About 163 million out of 340 million people work. The rest are subsidized.

The Thumper from Tribes. Most people went with the Spinfusor because of the linear projectile, but once you learn to account for the arcing shots the Thumper was better.

Yup. In multiplayer, I used to blow a crater in the floor with explosives and then sit in the hole with the rail gun, shooting people through the floor.

There is an amazing audio tape where an astronaut who has been living in a helium enriched underwater laboratory for a month gets a phone call from President Johnson.

I recently got a Kia Niro and it has buttons on the wheel for most of the basic functions of the touch screen. Really handy

Myspace is still online.

I enjoyed that call exactly once, when I left Comcast for RCN.

“I’m calling to cancel my service.”

“Why?”

“RCN offers twice the download speeds for half what you charge. Can you beat that?”

“…I’ll switch you to cancellations.”

Maybe they will have an upgraded version with a large rubber nose and a moustache.

I’m more worried about billionaires who have literal armies like Erik Prince.

Owning land is not the same as governing land.

If you are running in the Olympics, it doesn’t matter if the 2nd place guy is 5 seconds or 10 seconds behind you. You still get the gold.

My point is that he didn’t lose a significant amount of money.

Even with all the losses, he is still the richest man in the world by more than $50 billion. Musk dumped more than half of his Tesla stock and is focusing more on SpaceX now.

Musk could easily buy himself a governorship or a senatorial position and work up from there. That’s not his goal. He wants to be the next Thomas Edison. He wants to be admired and remembered.

Dictator’s opulent displays of wealth are to stoke their egos. They don’t care about the money they spend because they just took it, they didn’t earn it. They care about how much control they have over the people around them. They don’t care if people like them ,only that they fear them.

Starlink launched in Africa in 2023, so that covers a few oppressive governments.

Are you saying he is trying to take over the country by buying all the land? Seems like he’s just using land as an investment.

That is a high quality slice of tuna.

I think there is a difference in mentality between people who chase power and people who chase money. Bull Gates certainly chases money, but he’s not trying to take over a country somewhere.

They have monopolies because we let them. I say nationalize all communication infrastructure.

Dictators do things like build and use rape rooms or throw people they don’t like out of helicopters.