Musk offers to buy Twitter

Twitter is now broken.

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Musk is competing w/ Andy Borowitz, occasionally beating him out bc most such hilarity is not often about real news...
 
lizkat said:
Musk is competing w/ Andy Borowitz, occasionally beating him out bc most such hilarity is not often about real news...
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His recent Ukraine-war related tweets/retweets/replies have been ... well ... something. Just falling for the most obvious RU-prop accounts ... I haven't posted them here, but let's just say there has been a lot of head shaking/face palming. People aren't in a surprised in a way, because it's Musk, but there are those asking if he's yet been contacted by a Nigerian prince.
 
Yoused said:
If you have the blue ✔️ thingie, you will now have a post limit of, oh yay, ~800 words.
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Why don't they just open a sportsbook and quit trying to jack up revenue from those eight bucks a pop subscriptions.

Seriously they only have 180k blue subs in the USA so far? 290k globally? No wonder the banks who lent him money and can't sell on the debt are tearing their hair out.

And the replies to Twitter's latest offer are bound to be entertaining. This for instance.

brb writing my long tweet.jpg​
 
dada_dave said:
www.reuters.com

SpaceX curbed Ukraine's use of Starlink internet for drones -company president

SpaceX has taken steps to prevent Ukraine's military from using the company's Starlink satellite internet service for controlling drones in the region during the country's war with Russia, SpaceX's president said Wednesday.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
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Using the internet service to connect (in this case to drones) is "weaponizing it"?

That's an extraordinarily loose and arbitrary line to draw here

What if they use starlink to "communicate about war plans!"

Ridiculous
 
Anyone here on Spoutible? I plan on checking it out as soon as registration opens later today. I've been hearing good things.
 
turbineseaplane said:
Using the internet service to connect (in this case to drones) is "weaponizing it"?

That's an extraordinarily loose and arbitrary line to draw here

What if they use starlink to "communicate about war plans!"

Ridiculous
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I’ve seen some suggest that it’s just for drone use inside Russia or maybe far out to the Black Sea but SpaceX’s statements doesn’t make that clear (and that doesn’t seem to be the case reading about it) and the president doesn’t really sound … how should I put this gently … competent on the issue.

I mean yeah Ukraine using Starlink to communicate with artillery units is not weaponizing the internet but communicating with (long range or otherwise) drones is. That’s a very interesting line to draw with that justification - especially, apparently, unilaterally.

Edit: the cynical joke around military analysts is that governments classify any weapon system or capability they want to give as defensive and any weapons or capabilities they don’t want to give as offensive so I suppose you could say SpaceX is simply learning from the best although they need to work on the smoothness of their delivery in that case. And you know the seemingly unilateral part … since they are not in fact the government.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
Space Karen is at the "find out" stage...
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Hah yeah good luck to him. One can't be as disrespectful as Musk has been to Twitter itself (even as a faltering concern before his acquisition) then to so many now former employees, and now to remaining ones.... and still expect to escape a little sabotage now and then, even if minor and temporary.

And Musk doesn't know where to look to find "what's wrong" and is also distractible as hell, same as Donald Trump was.

The distractibility has its pros and cons, of course. With guys like Musk and Trump, the downside mostly runs against the honcho.... and in favor of those trying to preserve either their own human dignity or the enterprise that employs them.

Hope I live long enough to read some of the inside dope on what was really going on during this period of Twitter's "reformation." I've certainly had a blast reading about some of the verifiable incidents in memoirs of the less high profile staffers and bureaucrats resisting some of the unconstiutional, unprofessional or otherwise inappropriate impulses of Trump while he was in the White House.
 
dada_dave said:
I’ve seen some suggest that it’s just for drone use inside Russia or maybe far out to the Black Sea but SpaceX’s statements doesn’t make that clear (and that doesn’t seem to be the case reading about it) and the president doesn’t really sound … how should I put this gently … competent on the issue.

