You know, all the rich sociopaths have to buy their own social media site to make sure no one can talk about how awful they are. Facebook, Parler, Gab, Gettr, Truth Social, now all absorbed by greedy rich people trying to build cozy little nests for their abhorrent views. Well, Elon Musk now owns Twitter. What is the first thing a committed Free Speech warrior would do, to demonstrate that commitment? How about firing a bunch of people?

Elon Musk became Twitter’s owner late Thursday as his $44 billion deal to take over the company officially closed, marking a new era for one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.

As one of his first moves, he fired several longtime top Twitter executives, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. One of those confirmed the deal was complete.

He has also said he plans to cut the Twitter workforce by 75%. At the same time, he’s been anxious to reassure advertisers that oh no, he’s not going to turn Twitter into a free-for-all hellscape.

Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022

After all, he just sank $44 billion into this purchase, he’d rather not see it immediately collapse. Most of that money came from other financial backers, too, and they don’t want to see their investment callapse, either. I expect we’re going to see only slow changes in the service for a while.

Like letting Trump back on.

The one thing I know for sure is that the new ownership is not going to lead to improvements in Twitter. It’s all going to go to shit, with the only question being how quickly. Start preparing for your departure, if you’re on Twitter at all, right now! I’ve had a presence on Mastodon for a long while now, and it’s good, in a lot of ways better, than the bird site, just with less volume and fewer precious celebrities.

I’ll be saying something or other at 1pm Central time today, if you felt like a tea break at that time.

Today I’ll be cracking open this tin of mystery, and we’ll see how it tastes.

This poor woman.

Jahrah, a rubber-tapper reportedly in her 50s, had made her way to work at a rubber plantation on Sunday morning.

She was reported missing after failing to return that night, and search parties sent out to find her. A day later villagers found a python with what appeared to be a large stomach.

Locals later killed the snake and found her body inside.

“The victim was found in the snake’s stomach,” Betara Jambi police chief AKP S Harefa told local media outlets, adding that her body appeared to be largely intact when it was found.

I have questions. Pythons don’t move that fast, so how do they catch their prey? They just lie in wait and throw coils over their victim? Speaking from ignorance, that doesn’t seem that dangerous. Pigs have tusks, deer have sharp hooves, humans have knives and machetes — it seems like a good way for the snake to be seriously wounded. How quickly can they constrict? There is another article about how they attack.

They can reach lengths of more than 10m (32ft) and are very powerful. They attack in an ambush, wrapping themselves around their prey and crushing it – squeezing tighter as the victim exhales.

They kill by suffocation or cardiac arrest within minutes.

I guess I’m mystified by the actual, initial process, in the first few seconds of a python attack, which isn’t well explained. How does a 10m long muscular tube leap into action to surprise an animal? I’m missing something in the mechanism.

I’d rather not go to Indonesia and find out in person. Any snake experts able to explain it?

This is a mildly amusing xkcd:

What makes it great, though, is the alt text.

“Although I hear they were caught cheating off of Rosalind, who sat at a desk in front of them.”

Our bigoted regent, Steve Sviggum, has resigned from his position as vice-chair of the board. He’s remaining on the board for the remaining year of his term, so we still have some ‘canceling’ left to do.

Get a cup of tea, pull up a chair, and talk to me this Thursday afternoon. Everyone’s welcome!

Except Otangelo. Get bent, Otangelo.

This chart is very pretty and colorful, but all it’s really doing is plotting a single variable, population size, against the arbitrary names of political subunits. It’s hard to read and difficult to extract any information about relationships from it. I think the creators need to go back and re-read (or read for the first time?) Edward Tufte.

This is what you get when someone is told to make some visual candy that really pops, rather than to transform information into a visual medium. My eyes are simultaneously stimulated and offended.