Rucksack Tech (William Porter)

@elonmusk I've been to several launches and they're thrilling. And it's terrific the day before to drive around to Boca Chica to see the rocket on the launch pad. Breathtaking! Note: long drive even from Corpus Christi, and much longer from San Antonio where I live.

Anyone can visit the Starship factory and launch site in Texas, as it is right next to on the public highway. It is incredibly inspiring to see!

This is a painting from 1909. Zinaida Serebriakova’s At the Dressing-Table (Self-Portrait) is a 1909 oil-on-canvas masterpiece painted when the artist was just 25 years old. Snowed in at her family’s estate near Neskuchnoye—then part of the Russian Empire and now in Ukraine—Serebriakova found herself without access to models or travel, so she turned the brush on herself. Using her reflection in a mirror, she captured a quiet domestic scene surrounded by the everyday items on her dressing table. What makes the painting feel so strikingly contemporary is its warmth and spontaneity. Rather than presenting a formal, distant portrait, Serebriakova smiles directly at the viewer while brushing her hair, creating an intimate, candid moment that feels surprisingly modern for 1909—almost like a snapshot taken on a smartphone a century later. Today, the painting remains one of her most beloved works and is housed in the Tretyakov Gallery.

@america I don't know the rules well, but I thought that you could get an SSN without being a citizen and without being illegal. I thought people with green cards and so on had SSNs. Am I wrong?

Social Security Numbers issued to Non-Citizens over the past four years: 2021 — 270,425 2022 — 590,193 2023 — 964,163 2024 — 2,095,247

@cb_doge Don't abandon your other projects, which are more important to humanity. I'm not sure that America really WANTS to be saved, so don't kill yourself trying. (Yet I do pray that you succeed!)

@spacex Glad we decided not to make the 5 hour drive down to S Padre Island today to watch the launch that didn't happen. But am looking to getting down there next time. Been to a couple and boy they're exciting!

Bravo to @Apple. I'm no longer a big fan, but I applaud their refusal to build a backdoor for the UK. appleinsider.com/articles/25/02…

@daweiner Free speech guys? Yeah. Been a pretty defining belief for me my entire adult life.

I don’t want to connect my coffee machine to the wifi network. I don’t want to share the file with OneDrive. I don’t want to download an app to check my car’s fluid levels. I don’t want to scan a QR code to view the restaurant menu. I don’t want to let Google know my location before showing me the search results. I don’t want to include a Teams link on the calendar invite. I don’t want to pay 50 different monthly subscription fees for all my software. I don’t want to upgrade to TurboTax platinum plus audit protection. I don’t want to install the Webex plugin to join the meeting. I don’t want to share my car’s braking data with the actuaries at State Farm. I don’t want to text with your AI chatbot. I don’t want to download the Instagram app to look at your picture. I don’t want to type in my email address to view the content on your company’s website. I don’t want text messages with promo codes. I don’t want to leave your company a five-star Google review in exchange for the chance to win a $20 Starbucks gift card. I don’t want to join your exclusive community in the metaverse. I don’t want AI to help me write my comments on LinkedIn. I don’t even want to be on LinkedIn in the first place. I just want to pay for a product one time (and only one time), know that it’s going to work flawlessly, press 0 to speak to an operator if I need help, and otherwise be left alone and treated with some small measure of human dignity, if that’s not too much to ask anymore.

Ah. Why are European-Americans suddenly so inferior at math since like 1998? Why are the people of Newton, Einstein, Dirac, Crick, Feynman, Heisenberg etc suddenly no longer able to do first rate science? Excellent question! Do you want the brutal answer? Those "white kids" are being forced into trying to figure out how to capture the value created by those brown kids, because STEM careers in actual research have cratered in prestige, freedom, support and compensation. It's awful. But true. Do you want to raise a serf? I'm torn. Which is why I fight for scientists to capture wealth; science is my life, but I cannot stand the exploitation and abuse. You actually know this already, you just don't realize it. How many STEM researchers and research scientists have you seen at Mar-a-Lago in photos and stories? Name them. Try. When you think modern AI do you think about the 8 authors of the Transformer LLM architecture that changed our entire world with one paper? Can you name them? Any of them? Or do you think Altman, Musk, Zuckerberg, etc. like the rest of us (myself included)? Be honest. You think C-Suite or Sand Hill road VCs. The researchers simply vanish or become businessmen. We too often erase the people who do the actual STEM research. The PhD most responsible for the GFP revolution in biology (Douglas Prasher) got to drive a shuttle bus in Alabama for his career. Those who exploited his research felt so bad that they flew him to Stokholm to watch *them* get the Nobel prize. It's totally insane. No one knows this because we keep looking to Billionaires...those who capture the most value...to represent STEM. STEM rests on "SCIENCE COOLIES". That is what a UCSF lab head (PI) called his army of Chinese and Indian biologists in an interview with me around 2000: "My Science Coolies tell me..." The absence of white kids is because they generally come from native English speaking families before the 1965 immigration act that have been in the US a long time. Thus they get accurate information that grueling STEM research careers are now a terrible investment due to STEM EMPLOYER practices (e.g. H-1B, illegal collusion, lobbying) and the abandonment of STEM by the Federal Government beginning with the Mansfield ammendment 50+ years ago. They will eventually almost all move from the lab bench, the blackboard and the command line to signing pieces of paper in VC shops or Private Equity or some such higher value endeavor. We in STEM are all being pushed from creating the value to capturing the value. It's awful. "गोरे बच्चे यहाँ क्या कर रहे हैं?" or something like it is what I heard in New Jersey when our family traveled to the science fair. Literally asking "Why are there white kids here?" Can you imagine?? In New Jersey! Those Tamil and Bengali Brahmins from English speaking households will soon leave research too, to be replaced by Nepalese and Biharis. Then they will all get the message as well and search for non-research jobs. Before long you will see a push for Vietnamese and Cambodians. The Nigerians, Philipinos and Ethiopeans will be welcomed, but will soon depart in turn as the STEM employers continue to search for servants and 'coolies' anywhere they can find them. All using one bizarre mantra "The Best and the Brightest!" Because the employers treat researchers like servants. Fungible geeks. That is the culture we have to break. Those brilliant brown American kids winning our Olympiads will dream of flying Business Class. Maybe even First Class one day. Those equally brilliant white kids who would have loved to do science leaving the olympiads, now dream of not even being on the same airplane as long as they are also avoiding coach. Sorry "Cornered Hindu". I hate it. But you asked. Don't shoot the messenger.

