Bear in mind that this woman, while she is undoubtedly right about everything about Facebook's issues, almost certainly joined Facebook at the urging of, and as an asset of, NZSIS. Her background reeks worse than a CNN news analyst's.

Even on the freak occurrence that someone with that background decided to join Facebook for pure idealistic reasons wholly unrelated to their FPINT past (which she would have you believe), I can guarantee you that if I think she's a spook, Facebook thought so too. She was allowed into the powerful position she got because Facebook wanted a cozy relationship to another five eyes bigwig.

So yes, listen to what she says about Facebook, but don't assume the power imbalance is in Facebook's favor!

Did your chatbot tell you that?

There's a rule: secrecy in negotiations always benefit the few.

The reason is that if you're a negotiator representing few people (such as say a CEO or a board of directors) then secrecy won't stop you from keeping your bosses informed about what you and your fellow negotiators are doing. You can't sell out your bosses, they'll find out through the other negotiators. You're on a tight leash.

But if you represent a large group of people, such as the rank and file members of a union, or the public at large, then secrecy prevents you from keeping them in the loop. If you're offered a deal which benefits you but screws over the people you represent, secrecy ensures you can safely take it.

Curse slashdot and their lack of editing functionality. I meant of course to GDPR their ass.

Spotify honors our users' privacy rights, including the right of portability

You do now, all right. But I had to DMCA your ass to make you implement data takeout, after being told (after waiting for a year and more) that giving users access to their own listening history was "not a priority".

Gee, what is more likely? That sweeteners harm your brain, but stop doing it after 60, or that maybe working age people with the very highest levels of sweetener consumption have some other characteristic in common which might influence it?

So many health studies of the British newspaper variety don't even try to make a causal argument.

So, basically to observe that it's market driven and that the government doesn't really directly control it?

So the majority of my family members are superheroes, like you seem to think this guy is. Since they have more education, does that make them better superheroes? Seriously though, way to oversell the guy. A lot of us on Slashdot are nerds, but we still know that Tony Stark is a fictional character... Plus, quite honestly, if there were a real, actual Tony Stark, whether we are talking about the comic book version or the MCU version, I would not want that guy actually running the Dept. of Energy. Did you not notice in the MCU movies how many of the threats they faced were caused directly or indirectly by Tony Stark?

So, while yes this does mean that he has education in a more technical field, you do realize that, from what you wrote, he only has a master's degree and she has a doctorate, right? I mean, if we're making it that sort of contest.

Now, I will agree that I tend to prefer people to have technical training when they are going to manage technical people. However, any job heading such a department is going to have a lot of policy and legal details to attend to as well as technical details. The head does not need to be a technical director as long as they know how to actually listen to advice from the people who know what they are talking about. Also, having ulterior motives and serious conflicts of interest tend to negate potentially positive qualities.

Now, RFK Jr. is actually a great example. He is someone who, strictly speaking, would actually be qualified for his job. A lot of policy and legal stuff involved in HHS, so he could theoretically be a good leader even without medical expertise... if he were someone who would listen to advice from experts. However, he obviously is not. He has a bunch of crazy notions and biases that he is pushing on the department, creating a huge mess.

It looks that way because it is that way. I'm pretty sure Trump pretty much said that he was going appoint him to a position in charge of health policy in exchange for him backing out of the race and endorsing Trump. I think he hedged it with a "probably", but I don't think there's any real doubt that a deal was struck.

In any case, Wright is a clear example of the revolving door between industry and policymaking. One clearly in the plutocratic upper echelons, no less. His decisions are bound to be dripping with self-interest.

No, in fact your scenario is ridiculous and contrived and devoid of all context. That's the whole reason I pointed out that the details matter. Your scenario only works if you start with the axiom that the Palestinians in Gaza are just automatically monstrous fiends who exist solely to kill Israelis. There's actually this whole history that actually applies to the current situation, there's no magically switching things around. The whole thing was just you basically saying that you think that the Gazans are scum who should be eradicated.

Not being a terrorist apologist. The actions by Hamas on Oct 7th were deplorable. Many actions of Hamas against Israelis are deplorable. Of course, many actions of Hamas against Gazans are also deplorable. Many actions by Israel against Gazans are also deplorable. There is no two wrongs make a right situation here.

Who is "you" in this scenario? Maybe 15% of the current population of Gaza?

Regarding "pointless internet comments"... I think a little self awareness might be in order.

Fun fact: these days AI models struggle to draw a hand with six fingers, even if you explicitly ask for it. A bit of overcorrection, due to AIs traumatized by the validation data...

Placeholder art has been a thing for a very long time. Sometimes directors fall in love with their placeholder art, and insist on something that's almost exactly it - and that is why so much of the original Star Wars music sounds a bit like Holst's Planets.

You'll be replaced from that job too by people who fix ai slop with AI tools themselves, and who undercut you. There's no honor along fiverrs.

The deal with this launch system is that it was supposed to be a game changer both for payloads to Mars and for basically everything else. Sure, Musk is a huge liar, so he could have been lying about all of the things he said it would do, like take over all satellite payloads to any orbit, or replace commercial airliners on long distance flights, etc. Saying that other payloads don't matter because it was always actually just about getting to Mars is a perfect example of the sour grapes I was talking about. I assume you're familiar with the fable?

His track record is not actually that great. Are we counting things that were promised that have not appeared yet as promises fulfilled, but not yet? I mean, what is the status of the affordable model 3? Or the Tesla with true full self driving? You know, the one that already exists, works 100% but just is not in full production yet? I mean, I would like to believe my various friends who borrowed money from me that they have the money ready to give to me but they just forgot it at home, etc. Of course I have not actually lent a friend money in over a decade, so I will be really, really, really surprised if one of them ever pays me back. I mean, it's OK, I never expected any of those particular friends to pay me back. It would have simply been a pleasant surprise if they did. The pleasant part would also mostly have been the knowledge that if they did, they were doing well enough for themselves that they could afford to. This is a bit of a digression, but the point is, I can generally recognize when statements are not true. I am often quite good at just shrugging it off. You kind of need to be in this world to avoid going crazy. When I do start to mind is liars who start to think that the people they are lying to are just gullible fools to exploit rather than just being polite. Not only does it make me think poorly of their character, it also makes me think that they're not very bright since they don't recognize that their lies are not actually believed.

I think I'm digressing again. I guess the real point is that, at this point, Musk has worn out my tolerance. I don't give him or his companies the benefit of the doubt any more.

The specific thing you were replying to was:

So the fact that it hasn't actually made an orbit yet seems relevant. It did not explode this time, but it also did not go into an actual orbit. Simple as that. No desperation needed.