How about no!

Musk is asking small shareholders to approve his absurd multi tens of billion dollar payout.

To which I say - and have already voted - hell no!

No one. And I mean NO ONE "deserves" that kind of payout. And besides, he's not doing anything to move the needle on the company right now. Instead he's involved in other silly things (to wit, helping America destroy itself) and pet projects. 

And he hasn't helped Tesla in particular. In fact, they've lost market share and the stock has retreated 30%. Tell me again how he's helping the company?

Put that money back into the company. Find a way to turn the market share and stock around. Heck. Pay the shareholders a dividend. 

Just don't cave to his absurd demands. 

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-turns-musks-small-shareholder-fans-back-56-billion-payday-2024-06-10/

4 day work week experiment

Here's another trial that's ongoing in Germany. I would argue that while this story focuses on the general challenges faced by companies, you can read through that there is some success by most measures 

In any case, knowing and understanding these challenges will help make for a smoother transition "someday" - perhaps soon! 

https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/germany-trials-four-day-workweek

Snowflake data breach

I had never used the snowflake platform before. But being a bit of a techie, I thought it might be interesting to learn some things about it. 

There's a plethora of free online training, so I took some, and then some more. 

It's an interesting tool that can be used to manipulate large amounts of data that you can then leverage to do some form of analytics. Or just to develop some sense of what aggregate data tells you so you can explore insights. 

But. And it's a big but. I noticed that in the training, security is sort of glossed over. It's mostly absent in any discussions about data manipulation. It's assumed that they're doing something or perhaps when you install it for a company, you need to put a framework around it. Maybe. 

And now that I'm reading about the data breach, I have to wonder if they have any sort of robust security, or threat assessments. I mean, I certainly don't know. 

But given how they didn't really talk about it - and this massive breach, maybe not so much. 

https://www.wired.com/story/snowflake-breach-advanced-auto-parts-lendingtree/

Space elevators

The theory is that you can build an elevator (more or less a few floors at a time) that would allow a parson to get to space. 

But no one has been able to actually build one. Cool idea. If they can get it to work. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/space-elevator-pros-cons-japan-design-revolutionize-space-travel-2024-5

Instant replay

The premier league in English soccer has been discussing doing away with the video replay, because there were some issues with it this season.  

It's strange to think about going backward, and using no technology to assist the referees in games.  In all sports, it's become something that's useful, and allows for fans another place to throw their outrage.  It's a part of the sporting experience. 

But as I think about it, I recall back in the late 80s/early 90s when the NFL was first experimenting with replay.  They had someone in "the booth" who looked at plays, and would radio down to the head referee if he wanted to review something, and then would provide an update.

But it was early, and the league hadn't really thought this through.  The communication that a play was under review was haphazard, and the communication sometimes caused the referee to stop play just before the ball was snapped, disrupting the rhythm of the game.  

And (worse) there were no standards for outcomes.  I distinctly remember one incident that was called out - and which led to the demise of this early version of replay.  The replay official radioed down "pass incomplete" which the referee heard as "pass is complete"… oops.  

World views

Not for nothing.... I was recently in Canada, and met some interesting people at an event.  One man was from Hong Kong that we spent some time with. 

Interesting, intelligent conversation about how the US is viewed in Chinese media and how China is viewed by the US media.  

My wife asked him if abortion is legal in Hong Kong... "of course! Just like here in Canada! It makes sense and America is backward that way" 

Which led to an interesting conversation about how, in many tangible ways, life is less restrictive in China than it is in the US. In spite of outward appearances to the contrary.

Now that’s progress

For all it's perceived problems it's amazing to me the Mexico elected a woman who is Jewish to be the president of the country and by the way did you know that abortion is legal there?