take (on the Metaverse or anything).

Reading the article I kept wondering if the Metaverse is based on an Underwear Gnomes business model.

Interesting look at why FaceBook may be in trouble.

It should also be noted that the pivot to VR and rebranding as Meta may not work. You don't always want to be first in a market - Apple wasn't the first company to come out with a smartphone for example. Meta may find themselves becoming the MySpace of virtual reality with the real market leader in that space yet to even be founded. 

Inside Facebook's strategy to bring war to Apple.

Interesting - is Facebook really betting the company on Occulus and VR because of Apple?  It should be noted that the above article was posted a week prior to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing the name change to Meta.

Matt Taibbi with a look at the blatant hypocrisy of certain media outlets in regards to the "Facebook Papers" campaign.

I may have become numb to the hypocrisy of the media in our society (at this point when you mention media - isn't hypocrisy automatically assumed?) but I hope I never become numb to Taibbi's ability to colorfully turn a phrase like; "Buzzfeed in particular represented the media equivalent of blowing strangers in Grand Central for crack money." Keep up the good work Mr. Taibbi!