The Corn Belt is a place where agriculture is changed so often you can't call bullshit on someone who tells you they're going to do it too.
And sure, people who have never grown anything in their lives will write words & fill up paper with splotches of ink critiquing the people actually in the arena.
Even in the face of regulatory incompetence, the jealousy of the coastal organic food types, and the false narrative of a "big ag" backlash, America's farmers go on producing record yields that feed the world.
― untuned mass damper (mh), Monday, 12 August 2019 20:50 (four years ago) link
They did put a golf course on the other side of the highway exit that only went to the county dump. Renamed the exit, they did. ... That was about 15 years ago though. They haven't really changed it since.
― sarahell, Tuesday, 20 August 2019 15:54 (four years ago) link
lol mh
― marcos, Tuesday, 20 August 2019 16:08 (four years ago) link
What does this even mean? pic.twitter.com/7EpH4wEzyk— Nathan McDermott (@natemcdermott) September 6, 2019
― đ đđ˘đ¨ (caek), Saturday, 7 September 2019 18:32 (four years ago) link
you have to pay to zip them up & it takes ages
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 7 September 2019 19:01 (four years ago) link
They catch fire unexpectedly? The CEO is making an ass of himself on social media?
― Anne Hedonia (j.lu), Saturday, 7 September 2019 20:03 (four years ago) link
get ready for self-wearing pants
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 7 September 2019 20:27 (four years ago) link
Insufferably annoying people wear them?
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Sunday, 8 September 2019 00:32 (four years ago) link
theyâre ugly as shit?
― beard papa, Sunday, 8 September 2019 03:18 (four years ago) link
think yall are over thinking it, those are actually wearable electric cars
― wario in the streets, waluigi in the sheets (m bison), Sunday, 8 September 2019 03:29 (four years ago) link
btw in case it wasnt obvious you use your dick to drive
― wario in the streets, waluigi in the sheets (m bison), Sunday, 8 September 2019 03:30 (four years ago) link
a thin veil of faux sophistication barely concealing an out of control musk
― Non stop chantar (crĂźt), Sunday, 8 September 2019 04:52 (four years ago) link
Pretty scathing column in the Guardian on the whole Epstein mess and what it means for 'tech intellectuals': https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/07/jeffrey-epstein-mit-funding-tech-intellectuals
― Frederik B, Sunday, 8 September 2019 12:16 (four years ago) link
xxp - so what does it say about the evolution of the dick that so few Americans drive manual transmission?
― sarahell, Sunday, 8 September 2019 18:04 (four years ago) link
morozov also fired his agent for being a main conduit between epstein and these guys. itâs all so gross. and so damning as far as why tech has ultimately been so lacking in imagination despite all that money.
― maura, Sunday, 8 September 2019 21:56 (four years ago) link
Kickstarter is doing illegal retaliatory firings of employees for union organizing:
https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/kickstarter-turmoil-union-drive-historic-tech-industry
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Friday, 13 September 2019 18:58 (four years ago) link
Berkeley City Councilmember Ben Bartlett became the first elected official to purchase cannabis with cryptocurrency at a demonstration facilitated by the Blockchain Advocacy Coalition on Tuesday.
https://www.dailycal.org/2019/09/15/city-council-member-1st-elected-official-to-buy-cannabis-with-cryptocurrency/
He's running.
