EMu is not nearly as smart as his PR makes him out to be:

“It is all going to get so much dumber,” I wrote yesterday, about Elon Musk’s efforts to get out of his deal to buy Twitter Inc. by complaining about bots. Seventy-three minutes later, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted this:

Today I’m investigating Twitter for potentially misleading Texans on the number of its “bot” users. I have a duty to protect Texans if Twitter is misrepresenting how many accounts are fake to drive up their revenue.

The press release is … so dumb? 

(Via Matt Levine at Money Stuff)

Remember, EMu chose to not do the due diligence he was free to do before committing to buying Twitter. And …

To be clear, Twitter has claimed that bots are fewer than 5% of “monetizable daily active users” (not “all users”) for eight years, and the “intense scrutiny in recent weeks” consists entirely of Elon Musk claiming, with no evidence, that there are a lot of bots because he regrets agreeing to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share just before a market crash. This is a regulatory investigation entirely for the purposes of trolling: Paxton is harassing Twitter because (1) Musk moved to Texas, (2) Musk announced, like two weeks ago, that he’s a Republican, (3) Musk has a passionate fan base on Twitter, and (4) Musk is trying to rile up that fan base against Twitter by complaining about bots. So Paxton is happy to hitch himself to that: If he harasses Twitter on Musk’s behalf, he will endear himself to Musk’s fans online, which seems valuable for an elected official though not, of course, for his constituents, or for the rule of law. The fact that this is all completely fake is beside the point, as is the fact that Paxton himself is currently under indictment for felony securities fraud. This all seems bad! I don’t know what to tell you! This is not how one wants one’s democracy to be going! 

Regardless of what happens with EMu and Twitter, and I expect that it will be a roller coaster, one cannot help but think about how this misadventure will sour institutions to working with this … I don’t know, person? He jerked investors around with Tesla. News outlets can’t help themselves but post that gawdawful picture of EMu and real world evil Sauron PeTh in front of a CRT display.

Where will Texas AG Paxton find time to fight EMu’s battles when he’s so busy getting into bedrooms and dining rooms and doctor’s offices (but not personal armories) where he thinks the government should be?

Eighth-grade student launches a book club to discuss banned books:

Joslyn Diffenbaugh, an 8th-grade student from Kutztown, Pennsylvania started the Teen Banned Book Club to discuss books that have been banned by the local school district. Nine students attended the first meeting on January 12 at Firefly Bookstore in Kutztown. They discussed George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

From Pennsylvania News Today:

In November, there was intense debate between parents and school board members at several meetings about LGBTQ + -themed books that would be available to high school library students. Worried parents said the book contained adult content with inappropriate graphics and demanded that the book be removed.

Director Christian Temchatin confirmed that the books in question were purchased by the district, but they were not placed on the shelves of the school library or made available to students. School officials did not specify the title of the book.

Following a challenge to the material or topic policy procedure, the book will be evaluated and will not be distributed until the process is complete. No further updates have been announced since then.

This Hidden Facebook Tool Lets Users Remove Their Email or Phone Number Shared by Others:

Facebook appears to have silently rolled out a tool that allows users to remove their contact information, such as phone numbers and email addresses, uploaded by others.

The existence of the tool, which is buried inside a Help Center page about “Friending,” was first reported by Business Insider last week. It’s offered as a way for “Non-users” to “exercise their rights under applicable laws.”

In case you missed this on the first go round, this is a REALLY useful option that should always have existed and should be easier to find. I’ve never liked how others could share your information without your approval.

Let’s all call cryptocurrency, NFTs, and web3 (in all of its poorly defined sense) a sunk cost and move on.

Trustless:

But beware of tech bros preaching decentralization. Technology has been promising to eliminate the middleman for decades, only to present new middlemen — in this case, new actors asking you to transfer trust and wealth from one institution to theirs. Crypto enthusiasts spent 14 years and tens of billions of venture capital dollars trying to create a trustless financial system with no middlemen. Status? See above: Celsius.

Crypto’s dirty little secret is that it’s no more eliminated the need for trust than it has replaced the U.S. dollar. (Sorry, Jack.) Its core rhetoric is in the Reaganite antigovernment creed … “Don’t trust the Fed.” Don’t trust anyone, they told us. But this is bullshit. I mean bullshit3. When crypto went mainstream in 2020, it appended a new line: “trust us.”

I received my iPad Mini about a month ago after an almost 8 week wait. My use case remains as I laid out in A mini upgrade?.

How is it?

Exactly what I was hoping it would be. It fits nicely into my workflow. It’s my primary consumption device. It’s also my mobile content creation device (I’m writing this post on it). I remain loyal to my eInk eReader for books, but otherwise I’m reaching for my iPad Mini.

Battery life is great. The screen is nice but I have yet to appreciate it fully beyond the additional real estate. I haven’t really used the Apple Pencil v2 yet, but I like how it’s magnetically attached if I need it. Connectivity using my Google fi data SIM works great.

About the Pencil and the magnets — they’re surprisingly strong. I was worried about the Pencil falling off but so far that hasn’t been an issue.

Fundamentally, the device is great. I’m disappointed that my Lightning connector add-ons are not viable with this, but I’m moving as all-in on USB-C as I can.

My issue still revolves around the fact that iOS/iPadOS needs refinement and bug fixes — as an OS they seem unfit for the task. I would love for Apple to take a tick and/or a rock off and just work on making the user experience better instead of releasing new features.

Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court lobby card