as much as a straight man can love a straight man

— Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. […] Have a nice day, DJT! […] Oh and some food for thought as they ponder this question: Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years”

— The easiest way to save money is to TERMINATE Elon [Musk]’s government subsidies and contracts.

— Go ahead, make my day.

{ CNN | Continue reading }

Tesla shares sink 14% in heavy volume

February 26, 2025.— Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding. Government infusions at key moments helped Tesla and SpaceX flourish, boosting Musk’s wealth.

March 19, 2025.— The true genius of Elon Musk is his subsidy harvesting strategy

Today.— Tesla share price

Previously.— Excessive use of the drug can make anyone feel like they rule the world

And.— At recreational doses, ketamine is addictive, destroys the bladder, and is toxic to the central nervous system.

phone call…

Are you hiring?
No.
Good! Can I have your company’s name?
Why?
I have to tell the Unemployment Department that I am looking for a job.
This is the Unemployment Department. Can I get your name?
(click)

{ Stories from a used book store owner | Continue reading }

{ The Shortest Papers Ever Published }

{ YassifyBot }

This past winter, Goldman Sachs was closing in on a $40 million investment in Ozy, a digital media company founded in 2013, and there seemed to be a lot of reasons to do the deal. Ozy boasted of a large audience for its general interest website, its newsletters and its videos, and the company had a charismatic chief executive, Carlos Watson, a onetime cable news anchor who had worked at Goldman Sachs early in his career. And, crucially, Ozy said it had a great relationship with YouTube, where many of its videos attracted more than a million views.

That’s what the Zoom videoconference on Feb. 2 that Ozy arranged between the Goldman Sachs asset management division and YouTube was supposed to be about. The scheduled participants included Alex Piper, the head of unscripted programming for YouTube Originals. He was running late and apologized to the Goldman Sachs team, saying he’d had trouble logging onto Zoom, and he suggested that the meeting be moved to a conference call […] Once everyone had made the switch to an old-fashioned conference call, the guest told the bankers what they had been wanting to hear: that Ozy was a great success on YouTube, racking up significant views and ad dollars, and that Mr. Watson was as good a leader as he seemed to be. As he spoke, however, the man’s voice began to sound strange to the Goldman Sachs team, as though it might have been digitally altered, the four people said.

After the meeting, someone on the Goldman Sachs side reached out to Mr. Piper, not through the Gmail address that Mr. Watson had provided before the meeting, but through Mr. Piper’s assistant at YouTube. […] A confused Mr. Piper told the Goldman Sachs investor that he had never spoken with her before. Someone else, it seemed, had been playing the part of Mr. Piper on the call with Ozy. […]

Within days, Mr. Watson had apologized profusely to Goldman Sachs, saying the voice on the call belonged to Samir Rao, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Ozy, according to the four people.

In his apology to Goldman Sachs and in an email to me on Friday, Mr. Watson attributed the incident to a mental health crisis and shared what he said were details of Mr. Rao’s diagnosis.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

{ Donald Trump Authentic 24kt Gold Plated Commemorative Bank Note, $4.58 }

unrelated { Japanese whiskey worth $5,800 gifted to Pompeo is missing, State filings say }

While Vancouver is technically one of the warmest cities in Canada, this fact is greatly diminished when one learns that it is also one of the wettest places in the country. So, though a visitor may not encounter the frigid temperatures common in other parts of Canada during non-summer seasons, any outdoor experience will undoubtedly be damp and depressing.

Visitors will find many of the supposed must-see attractions pushed by other travel blogs quite lacklustre. The Granville Island Public Market for instance, often deemed an essential stop, offers nothing particularly exceptional beyond what can be found in many other cities around North America.

The same can be said about the city’s famed ‘Steam Clock’, which despite having been styled to appear as a relic from the 19th-century, was in fact only built in 1977.

{ Snarky Travel | Continue reading }

NYC man sells fart for $85, cashing in on NFT craze […] Ramírez-Mallis and his fellow farters compiled the recordings into a 52-minute “Master Collection” audio file. Now, the top bid for the file is currently $183. Individual fart recordings are also available for 0.05 Ethereum, or about $85 a pop.

{ NY Post | Continue reading }

unrelated { Illegal Content and the Blockchain }

What Trump needed to do to make Television City a reality was to bring together different stakeholders: locals (like the late actor Paul Newman) who wanted parks and a less imposing development, and Ed Koch [mayor of New York City]. […]

Koch said Trump was “squealing like a stuck pig.” Trump said Koch’s New York had become a “cesspool of corruption and incompetence.” Koch said Trump was a “piggy, piggy, piggy.”

Trump said the mayor had “no talent and only moderate intelligence” and should be impeached. […]

Trump promised that he would eventually build Television City “with or without the current administration” in City Hall. But he never did.

Although New York developer William Zeckendorf Jr. offered Trump $550 million for the site in 1989 — which would have given him a handsome return on the $115 million in borrowed money he used to acquire the Yards four years earlier — he refused to sell.

In 1994, with the Yards bleeding about $23.5 million in annual carrying costs, and long after Koch had departed City Hall, Trump’s bankers forced him to give up control of the site. The property went to a group of Hong Kong investors, including New World Development, for $82 million and the assumption of about $250 million in debt Trump had amassed.

{ Bloomberg | Continue reading }

Trump had tried to reach Raffensperger at least 18 times before Saturday’s call, according to Raffensperger’s deputy, Jordan Fuchs, but the calls were patched to interns in the press office who thought it was a prank and didn’t realize it was actually the president on the line.

{ Washington Post | Continue reading }

Sacha Baron Cohen has responded to Donald Trump’s remarks about Borat 2

Donald—I appreciate the free publicity for Borat! I admit, I don’t find you funny either. But yet the whole world laughs at you.

I’m always looking for people to play racist buffoons, and you’ll need a job after Jan. 20. Let’s talk!

{ Sacha Baron Cohen | Quote: Borat }

{ Newsweek | White House Gift Shop }

Frequency of pornography use is associated with *lower* sexual problems, but problematic pornography use predicts more problems

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32810799/

It’s a problem but only when it’s problematic.

{ Neuroskeptic | Continue reading }

related { Spite fence | Fontainebleau Hotel Corp. v. Forty-Five Twenty-Five, Inc }

[Thanks Tim!]

[Thanks Rachel!]

{ Google Maps utilizes GPS and location data from mobile devices to determine if there is traffic congestion on a particular street. The app will then redirect users to less trafficked streets to avoid traffic. Using a hand cart filled with 99 active cell phones connected to Google Maps, artist Simon Weckert showed how he could create fake traffic jams in Google Maps simply by walking around the streets of Berlin. | Bleeping Computer | Continue reading }