jwz

Elon Musk is the world's biggest loser ever, having lost $800 billion in 7 weeks.

Apartheid Emerald Mine Space Karen supposedly became a "trillionaire" on June 12 and lost that status 12 days later as nearly half of that money [sic] evaporated. Yesterday SpaceX and Tesla stock had a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" and he was down to a paltry $600 billion, his 2024 level, meaning that in 49 days, he lost 25% more money than he had ever had prior to that. 49 days is the same timespan by which a head of lettuce famously outlasted Liz Truss in office.

This is almost enough to make you think that money isn't real and the stock market runs entirely on vibes. But that can't be right.

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Patel and the Kash Foundation sued Stewartson over a series of allegedly defamatory statements:

Among the statements at the center of the lawsuit were claims that Patel "attempted to overthrow the government," "planned January 6," was "guilty of sedition" and was a "Kremlin asset," as well as an allegation that Patel and his foundation paid people to "lie to Congress," according to the court filing. [...]

The order also referenced a post Stewartson made after the default judgment was entered, in which he called Patel a "Googly-eyed Kremlin bitch" and said Patel would have to return to Nevada for a trial where Stewartson would explain why he was "dead serious" when he called the FBI director a "chud." [...]

"✍️ PSA: Now that my case is settled, you are free to refer to @FBIDirectorKash as a 'chud,' a 'googly-eyed Kremlin bitch,' and a 'traitor' without fear of legal repercussions!" Stewartson wrote. "You're welcome! 😁👍🏼."

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▶︎[ REENACTMENT ]The organization has stood up to dictators and death squads, but Rowling and the UK's anti-speech laws were apparently too much.

On July 8, Amnesty International UK released a report titled "A Growing Threat: The Anti-Rights Movement in the UK." The report mapped 117 organizations working to restrict the rights of, among others, transgender and queer people in the United Kingdom, and documented the financial infrastructure behind them, including far-right Christian nationalist organizations, U.S.-based legal powerhouses like Alliance Defending Freedom, and conversion therapy promoters. [...]

For three weeks, the question was whether Amnesty would stand behind its own research or capitulate entirely. This morning, we got the answer: a full, groveling apology from the organization that has weathered the Soviet Union, Putin's Russia, and the Bush administration's defense of Guantánamo Bay -- but could not weather J.K. Rowling. [...]

The apology identified no factual errors in the report. It did not retract any specific finding. It did not name a single inaccuracy. It simply surrendered the entire document. [...]

This is not the first time Rowling has used the threat of litigation to silence critics in the United Kingdom. In 2022, she threatened legal action against a social media user who called her a Nazi, forcing a public apology. In 2024, her lawyers compelled journalist Rivkah Brown -- whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors -- to publicly retract a tweet calling Rowling a Holocaust denier after Rowling dismissed the Nazis' well-documented targeting of transgender people; her lawyers even required Brown to edit the apology's phrasing.

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▶︎As you may recall, my beloved Gakken World Eye shit the bed during a power failure a couple weeks ago, after having been on 24/7 for nine years. Since these are going for almost a thousand dollars on eBay, my first attempt was to buy the cheapest desktop video projector I could find (HY300 Pro, $30) but that projector threw too small an image, and couldn't focus closer than about 2½ feet.

So then I ordered the cheapest fisheye camera lens I could find (49mm wide angle macro, $30) whose smaller lens was just slightly larger than the output lens of the projector. Success! It worked the first time.

(Someone who knew what they were doing might have looked at the focal length and done math to determine what kind of lens was needed. I very much did not do that. But I got lucky!)

I enlarged the various holes to make the new lens fit inside the dome, and got an 82mm to 95mm step-up adapter ring to screw onto the front of the fisheye, to have something I could drill into to hold it in place inside the dome. Then I cut the old electronics housing in half and dremeled out all of the interior greeblies to have a sleeve to slip over the new projector. The rest is duct tape.

I had to open up the new projector to extend the IR receiver into the dome, since, like the old eyeball, it doesn't remember its settings and you have to manually select HDMI on a remote after a power failure.

The image is 16:9 and doesn't fill the whole dome, and it's a little fuzzy on the edges, but for eyeball purposes, it's close enough. Once I get an ethernet cable in there, I'm going to see what tweaks I can make on the image in software to make it fill the frame a little better.

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After outcry, Meta reverses suspension of The Stud's Instagram page:

Meta Platforms initially suspended its Instagram account after the bar said bad actors flagged old posts with false charges of "human trafficking," striking down a crucial marketing stream ahead of Sunday's Dore Alley street fair. [...]

"We relied on the page because it combined marketing, ticketing, and communications with clients and performers," Ryan said. "To have that taken away with just a moment's notice ... I can't even describe it."

Nowhere in this article does anyone even consider: "Perhaps we should rely less on Nazi Bars for our critical business functions somewhat".

"The account has been restored," said Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold in an email late Saturday. He did not say why the account was initially suspended.

Another co-owner of the Stud is Honey Mahogany, an activist, drag performer and the director of San Francisco's Office of Transgender Initiatives. In a Friday personal video posted to Instagram, Mahogany called on Meta to reverse the decision. [...]

