World, Writing, Wealth discussion

I hope she or ex-he didn't count on a swimming career:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...

Nik wrote: "I hope she or ex-he didn't count on a swimming career:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/..."

I hope she realizes that he can take him money away along with his seeing her.

Uh, this thread isn't about Howard Hughes. Nice try changing the subject, though, Papa :-)

I agree with Musk on this: "“I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare.” Referring to a singular person with the plural pronouns "they" and "them" is very confusing and illogical.

We really need one new word to state "he or she but not neuter" as the quoted phrase is just plain clumsy.

What kind of man is he?

Former NASA official says a Russian designer famously inspired Elon Musk to launch SpaceX by spitting on his shoes
https://news.yahoo.com/former-nasa-of...

Scout wrote: "I agree with Musk on this: "“I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare.” Referring to a singular person with the plural pronouns "they" and "them" is very confusi..."

This will pass as does all stupidity, except politicians.

J. wrote: "What kind of man is he?

Former NASA official says a Russian designer famously inspired Elon Musk to launch SpaceX by spitting on his shoes
https://news.yahoo.com/former-nasa-of...-..."

Tue or not, it is a great story.

To appreciate the impact of starlink:

https://military.aaj-tak.com/ukrainex...

Thanks for that link about the spit, J. Being dissed is good for inspiring people. I remember Trump being dissed at that White House Correspondents' dinner. I thought then that he would run for president, and he did. Be careful about dissing people; it will come back to bite you :-)

Nik, Starlink is another thing that makes Musk my hero :-)

Does anyone have any idea how much money Musk has received in Federal grants? I gather your taxes have been working well in favour of Musk.

If a member asks something, can't help but do this extra mile to deliver :)
Hard to tell how true or accurate, but that's what internet tells us:
https://www.grid.news/story/technolog...
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-...

Thank you Nik. I had this feeling that Musk has had assistance from the general taxpayer.

Do you think tax payers in the U.S. and people in other countries have benefited or not from this investment?

Americans will have to answer for the US tax payers. For us foreigners, so far, not much in the way of benefits, but no cost either

Scout wrote: "Do you think tax payers in the U.S. and people in other countries have benefited or not from this investment?"

Hard to quantify and balance, but Starlink proved vital for Ukraine in the war, SpaceX leads in space industry. Know too little to evaluate Tesla, even though I bought 1 share in it :)

Scout wrote: "Do you think tax payers in the U.S. and people in other countries have benefited or not from this investment?"

I think it is probably early to determine that, but I will say generally speaking, private investment in larger projects tends to bring benefits for all or they fall apart.

Musk has apparently put up a cloud of minisatelltes, that presumably will end up as major contributors to the space junk problem.

Ian wrote: "Musk has apparently put up a cloud of minisatelltes, that presumably will end up as major contributors to the space junk problem."

Of they could be sent to crash in the ocean when their time is done like many other satellites.

I don't think they have enough control. I think Musk expects them to burn up in the atmosphere when they fall out of orbit, but that could take a lot of time. I am sure that a number of astronomers are annoyed with Musk because it makes the analysis of their pictures much more difficult.

Ian wrote: "I don't think they have enough control. I think Musk expects them to burn up in the atmosphere when they fall out of orbit, but that could take a lot of time. I am sure that a number of astronomers..."

I have heard of them, but what do they actually do?

Not sure. I think they are communication satellites and the number of them gets world coverage without having to go out to geostationary.

I do know the Russians and Chinese see them a threats and have threatened taking them out. If they are not geostationary and in low orbit, they they will crash at some point.

Yes, but orbits still degrade very slowly. If they stay there for 100 years, and get replaced every decade there could be a lot of rubbish up there.

On a few occasions I heard from businessmen involved in space industry that there are projects on developing space cleaners/janitors

Be a fun job. Space is a big place, and these orbits have a serious inclination. Their orbital velocity is something like 17,000 mph, and variation in the phase displacement of the orbits can lead to collisions of about half that. Collecting a few kg lump of metal coming at you at 8000 mph makes catching a cannonball look simple.

Just one of the examples:
https://recyclinginternational.com/re...

A noble ambition, but collecting them one at a time won't keep up[ with supply :-). I wonder how they are going to separate the elements? The outer casing is probably simple enough to recycle as long as you do not want to use it for anything but basic uses (because there are all sorts of minor additives, but they are not standard) but the inside equipment (why it was put up) can have over a couple of dozen elements, all of which have to be separated from each other. That is a difficult job down here - up there, much more difficult.

The interesting recycling job is all of the nuclear powered Russian spy satellites that have reached EOL and have been put in a high parking orbit.

Elon works hard to keep us thrilled:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/te...

Elon expected Twitter to count the number of spam posts??? Really?

I think he is playing Elon games.

Papaphilly wrote: "I think he is playing Elon games."

Elon's head games are a better spectator sport than soccer.

Musk dropped the Twitter deal. Twitter has retained council and begun litigation. Space Daddy responded with a meme, on Twitter.

https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/s...

🤣

J. wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "I think he is playing Elon games."

Elon's head games are a better spectator sport than soccer.

Musk dropped the Twitter deal. Twitter has retained council and begun litigation...."

That is a WIN!

Still my hero :-)

Just not his father.....

Elon Musk’s brutal response to dad Errol’s child with stepdaughter Jana Bezuidenhout
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment...

What is the correct reaction to finding out that your new niece will also be your sister?

EWWWWWWWW

Wonder whether Tesla's autopilot can be as problematic as Boeing's Max's or maybe just a dirty competition:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/tesla...

Some dudes aren't happy and I can't dismiss their grudge as totally pointless:
https://observer.com/2022/09/elon-mus...
The crypto king would have to answer.
They claim dogecoin has no value, but what value any cryptocurrency has?

Not a fan of any crypto.

I guess it’s time for you to meet your future waiter, porter, soldier and generally - any physical labor performer/enabler :

https://amp.theguardian.com/technolog...
These gonna drastically change employment as we know it and armies too. Remember Terminator? Too bad Elon didn’t solicit a permission to use Arnold’s face. For some though humans will always remain a “cheaper” option than 20k worth robot 🤖. Cynical, I know.

Nik wrote: "I guess it’s time for you to meet your future waiter, porter, soldier and generally - any physical labor performer/enabler :

https://amp.theguardian.com/technolog......"

Sgt. Candy
https://youtu.be/kayFrIR-Qfw

An excellent demo!

I don't know whether to be amazed or freaked out by that robot. It does look like you could just push it over and run if it got aggressive. You know me, not a fan of AI :-)

J., that accent :-) Amazing I haven't seen that before.

As I've said before, humans championing AI are like turkeys voting for Christmas.

:-)

Not my hero on this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/wo...

Yeah, Elon is probably still smoking marijuana...

I mean, I don't pretend to know how to go to space cheaply and am not stupid enough to build a factory in China. Elon is gonna learn about the CCP's lure-trap-kill foreign investment policies.

I do however claim to be a highly trained foreign policy analyst.

1. Ukraine will win.
2. This ends with war criminal Putin DEAD or in the docket for war crimes.
3. Elon Musk should NEVER run for public office.