loving this elon drag
What’s been super-fun watching this tire fire (from within the fire, admittedly) is how Elon fundamentally does not understand the very nature of Twitter so everything he thinks will “fix” it is 100% going to make it worse, because Twitter isn’t about code and blue checkmarks, it’s about PEOPLE, and Elon fundamentally doesn’t understand PEOPLE because he isn’t one.
I’m not saying he’s not human. I’m saying he’s so distanced from the usual day-to-day Brownian motion of people being people interacting with other people by such a wide margin that he might as well be his own culture of one. He doesn’t get why people use it, he doesn’t understand the actual point of the verification checkmark (thus his “pay me $20 a month for it wait please Stephen King how about $8 please checkmarks will be the only way to not be effectively shadowbanned” debacle over the last 24 hours). He doesn’t even understand the people he’s lately been courting because they fluff him (bigots), he just knows they give him the praise his daddy never did… completely unaware of just how fleeting and revocable that praise is.
And it WILL be revoked as soon as the LEGAL realities of content moderation of Twitter across multiple nations with their own laws about speech force him to take actions they won’t like.
Elon Musk is an idiot, has always been an idiot, his only skill is further gaming a system already egregiously rigged in his favor, and it’s finally smashing up against Real Life. And if anything good has come out of this, it’s that him being more publicly visible has just cratered his public image and cost him tons and tons of money.
On this day, 3 November 1918, in the German port city of Kiel, sailors and workers elected the first Council of Soldiers in Germany. Before, in the morning, hundreds of armed sailors of the German Navy had gathered at the house of the local trade unions. A few days earlier, around 1,000 sailors had been imprisoned for mutiny after refusing to go into battle against the British navy. Fearing a wide-spread rebellion, the admirals had called off the attack.
After Karl Artelt, a sailor and machinist from Magdeburg, and the sailor Lothar Popp from Bavaria called the sailors to free their comrades, the men marched to local factories first to ask workers to join, and workers began to walk out on strike. When 6,000 sailors and workers were about to approach the prison on the Landstraße near the Cafe Kaiser, they faced a line of soldiers, rifles in hand. Their lieutenant, named Steinhäuser, gave the order to shoot. Nine demonstrators died. A sailor shot back, killing the lieutenant. A few minutes later the local admiral, unsure of the loyalty of his own troops opened the prison gates and the prisoners were free.
In the evening, the sailors and workers introduced working class democracy to Kiel, to Germany by electing the Council of Soldiers with Karl Artelt as chairman. As their first action, the Council presented demands to the local military commander, Bartels: Abdication of the Kaiser, free elections and women’s right to vote. Flabbergasted, Bartels responded: “But gentlemen, this is a political program.” Afterwards, dozens of sailors’ delegations set off into the night by railroad to carry the revolt into the country. By November 5, the red flag was flying over ships in Kiel harbour, while the mutiny spread, and the German revolution gathered momentum.
Our November T-Shirt of the Month, made by a workers’ co-op and supporting grassroots unions in South Asia, celebrates this mutiny. Order before the end of the month with global shipping at https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/t-shirt-of-the-month https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2125728814278924/?type=3
On this day, 3 November 1918, in the German port city of Kiel, sailors and workers elected the first Council of Soldiers in Germany. Before, in the morning, hundreds of armed sailors of the German Navy had gathered at the house of the local trade unions. A few days earlier, around 1,000 sailors had been imprisoned for mutiny after refusing to go into battle against the British navy. Fearing a wide-spread rebellion, the admirals had called off the attack.
After Karl Artelt, a sailor and machinist from Magdeburg, and the sailor Lothar Popp from Bavaria called the sailors to free their comrades, the men marched to local factories first to ask workers to join, and workers began to walk out on strike. When 6,000 sailors and workers were about to approach the prison on the Landstraße near the Cafe Kaiser, they faced a line of soldiers, rifles in hand. Their lieutenant, named Steinhäuser, gave the order to shoot. Nine demonstrators died. A sailor shot back, killing the lieutenant. A few minutes later the local admiral, unsure of the loyalty of his own troops opened the prison gates and the prisoners were free.