I mean yeah Ukraine using Starlink to communicate with artillery units is not weaponizing the internet but communicating with (long range or otherwise) drones is. That’s a very interesting line to draw with that justification - especially, apparently, unilaterally.

Edit: the cynical joke around military analysts is that governments classify any weapon system or capability they want to give as defensive and any weapons or capabilities they don’t want to give as offensive so I suppose you could say SpaceX is simply learning from the best although they need to work on the smoothness of their delivery in that case. And you know the seemingly unilateral part … since they are not in fact the government.
Click to expand...

I’m curious what their response would be regarding surveillance drones. They talk about drones and “weapons”, but a long range drone doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with weapons or even targeting for other weapons.

There are some tech companies who have denied allowing the militarization of their products, such as Google not renewing their AI contract with the DOD. But that’s more of taking a moral stance, probably due to pressure from employees or the public.

That said, the pentagon helped fund Starlink. So I imagine the US military is or wants to use it for military applications.

I believe it’s been understood that the marine drones used Starlink. It’s very likely the presumed modified soviet era drones used Starlink. It’s been reported Russia has been tried to jam Starlink in the past. I doubt this could effect service very far- but could affect other military and civilian service in Ukraine. I would imagine Russia has focused a lot of cyber resources against Starlink. So perhaps that’s becoming an issue for them.

I’m not sure how Starlink could prevent it’s use in drones, I suppose blocking signals moving too fast or at too high of an altitude. Perhaps this is just a way to gain some plausible deniability

Its important to remember that spacex is not the only game in town. There are a number of other legacy satellite providers, maybe not as ideal, but I would think are entirely capable of supporting drones. It’s not like other weapons didn’t have satellite communications many years ago, long before Starlink. The KA band providers like Viasat provide pretty good service these days, the latency being the biggest issue. I’m not sure 500ms is a huge deal when we’re talking about a bomb. Plus, LEO alternatives like OneWeb are in the process of coming online and may have some utility in the not too distant future. I believe Telesat’s LEO service is operational, it’s just not marketed to consumers.
 
AG_PhamD said:
I’m curious what their response would be regarding surveillance drones. They talk about drones and “weapons”, but a long range drone doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with weapons or even targeting for other weapons.

There are some tech companies who have denied allowing the militarization of their products, such as Google not renewing their AI contract with the DOD. But that’s more of taking a moral stance, probably due to pressure from employees or the public.

That said, the pentagon helped fund Starlink. So I imagine the US military is or wants to use it for military applications.

I believe it’s been understood that the marine drones used Starlink. It’s very likely the presumed modified soviet era drones used Starlink. It’s been reported Russia has been tried to jam Starlink in the past. I doubt this could effect service very far- but could affect other military and civilian service in Ukraine. I would imagine Russia has focused a lot of cyber resources against Starlink. So perhaps that’s becoming an issue for them.

I’m not sure how Starlink could prevent it’s use in drones, I suppose blocking signals moving too fast or at too high of an altitude. Perhaps this is just a way to gain some plausible deniability

Its important to remember that spacex is not the only game in town. There are a number of other legacy satellite providers, maybe not as ideal, but I would think are entirely capable of supporting drones. It’s not like other weapons didn’t have satellite communications many years ago, long before Starlink. The KA band providers like Viasat provide pretty good service these days, the latency being the biggest issue. I’m not sure 500ms is a huge deal when we’re talking about a bomb. Plus, LEO alternatives like OneWeb are in the process of coming online and may have some utility in the not too distant future. I believe Telesat’s LEO service is operational, it’s just not marketed to consumers.
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Yeah I don’t think the USG is terribly happy with SpaceX’s vacillating behavior. They barged into the conflict when they weren’t asked to make a name for themselves, but to be fair made themselves useful, then tried essentially extort the money back, and now, after nearly a year, claim they’ve suddenly realized that it’s a war zone. I mean reading those comments from the SpaceX president evoked images of a deer in headlights. So I don’t know if even they can answer the questions you posed - they couldn’t even answer the simpler more general questions with any confidence! I got the impression of them scrambling to come up with a justification for this post-facto, which is just so on brand for a Musk-run company.