Started the year with two weeks in Italy. That was wonderful. Coming home, not so much. Rats chewed through PEX pipe above our kitchen and caused our house to flood. So we're displaced for two-to-three months. Sigh. photos.app.goo.gl/kqu4gDscPxNHUd…

@dbd_IritLevi @hellosmartsuite In what ways do you find SmartSuite lacking? Not asking for obvious feature diffs (eg SmartSuite has no custom interfaces feature, doesn't support JavaScript) but things that have practical impact on what you can create with the platforms? Honest question. BTW I use both.

@RucksackTech @hellosmartsuite I find SmarSuite inferior to Airtable and lacking in so many ways. But I do get that some people connect with the layout. You can link DBs in an upgraded plan or using Softr

Testing out @hellosmartsuite today... Why create a new tool that does what all the rest are already doing... and not as good? Does anyone know what their USP is? #nocode #projectmanagement

Wife and I just returned from Port Isabel and S Padre Island where, Tuesday afternoon, we watched — EXPERIENCED — @SpaceX's sixth launch of Starship and the Super Heavy booster. We were with my brother-in-law and his wife, whose son (our nephew) and daughter-in-law both are senior engineers at SpaceX. It's thrilling to be this close to what is one of the most important adventures in human history. We were a bit sorry the return to the launch pad had to be aborted. We had an awesome view from the easternmost point of Port Isabel, 5.25 miles from Starbase on Boca Chica, across the South Bay, and we were hoping to see a repeat of the miraculous "chopstick catch" from test 5. Still, it wasn't disappointing. We did see Starship separate from Super Heavy. The sound of launch and flight was amazing. The FEEL of the sonic booms is indescribable. And the sight of the ignition, the terrifying flames, the smoke, and then seeing Starship rise out of the smoke into the sky — "thrilling" is too weak a word.

@NetworksManager It's curious, but couldn't it be that 150K Dems decided this time to vote for Donald Trump but did NOT want to vote for a Republican for lower races?

We’re supposed to believe that nearly 150,000 people voted for Trump as president to Make America Great Again and then voted for Democrat Ruben Gallego instead of staunch Trump supporter Kari Lake? I am not buying it. How about you?

#electionday2024 God only knows how many hours in the last year I've wasted listening to "reporting" about polls. If I were emperor, I'd make it illegal to publish the results of pre-election polls. Not illegal to do the polling, especially for campaigns, but illegal to PUBLISH the results. Being told how many of my neighbors are likely to vote one way or the other is not only not news, it's downright unhelpful to our democracy. Imagine if, instead, all those hours and hours and hours had been spent informing voters about the issues, explaining technical stuff, investigating the candidates' positions today and in the past, etc. But that would take WORK.

@ajtourville @SpaceX WHEN CAN I SIGN UP (for a Starlink DTC phone)?

NEWS: @SpaceX only needs five more Starlink launches to complete the first commercial Direct to Cell (DTC) constellation, according to SpaceX Sr Director of Satellite Engineering Ben Longmier. Upcoming Starlink launches: 1 → Group 9-10, today 2 → Group 6-77, Sunday

@PBSNature Very very sad news. "Queen of the Tetons" she was indeed, and a great model of motherhood.

Today we mourn the loss of Grizzly 399, the most famous bear in Grand Teton National Park and the star of our documentary "Grizzly 399: Queen of the Tetons." ❤️

@SwipeWright @elonmusk @SpaceX Funny, but also really depressing. Musk dealing with the federal bureaucracy reminds me of Judge Bork being questioned on the Constitution by Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden.

This story of strangulation by over-regulation from @elonmusk about the government requiring @SpaceX to asses whether their rockets could potentially hit SHARKS and WHALES is side-splittingly hilarious. 🤣

@CilComLFC Who is Howard Stern?

BREAKING: Howard Stern says he "hates" anyone who votes for Donald Trump in November and demands they stop listening to his radio show. What’s your reaction?

@lazlototh67 @heraclitusfan99 Read Strauss's comment again. He says Churchill's success against Hitler contributed "through no fault of Churchill's" to the rise of Stalin. He's not BLAMING Churchill. He's just observing what happened.

@heraclitusfan99 Blaming him for contributing to Stalin was unfair. Britain was already up against more than a nation of its size would have been expected to handle, and once Germany & Japan surrendered troops would've mutinied as they did after WWI if they were ordered to continue fighting.

On January 25, 1965, the day after Churchill's death, Leo Strauss began his class with these remarks: