#World currently

[sunrisetune]

For reference: our second, orders of magnitude smaller, secret moon! She's just visiting - (CBC article posted Sept. 19th 2024, direct link here)

i’m so glad earth only has one moon, if there were more i’d have to pick a favorite and that sounds too emotionally taxing to even fathom

[wordswithkittywitch]

"I don't want to see anyone blaming abstaining voters for this!"

Of course you don't. The entire idea of abstaining was that you could pretend this didn't involve you. Not getting blamed was more important to you than doing any kind of damage control, more important than protecting any of the people you said you wanted to protect. And in this moment, I don't really care what you want. Of course, this isn't entirely your fault. Of course other people made this worse. But if you're going to pretend you had nothing to do with this, forgive me if I ignore you.

[troythecatfish]

[sunrisetune]

Content warning: Detailed descriptions of surgery, including physically removing a fetus -Detailed descriptions of medical problems with fetuses (in the context of abortions) -Pregnancy related death -Non-detailed mention of rape and sexual assault -Described gun violence, including an assassination attempt on Dr. Hern, and the actual assassination of another abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

The article is behind a paywall, but, there's a readable & downloadable PDF version here (link).

This was an interesting read. Surprisingly nonpreachy given the subject; and well worth the time.

[sayruq]

[historyandmemes]

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than half a million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving, according to a report Thursday by the U.N. and other agencies that highlights the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s bombardment and siege on the territory in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The extent of the population’s hunger eclipsed even the near-famines in Afghanistan and Yemen of recent years, according to figures in the report. The report warned that the risk of famine is “increasing each day,” blaming the hunger on insufficient aid entering Gaza. “It doesn’t get any worse,’’ said Arif Husain, chief economist for the U.N.’s World Food Program. “I have never seen something at the scale that is happening in Gaza. And at this speed.” ... At the start of the war, Israel stopped all deliveries of food, water, medicine and fuel into the territory. After U.S. pressure, it allowed a trickle of aid in through Egypt. But U.N. agencies say only 10% of Gaza’s food needs has been entering for weeks. (Dec. 21, 2023 | Source)

DON'T LOOK AWAY.

[johnny-depp-is-loved]

[sunrisetune]

Some sources:

Business Insider article, July 24th 2023 - ‘‘Elon Musk just changed Twitter's name to 'X.' His old text messages hint at what his vision for an 'everything app' might look like.’

Business Insider article, July 25th 2023 (today, as of posting) - ‘Twitter's rebrand is a step closer to Elon Musk's super-app vision – but losing the iconic bird logo is a risky move, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives says‘.

CNN article, July 25th 2023 - ‘Why Twitter's rebrand to X could be legally challenging‘

Bloomberg, via Yahoo Finance’s repost, July 25th 2023 - “Twitter Turning Into X Set to Kill Billions in Brand Value”.

Sesame Street’s official Twitter account sent this tweet (source) on July 24th - “The letter X will be holding a press conference later today. [hashtag, TwitterX]”, with an attached image of a serious-looking letter ‘X’ puppet standing in front of a microphone.

I slept in and just woke up, so here's what I've been able to figure out while sipping coffee:

Twitter has officially rebranded to X just a day or two after the move was announced.

The official branding is that a tweet is now called "an X", for which there are too many jokes to make.

The official account is still @twitter because someone else owns @X and they didn't reclaim the username first.

The logo is 𝕏 which is the Unicode character Unicode U+1D54F so the logo cannot be copyrighted and it is highly likely that it cannot be protected as a trademark.

Outside the visual logo, the trademark for the use of the name "X" in social media is held by Meta/Facebook, while the trademark for "X" in finance/commerce is owned by Microsoft.

The rebranding has been stopped in Japan as the term "X Japan" is trademarked by the band X JAPAN.

Elon had workers taking down the "Twitter" name from the side of the building. He did not have any permits to do this. The building owner called the cops who stopped the crew midway through so the sign just says "er".

He still plans to call his streaming and media hosting branch of the company as "Xvideo". Nobody tell him.

This man wants you to give him control over all of your financial information.

Edit to add further developments:

Yes, this is all real. Check the notes and people have pictures. I understand the skepticism because it feels like a joke, but to the best of my knowledge, everything in the above is accurate.

Microsoft also owns the trademark on X for chatting and gaming because, y'know, X-box.

The logo came from a random podcaster who tweeted it at Musk.

The act of sending a tweet is now known as "Xeet". They even added a guide for how to Xeet.

The branding change is inconsistent. Some icons have changed, some have not, and the words "tweet" and "Twitter" are still all over the place on the site.

TweetDeck is currently unaffected and I hope it's because they forgot that it exists again. The complete negligence toward that tool and just leaving it the hell alone is the only thing that makes the site usable (and some of us are stuck on there for work).