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 17:10 (four years ago) link
what the FUCK
After firing hundreds of staff, the WeWork CEO held a somber all-hands meeting explaining why it was a necessary move, but then trays of tequila were handed out and DMC from Run-DMC burst into the room and performed "It's Tricky" https://t.co/t9oGq8ebTb pic.twitter.com/cuq0aM1Tqi— Tom Gara (@tomgara) September 18, 2019
― Is it true the star Beetle Juice is going to explode in 2012 (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 19:41 (four years ago) link
Iâm reading the Dune series and every time Herbert describes the spice trance Iâm like damn... this must be how Jack Dorsey feels all the time— Ipod ââââ (@alexqarbuckle) September 18, 2019
― untuned mass damper (mh), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 19:50 (four years ago) link
that wework story is amazing
― untuned mass damper (mh), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 19:51 (four years ago) link
yeah, itâs incredible in every sense of the word
― Is it true the star Beetle Juice is going to explode in 2012 (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 19:57 (four years ago) link
He told at least one person directly that his ambitions included becoming Israelâs prime minister. More recently, he said that if he ran for anything, it would be president of the world, according to another person who spoke with him.âThe influence and impact that we are going to have on this Earth is going to be so big,â he said last year at a âsummer campâ southeast of London, where the companyâs staff were all flown for a music festival-like event. One day, he proposed, the company could âsolve the problem of children without parents,â and from there go onto other causes such as eradicating world hunger.
âThe influence and impact that we are going to have on this Earth is going to be so big,â he said last year at a âsummer campâ southeast of London, where the companyâs staff were all flown for a music festival-like event. One day, he proposed, the company could âsolve the problem of children without parents,â and from there go onto other causes such as eradicating world hunger.
― untuned mass damper (mh), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 19:57 (four years ago) link
He relishes trips in private jets. Last year, We bought one for more than $60 million, people familiar with the sale said. Mr. Neumann has borrowed more than $740 million against his stock and has sold multiple hundred million dollars of shares, people familiar with those sales say, eliciting widespread criticism from analysts and Silicon Valley investors. These share sales werenât disclosed in the IPO prospectus.
this guy's net worth is like negative hundreds of millions lol
― untuned mass damper (mh), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 20:03 (four years ago) link
all this for the incredible revolutionary idea of... providing places where people can use their laptops
― Is it true the star Beetle Juice is going to explode in 2012 (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 20:09 (four years ago) link
finally got around to reading this, which is majestic
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/26/silicon-valleys-crisis-of-conscience
― mookieproof, Thursday, 19 September 2019 15:24 (four years ago) link
jfc these people
Before the presentation, Van Noppen hosted a breakfast for a few members of the audience, including Justin Rosenstein, a former Facebook employee and a co-inventor of the Like button, and Chris Messina, a former Google employee and the inventor of the hashtag. Messina wore a polo shirt, revealing a tattoo on each arm: a hashtag on the right, a Burning Man logo on the left.
― Is it true the star Beetle Juice is going to explode in 2012 (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 19 September 2019 15:30 (four years ago) link
co-inventor of the Like button!!
― maffew12, Thursday, 19 September 2019 15:35 (four years ago) link
at first it was just the "li" button but he thought of putting the "ke" on the end
― Îá˝ĎΚĎ, Thursday, 19 September 2019 15:39 (four years ago) link
sometimes you really wish skynet would hurry up and get here so all these tech people will stop acting like history's greatest innovators and start denying that they're history's greatest monsters and hiding in underground caves and stuff
― j., Thursday, 19 September 2019 16:28 (four years ago) link
the title of 'inventor' probably puts those two items on a higher pedestal than is necessary. but jumping from like button and hashtag to skynet risks doing even worse.
― Tart Prepper (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 19 September 2019 16:38 (four years ago) link
well i wouldn't wanna do anything risky
― j., Thursday, 19 September 2019 17:03 (four years ago) link
haha react
― sarahell, Thursday, 19 September 2019 18:15 (four years ago) link
Tech executives respond to incentives, but not all incentives are financial. âZuck wants money, he wants power, but more than anything he wants to be admired,â Tavis McGinn, who once worked at Facebook as Zuckerbergâs personal pollster, told me. âIf you can affect his ability to walk into a room and command respect, thatâs a real leverage point.âhow about affecting his ability to not behave like a fucking five year old.
