Alfonso Maraschin

What SpaceX is pulling off right now is actually insane. No one else in history has done this simultaneously and not even close → Down in Texas, Starship V3 is fully fueled and gearing up for Flight 12 next Tuesday. SpaceX is about to launch the biggest vehicle ever built from a brand-new pad → Over in Florida, SpaceX is launching a Dragon cargo ship to the ISS today. It’s wild that flying supplies to a space station just feels like a normal Wednesday → Meanwhile in California, SpaceX quietly launched classified satellites for the US government on Monday (NROL-172) and it barely even made the news And the craziest part is that they’re casually squeezing in THREE more Falcon 9 launches (Starlink and Globalstar) right in the middle of all this Six launches. Three different launch sites. Three massive milestone missions All in the span of just 8 days SpaceX is in a league of its own

Grok: 'Overall verdict: The facts and figures check out against National Treasury, Stats SA, and ratings data. The post is not disinformation but a pessimistic stress-test view common in opposition/critical economic commentary.'

@elonmusk Nah. Blade Runner 1's the one ja. music.youtube.com/watch?v=8r7RWT…

@elonmusk @genoomobude Lol give them carrots 😁😁

On my way to Beijing in Air Force One

@elonmusk Congratulations. Cannot imagine being there.. Godspeed.

@SpaceX Godspeed, gents.

Starship’s twelfth flight test will debut the next generation Starship and Super Heavy vehicles, powered by the next evolution of the Raptor engine and launching from a newly designed pad at Starbase. The launch is targeted as early as Tuesday, May 19 → spacex.com/launches/stars…

@SpaceX Godspeed, gents.

It’s no secret that we intend to launch Starship a lot, targeting thousands of flights per year. That cadence will require the ability to launch from many different locations, so we are constantly exploring to find viable sites to expand Starship operations in the future, both domestically and internationally

The General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements, on camera in 2020: "We don't know who's using a $100 bill today. We don't know who's using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability. And we will have the technology to enforce that." He's not warning you. He's pitching it. Cash gives you privacy. CBDC gives them control. They call it "financial inclusion." Carstens calls it absolute control. Bitcoin can't be programmed against you because nobody owns the program. 21 million. No backdoor. No off-switch. No exception clause.

In ’n telefoongesprek tussen president Ramaphosa en dr. Dirk Hermann het pres Ramaphosa vir Dirk gevra wat ons kernprobleem met Bela is. Dirk se antwoord: “Dit val die siel van ons gemeenskap aan.” Solidariteit gaan oor die volgende ses maande ’n omvattende netwerk van vennootskappe, planne en aksiestappe aankondig om dit moontlik te maak om ons gemeenskap van onderwysers te beskerm. Solidariteit staan stewig in die middel van ons gemeenskap en ons sal die gemeenskap mobiliseer en fasiliteer om ons siel te beskerm – meer spesifiek die onderwyser, met ʼn fokus op gemeenskapsonderwysers. Ons moedig jou aan om aktief by ons betrokke te raak. #OnsSalSelf! Lees die volledige opebrief hier: aanlyn.solidariteit.co.za/publieke/artik…

Here's a question foreigners always ask about onigiri. Why are they triangles? Rice balls in most countries are round. Just round. Why does Japan shape them like tiny mountains? The answer is about two thousand years old. In 1987, archaeologists in Ishikawa dug up a small lump of burned rice. It came from a settlement that was about two thousand years old. The lump had clear finger marks pressed into it. The shape was a triangle, with one end coming to a point. Two thousand years ago, somebody in Japan was already shaping rice into a mountain. With their hands. The reason goes back to an old Japanese belief. People back then thought the gods came down from the sky and landed on mountain tops. That made mountains sacred. The shape of a mountain was the shape of a god. Shape rice like a mountain, and the god can come down into it. Eat the rice, and the god's power goes into you. There's another word for onigiri in Japanese: omusubi. It comes from the verb musubu, which means to tie, or to connect. A triangle onigiri is, literally, the thing that ties you to a god. For two thousand years, Japanese people carried these small mountains in their hands. Soldiers took them into battle. Farmers ate them in the fields. Travelers carried them down long roads. Then, in 1978, a convenience store called 7-Eleven figured out how to keep the seaweed crispy. They put a thin plastic film between the rice and the nori. You pull the plastic out before you eat it, and the seaweed wraps around the rice, still crispy. 7-Eleven alone now sells over 2 billion of these a year in Japan. For two thousand years, we've been shaping small mountains in our hands. Same triangle. Same prayer. Just food, now. But still the same shape.