When the USG self imposes limits like don’t send ATACMS or don’t allow the firing of long range missiles into Russia, it’s being done at the highest levels with input from generals to state all pursuant to a national strategy. That doesn’t mean I agree with every decision they make (I have with some of them but that discussion’s best left for the other thread), but SpaceX … I can’t decide if they are a tech company that wants to play act as a defense contractor for the lucrative contracts or the other way around.

As for how: If the ban is just for long range or maritime drones then I would guess that a simple geofence would probably do. However, if it’s more than that then it must be as as you describe: altitude and speed. At least that’s all I can think of.
 
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dada_dave said:
Yeah I don’t think the USG is terribly happy with SpaceX’s vacillating behavior. They barged into the conflict when they weren’t asked to make a name for themselves, but to be fair made themselves useful, then tried essentially extort the money back, and now, after nearly a year, claim they’ve suddenly realized that it’s a war zone. I mean reading those comments from the SpaceX president evoked images of a deer in headlights. So I don’t know if even they can answer the questions you posed - they couldn’t even answer the simpler more general questions with any confidence! I got the impression of them scrambling to come up with a justification for this post-facto, which is just so on brand for a Musk-run company.

When the USG self imposes limits like don’t send ATACMS or don’t allow the firing of long range missiles into Russia, it’s being done at the highest levels with input from generals to state all pursuant to a national strategy. That doesn’t mean I agree with every decision they make (I have with some of them but that discussion’s best left for the other thread), but SpaceX … I can’t decide if they are a tech company that wants to play act as a defense contractor for the lucrative contracts or the other way around.

As for how: If the ban is just for long range or maritime drones then I would guess that a simple geofence would probably do. However, if it’s more than that then it must be as as you describe: altitude and speed. At least that’s all I can think of.
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Well it’s not exactly the US government and our allies has been devoid of vacillating behavior and indecision. First it was whether or not to provide the MIGs from Poland- which was denied (but supposedly may have actually been broken up into parts and reassembled in Ukraine). For the longest it was a no on the Patriot batteries, only to provided once things got bad enough. Then the whole ridiculous tank fiasco. For the longest time we heard no to ATACMS due to their range, only for the GLSDM (to be provided (ground launched small diameter bomb, double the range of the GMLRS used in HIMARS, but less than ATACMS and to be fair a fraction of the price).

I’m quite confident fighter jets will be approved once the necessary training is finished and infrastructure established. Especially considering Congress approved F-16 training in July 2022 and there were reported talks of sending A-10’s which the Ukrainians wisely declined (and here the Pentagon probably thought they could finally rid themselves of the A-10, which they’ve been trying to do for decades). It’s almost silly to think this will not be happening.

Considering Starlink is owned by SpaceX I suppose their could also be concerns about cyberattacks related to their spacecraft. That would not be good for partners in commercial launches, let alone if they’re launching humans. I don’t think Putin would have any problem killing some astronauts. Especially considering their anti-satellite missile against a defunct soviet satellite in nearly the same orbit as the ISS.

I would also think given the nature of SpaceX’s business, the government probably has restrictions on who they can provide services to and for what reasons. Maybe they’re not actually supposed to sell satellite service to be use with offensive weapons systems and the bureaucracy of the government has yet to approve it.

Or maybe they’re afraid about other countries using their technology in warfare? Or being held responsible by the public somehow if a Ukrainian drone malfunctions and hits a bunch of children? What if the malfunction was caused by a Starlink problem? .

It was reported in March of 2022 that Starlink was being used to operate Ukranian drones- at the very least to send data from drone teams to artillery teams (perhaps not communicating directly with the drone, but as an intermediary.

There has to be more to the story than Elon loving Putin or whatever I’m sure the media will likely report this as. If he was so against this war I doubt he would have given Ukraine satellites and service in the first place. It would have been very easy for them to abstain citing threats to non-military users and infrastructure.
 

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