― The Pingularity (ledge), Thursday, 19 September 2019 19:47 (four years ago) link
Adam Neumann is the logical conclusion of ten years of artificially low interest rates combined with no wage or demand growth. A guy who believes he is god because he loses money renting out desks.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 19 September 2019 20:16 (four years ago) link
pretty fucked up that large banks and investment groups made up of billionaires are just shooting their shot at anything that might make money because.. they have all the money already and can't make it grow any further
― untuned mass damper (mh), Thursday, 19 September 2019 21:15 (four years ago) link
https://monthlyreview.org/2016/07/01/surplus-absorption-and-waste-in-neoliberal-monopoly-capitalism/
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 19 September 2019 23:53 (four years ago) link
Burn Silicon Valley to the ground and salt the earth IMO
― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Thursday, 19 September 2019 23:59 (four years ago) link
dude, that's mean, considering it was pretty fertile agricultural land before
― sarahell, Friday, 20 September 2019 16:17 (four years ago) link
Okay, beat their Teslas into plowshares and set up the world's largest organic farm.
― Anne Hedonia (j.lu), Friday, 20 September 2019 19:24 (four years ago) link
so turn it into skywalker ranch?
― Tart Prepper (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, 20 September 2019 22:23 (four years ago) link
thx for the link, Tracer Hand
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 20 September 2019 22:40 (four years ago) link
you're welcome!
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, 20 September 2019 22:55 (four years ago) link
Something only glancingly mentioned in the WSJ article is that one of the main things producing the record-scratch when people starting looking at the IPO was the news that WeWork were rebranding to "We", which Adam Neumann had come up with privately and then sold to the company for $6m.
Matt Levine (whose Money Stuff newsletters have been great on this) points out that theoretically this shouldn't be a problem for WeWork - if you're losing money because you're investing every penny that you have (and more) in buying new places and setting them up, and they'll start making money in six months, and then you'll plow that money (and more) into buying more places, then nervousness from investors is fine - you just stop buying new places and in six months you'll be deafened by the roar of all the money you're making, and the investors will be "Oh shit, I wish I'd invested in this six months ago". Of course, in theory you don't have an lunatic in charge.
One of the things that has, I think, happened since the WSJ article is that the corporate structure and super-share stuff has been reworked, so the total control that Neumann has will at least die with him, and there will be (some, limited) oversight. Which might be one of the signs of the end of the age of the 'unicorn', tech companies that have all of the mini-fiefdom aspects of privately held companies and all of the barrels of cash of public companies.
― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 23 September 2019 10:25 (four years ago) link
Actually here's a link to Levine's latest column - the story at the top about Overstock is nuts but far too long to quote here.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-19/overstock-has-had-a-wild-week
― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 23 September 2019 10:33 (four years ago) link
Good to know there are people still living in Pynchon-esque worlds of their own creation
― untuned mass damper (mh), Monday, 23 September 2019 14:13 (four years ago) link
THE GOOGLE WORKERS AT HCL HAVE WON THEIR UNION!!! WELCOME TO THE UNITED STEELWORKERS!!!!!— lindsey disler (@lindseydisler) September 24, 2019
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 24 September 2019 18:44 (four years ago) link
Meanwhile...
Wow. Media measurement giant Comscore and its former CEO have been charged with fraud by the SEC. https://t.co/L4LoB1Q7yw— Alex Weprin (@alexweprin) September 24, 2019
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 24 September 2019 18:59 (four years ago) link
WeWork is shutting down ALL of their âhonesty marketsââself-service snack kiosksâdue to excessive theft, according to a WeWork staffer pic.twitter.com/6ciUwwprKp— Madeleine Varner (@tenuous) September 24, 2019
― j., Tuesday, 24 September 2019 21:17 (four years ago) link
Business Insider not pulling any punches: https://www.businessinsider.com/firing-adam-neumann-wont-solve-flaws-in-wework-business-model-2019-9?r=US&IR=T
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 25 September 2019 10:50 (four years ago) link
excerpt from uncanny valley in the new yorker this week. i've heard great things about the book (out in a couple of months). this piece rang very true for me.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/four-years-in-startups
― đ đđ˘đ¨ (caek), Saturday, 28 September 2019 18:10 (four years ago) link