In the evening, the sailors and workers introduced working class democracy to Kiel, to Germany by electing the Council of Soldiers with Karl Artelt as chairman. As their first action, the Council presented demands to the local military commander, Bartels: Abdication of the Kaiser, free elections and women’s right to vote. Flabbergasted, Bartels responded: “But gentlemen, this is a political program.” Afterwards, dozens of sailors’ delegations set off into the night by railroad to carry the revolt into the country. By November 5, the red flag was flying over ships in Kiel harbour, while the mutiny spread, and the German revolution gathered momentum.
Our November T-Shirt of the Month, made by a workers’ co-op and supporting grassroots unions in South Asia, celebrates this mutiny. Order before the end of the month with global shipping at https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/t-shirt-of-the-month https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2125728920945580/?type=3
nasa:
What is Artemis I?
On November 14, NASA is set to launch the uncrewed Artemis I flight test to the Moon and back. Artemis I is the first integrated flight test of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and Exploration Ground Systems at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. These are the same systems that will bring future Artemis astronauts to the Moon.
Standing 322 feet (98 meters) tall, the SLS rocket comprises of a core stage, an upper stage, two solid boosters, and four RS-25 engines. The SLS rocket is the most powerful rocket in the world, able to carry 59,500 pounds (27 metric tons) of payloads to deep space — more than any other vehicle. With its unprecedented power, SLS is the only rocket that can send the Orion spacecraft, astronauts, and cargo directly to the Moon on a single mission.
Before launch, Artemis I has some big help: the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC is the largest single-story building in the world. The VAB was constructed for the assembly of the Apollo/Saturn V Moon rocket, and this is where the SLS rocket is assembled, maintained, and integrated with the Orion spacecraft.
The mobile launcher is used to assemble, process, and launch the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. The massive structure consists of a two-story base and a tower equipped with a number of connection lines to provide the rocket and spacecraft with power, communications, coolant, and fuel prior to launch.
Capable of carrying 18 million pounds (8.2 million kg) and the size of a baseball infield, crawler-transporter 2 will transport SLS and Orion the 4.2 miles (6.8 km) to Launch Pad 39B. This historic launch pad was where the Apollo 10 mission lifted off from on May 18, 1969, to rehearse the first Moon landing.
During the launch, SLS will generate around 8.8 million pounds (~4.0 million kg) of thrust, propelling the Orion spacecraft into Earth’s orbit. Then, Orion will perform a Trans Lunar Injection to begin the path to the Moon. The spacecraft will orbit the Moon, traveling 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the Moon — farther than any human-rated spacecraft has ever flown.
The Orion spacecraft is designed to carry astronauts on deep space missions farther than ever before. Orion contains the habitable volume of about two minivans, enough living space for four people for up to 21 days. Future astronauts will be able to prepare food, exercise, and yes, have a bathroom. Orion also has a launch abort system to keep astronauts safe if an emergency happens during launch, and a European-built service module that fuels and propels the spacecraft.
While the Artemis I flight test is uncrewed, the Orion spacecraft will not be empty: there will be three manikins aboard the vehicle. Commander Moonikin Campos will be sitting in the commander’s seat, collecting data on the vibrations and accelerations future astronauts will experience on the journey to the Moon. He is joined with two phantom torsos, Helga and Zohar, in a partnership with the German Aerospace Center and Israeli Space Agency to test a radiation protection vest.
A host of shoebox-sized satellites called CubeSats help enable science and technology experiments that could enhance our understanding of deep space travel and the Moon while providing critical information for future Artemis missions.
At the end of the four-week mission, the Orion spacecraft will return to Earth. Orion will travel at 25,000 mph (40,000 km per hour) before slowing down to 300 mph (480 km per hour) once it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. After the parachutes deploy, the spacecraft will glide in at approximately 20 mph (32 km per hour) before splashdown about 60 miles (100 km) off the coast of California. NASA’s recovery team and the U.S. Navy will retrieve the Orion spacecraft from the Pacific Ocean.
With the ultimate goal of establishing a long-term presence on the Moon, Artemis I is a critical step as NASA prepares to send humans to Mars and beyond.
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