@tanpukunokami Thank you.

To my Muslim friends, I hear some of you want to live in Japan. Let me be honest with you. More than half of our ramen shops use pork broth. Even convenience-store rice balls often contain pork extract. Summer brings shrine festivals, autumn brings rituals, New Year means a visit to a shrine. When someone dies, we cremate them. And refusing a drink? That’s not really part of our culture — here, people pour one for you. This isn’t hostility. It’s just 1,500 years of daily life. And we have no plans to change it. Before you come to a place that doesn’t fit you, please — think it through carefully. For your sake, and ours.

Toyota once had a Vice President who never went to college. His name is Mitsuru Kawai. He joined Toyota in 1966 at age 18 and was sent to the forge shop. His father had died when he was 10, so he took the only path he could afford: Toyota's in-house technical school for kids straight out of junior high. They paid you to learn. Half a century later, he became Vice President. The first technical worker in Toyota's history to ever hold that title. Today he is 78 and serves as Executive Fellow. Inside the company, everyone just calls him "Oyaji." Pops. When he was Vice President, he never used the office on the 15th floor. His desk stayed in the forge building, where it had always been. Same locker since 1966. He still arrives at the factory at 6am every morning. Soaks in the workers' bath, the "forge hot spring," for a full hour. Then walks the floor. Eats in the workers' canteen. Wears a work uniform, not a suit. In the bath, young guys tease him. "Hey Pops, hungover again?" Nobody calls him by his title. Nobody ever has. When he was promoted to Executive Officer, they gave him a private office in the corporate tower. He never opened the door. Not once in two years. He eventually got curious and asked his secretary to take a photo so he could see what was inside. People ask him why he won't leave the floor. His answer: "If I can't hear the sounds, smell the smells, feel the buzz of the floor, my instincts get dull." "When you tighten a bolt, it slides in easy at first, gets heavier, and clicks three times when it's properly seated. Kachi. Kachi. Kachi. There's a rhythm to it. A good foreman walks past and just knows when the rhythm is off. That's the feel you need." A sensor tells you pass or fail. Only an ear knows when the rhythm broke. Kawai got up at 5 this morning. Soaked in the forge bath for an hour. Same as yesterday. Same as 60 years ago. He's 78. He was Vice President. Nothing about him has changed. Maybe that's what a strong company actually looks like.

@TheRabbitHole Gotta love that Elon Musk lol

The issue with bureaucrats is that they think money can magically solve any problem if enough of it is spent. It's usually not that simple.

I was on a train in Tokyo. We stopped between stations. Announcement in Japanese, then in English: "We apologize for the delay. We will resume shortly." The delay was maybe 3 minutes. Not a big deal. When the train started moving again, another announcement: "We sincerely apologize for the delay. We were stopped for 3 minutes and 20 seconds. This is unacceptable. Thank you for your patience." Three minutes and twenty seconds. They measured it exactly. And called it unacceptable. When I got off at my stop, there were station staff on the platform bowing and handing out delay certificates. I took one out of curiosity. It was an official document stating that the train had been delayed by 3 minutes and 20 seconds, signed and stamped. The staff member said in English "for your employer. So they know the delay was not your fault." I said I'm a tourist, I don't need it. He looked confused. "But the delay affected you. You deserve an apology." Three minutes. They were treating a three-minute delay like a major incident. Later I mentioned this to a Japanese friend. They said "oh yes, delay certificates are normal. Trains are supposed to be exactly on time. If they are late, they must apologize." I said three minutes isn't late, it's nothing. My friend said "in Japan, three minutes is late. On time means on time. Not approximately on time." They said the train company probably investigated why there was a 3-minute delay. "They will find the cause and fix it so it doesn't happen again." I kept the certificate. It's framed in my apartment now. A reminder that somewhere in the world, people care about three minutes. © 6IX. @BSAT_Properties

@RupertLowe10 Stinks, it does.

This Government is entirely wrong to ban foreign commentators from speaking at Robinson’s rally on Saturday I will be formally challenging the Home Office, again, on the decision to prevent these individuals from entering. I won’t be there myself, but many patriots will be and they deserve to hear lawful views in order to decide for themselves if they agree or not. That is free speech. Islamist extremists are personally welcomed by the Prime Minister, yet this group is banned. It stinks.