"[blah blah blah]," said state Sen. Scott Wiener in a post on X on Saturday. "Meta should reverse this ban immediately."

District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey also took to X to tell Meta to restore the bar's page. "I'm glad it's back up," said Dorsey upon hearing of Meta's reversal.

"Dorsey took to X to tell Meta." Uh huh. "Wiener post on X." Uh huh. "Mahogany posted on Instagram." Uh huh.

Nowhere in this article does anyone even consider: "Perhaps local politicians should rely less on Nazi Bars for our critical government communications somewhat".

(Yes, my business also uses Facebook and Instagram somewhat. "Curious!")

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So there's a Neuromancer trailer out and it's exactly the necrophiliac snore you'd expect it to be. I already watched this show when it was called Altered Carbon, and it sucked. Nobody listens to me, but the only way to make this work was to have gone full Lisa Frankenstein.

How is Jared Leto not in this? It has that Leto Stink on it.

We could have had a second season of The Peripheral instead of this.

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US government targets Cop City protester over phone operating system:

The interrogation, including the questions about child sexual abuse images, was "a pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr Tunick's connections" to the movement against Cop City, according to the motion.

Tunick asked four times during the interrogation to speak with a lawyer, but was rebuffed each time, according to courtroom testimony. Additionally, the agents produced no warrant and did not read Tunick his rights. [...]

Agent Findley and several others repeatedly asked Tunick to open his phone during the interrogation, telling him they would seize it if he did not. When he finally provided a passcode, "the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart", according to the motion.

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Do it our way or else!

Two inbox items from Thursday, presented without comment:

July 23, 2026 Press release from San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins's office:

18 CHARGED IN CONNECTION TO UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY ON HOWARD AND WASHBURN STREET

Today, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced that 18 individuals have been charged in connection to an unsanctioned and unpermitted block party in SOMA. [...]

The DJ eventually stopped performing and left. [...] Within an hour, many of the same people from the earlier gathering reconvened on the unit block of Washburn Street and began a second unsanctioned and unpermitted block party with a crowd of approximately 200 individuals.

July 23, 2026 Press release from San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey's office:

SUPERVISOR MATT DORSEY, CITY AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS LAUNCH WEST SOMA ENTERTAINMENT ZONE

Supervisor Matt Dorsey's office, in partnership with Mayor Daniel Lurie, the SOMA West Community Benefit District, the LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District, and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, launched the West SoMa Entertainment Zone to support local businesses, strengthen neighborhood nightlife, and bring more activity to the West SoMa neighborhood and its commercial corridors.

Entertainment zones authorized by Senator Scott Wiener's SB 76 (2023) and SB 969 (2024) allow cities and counties to designate outdoor areas where open alcoholic beverages may be consumed during permitted events. Under this framework, the West SoMa Entertainment Zone allows participating restaurants, bars, breweries, and wineries to sell "to‑go" drinks for enjoyment on the sidewalk within marked boundaries.

That first press release is some copaganda defending SFPD's insanely dispropotionate and violent actions during Pride. Mission Local:

For the past six years, Stud Alley, an unsanctioned block party, has been held in SoMa on the Saturday evening of Pride. Police this year arrived at the first gathering on Kissling Street at about 11 p.m. to disperse the crowd, and arrested two participants. The party then re-formed a few blocks over and, after issuing dispersal orders a second time, police arrested another 18 people. [...]

Trans March organizers met with Mayor Daniel Lurie on July 13 about Pride weekend arrests at the Trans March and the Stud Alley party, and presented a letter signed by more than 1,500 people blasting the police response at the march. They demanded the charges against Trans March defendants be dropped, though Lurie is not responsible for the DA's charging decisions. District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder has sent two letters of inquiry to the San Francisco Police Department demanding drone footage of the arrests and other information about the police role at both the Stud Alley party and Trans March.

In the courtroom this morning, the line of defendants stretched nearly out the room. The judge and defense attorneys expressed surprise at the charges, which were announced around noon on Wednesday. "I just found out about this at 4:15 yesterday," the judge told the courtroom.

Outside the courtroom, defense attorney Jeff Wozniak reassured the crowd of defendants. "We haven't seen charges like this in 30 to 40 years," he remarked.

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Tesla swapped a solar owner's lease contract for the Book of Enoch:

A Tesla solar customer went to pull up their lease agreement in their Tesla account this month and found something other than a contract waiting for them: the Book of Enoch, an ancient apocalyptic text about fallen angels.

Not a scanned copy of their agreement. Not an error page. The full text of a roughly 2,000-year-old religious book, sitting exactly where their legally binding solar lease was supposed to be. [...]

When they contacted Tesla support, a representative acknowledged the swap in a chat conversation Electrek reviewed. Tesla confirmed the lease had become the Book of Enoch. What Tesla didn't offer was any real explanation.

For the uninitiated: the Book of Enoch is a Hebrew text from around 200 BCE, cut from most Bibles and considered canonical mainly by the Ethiopian Orthodox church. It's best known for the Watchers, fallen angels who come down and father a race of giants. It is a lot of things. A residential solar lease is not one of them.

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