This is likely because Musk was forced out of PayPal due to a failed credit line project and because he wanted to rename the site to "X-Paypal" and eventually just to "X".

This became a big deal behind the scenes as Musk paid over $1 million for the domain X.com and wanted to rebrand the company that already had the brand awareness people were using it as a verb to "pay online" (as in "I'll paypal you the money")

X.com is not currently owned by Musk. It is held by a domain registrar (I believe GoDaddy but I'm not entirely sure). Meaning as long as he's hung onto this idea of making X Corp a thing, he couldn't be arsed to pay the $15/year domain renewal.

Bloomberg estimates the rebranding wiped between $4 to $20 billion from the valuation of Twitter due to the loss of brand awareness.

The company was already worth less than half of the $44 billion Musk paid for it in the first place, meaning this may end up a worse deal than when Yahoo bought Tumblr.

One estimation (though this is with a grain of salt) said that Twitter is three months from defaulting on its loans taken out to buy the site. Those loans were secured with Tesla stock. Meaning the bank will seize that stock and, since it won't be enough to pay the debt (since it's worth around 50-75% of what it was at the time of the loan), they can start seizing personal assets of Elon Musk including the Twitter company itself and his interest in SpaceX.

Sesame Street's official accounts mocked the rebranding.

[moonlayl]

“Mistake”

[troythecatfish]

[sunrisetune]

[ID: Two screenshots, one of a tumblr tag set and one of a tweet.

1st - Tumblr user @teal-skull's tags on the original post (source reblog here). "#*hbomberguy voice* #so as we established before Kira is only apple to kill criminals who's wrongdoings the media has written about #there's just one problem here: MEDIA CAN BE WRONG #there's numerous cases of people being falsely convicted and sometimes it takes years before they are proven innocent #but surely Kira would do thorough research to avoid killing the innocent since that would kinda be against his entire ideology #surely he doesn't just read headlines and scripple down names without familiarizing himself with the case and checking the court documents #WRONG IT ALREADY HAPPENED #part 7 KIRA KILLS INNOCENT PEOPLE".

2nd image - A tweet by Hbomberguy (@/hbomberguy) on January 17th 2024, about a week after the original post. "For some strange reason I starting editing my old Death Note video script again today. Wonder why". (Source link)

/End ID].

Death Note AU where hbomberguy makes a five hour long video about youtuber Light Yagami that's initially completely unrelated to the murders (Light would probably plagiarize or have really unhinged right-wing political takes if he was on youtube)

but halfway through he reveals that while researching he stumbled upon evidence that Light might be behind the Kira murders, and then spends like fourty minutes explaining the concept of a shinigami, an hour explaining how he thinks Light used one to commit murders, and then another hour explaining Light's ideology and why the concept of criminals being inherently evil is flawed

He finishes the video by addressing Light directly and telling him that he (Hbomberguy) had his name legally changed before uploading the video, to something that only he knows, making it impossible for Light to kill him

[sayruq]

Joe Biden has called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, telling Benjamin Netanyahu that future US support for Israel will depend on it taking concrete action to protect civilians and aid workers. As the two leaders held their first phone call since Israeli airstrikes killed seven employees of the international food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK), Biden issued the strongest US rebuke toward Israel since the start of the conflict. In Thursday’s call, which lasted less than 30 minutes, the US president “made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering and the safety of aid workers”, the White House said in a statement.

[creelarke]

[historyandmemes]

(Note: See updated post) The new DRAFT U.N. Resolution, set to be voted on today, calls for:

• ... “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” in the fighting throughout Gaza and the opening of corridors inside the enclave “for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access.” • U.N. Secretary General António Guterres to appoint a senior coordinator “with responsibility for facilitating, coordinating, monitoring, and verifying in Gaza, as appropriate, the humanitarian nature” of all assistance, and demands that “the parties to the conflict cooperate with the coordinator to fulfill their mandate without delay or obstruction.” • ... “immediate and unconditional” release of the hostages. It also demands that “all parties to the conflict comply with their obligations under international law ... including with regard to the conduct of hostilities and the protection of civilians and civilian objects.” • It reiterates the council’s “unwavering commitment” to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians and “stresses the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.” (12/22/23 | Source: WaPo)

Although the resolution's language was toned down, this is a sign of progress. While such measures are long overdue and should have been honored from the start, we must do everything possible to meet the urgent humanitarian needs in Gaza and relieve unfathomable suffering.

DON'T STOP POSTING. KEEP UP THE PUBLIC PRESSURE. DEFEND HUMAN RIGHTS.

Stay tuned for today's vote.

[sunrisetune]

Sunday July 7th, 2024!

me @ France right now