What time is it on the moon?
The moon may need a time zone. Cop city protests escalate further. Elon Musk is going for world record on assholery. The French are doing their thing. Biden might be putting migrants in cages again. But hey, a long awaited game sequel comes out this year!
Listen to today's newsletter at the Stuff Keeps Happening podcast
Hey, real quick
Today's stuff is kinda a bummer, and I wanna say up front that it's got a lot of "cops bad, state bad, capitalists bad" kinda stuff going on. I sprinkled in some neutral stories as well, but will be working harder in the future to find positive stories as well, because I don't get much pleasure in just writing about negative stuff. It's great for engagement, frankly, but that is gross and I'd rather not have Stuff Keeps Happening just be known as yet another alarmist outlet.
Take care, be well and remember that news comes from all over this massive world, so there is never going to be a shortage of bad, but at the same time, we'll never have a shortage of good. 🕊️
Schedule your meetings in Lunar Time
The Moon may some day get its own time zone. The European Space Agency has basically come out and said "hey, y'all? There's too much shit happening with the moon these days and time management is getting wack."
In short, we may need to come together as a planet and make a Lunar Time Zone so that we can best coordinate missions and excursions and other MOON STUFF.
I weep for those who maintain timezone calculation systems.
Two dozen protestors charged with domestic terrorism during Cop City protest concert
23 people have been charged with domestic terrorism after a conflict between cops and protestors outside Atlanta. The protestors have been working to push back on a large cop training facility that the local community does not support and did not vote for.
Cops—whose claims should never be taken at face value—say that protestors attacked them with molotovs and set fires and "could have caused bodily harm." Protestors and supporting networks maintain that cops were indiscriminately going after people at a music festival being held in protest of the development.
I do not doubt that there was indeed conflict between cops and protestors. Who is to blame for escalating is up for debate. Meanwhile, maybe you should get the approval of your citizens before making a massive cop training complex that people have actively asked not to be built.
Twitter disasters left and right
Two big ol' Twitter things.
First: Twitter went down again again. This time, the cause was apparently a change to the Twitter API which caused about 80% of users on the website to just not be able to use Twitter at all. Links were just totally broken and error messages abound. According to internal sources, there's only ONE person left at the company who is able to navigate the issues that caused the breakage. Hey, maybe don't fire everyone for no reason?
Anyway, after claiming that the Twitter codebase is "far too brittle" (hint: it's literally the same as any other major company, just being run into the ground by a moron), Elon Musk decided to truly amp up his platform in his run for asshole of the year.
Haraldur Thorleifsson, a (seemingly) former Twitter employee, was confused because he was not able to access anything for work, but had not been informed that he was fired. So, he Tweeted at Musk asking for clarification. Thorleifsson, who has muscular dystrophy and is a well known disability advocate in Iceland, was then publicly lambasted by Musk via Tweet, poking fun at his disability and implying that he "didn't do any work anyway" among other things. Musk then expressed that he is "losing faith in humanity" as people side with the employee.
He later made a very sudden change in tone and started speaking quite formally, apologizing publicly and claiming he was working on bad information when he... publicly insulted his own employee's work and disability. My guess is he checked his voicemail and had 500 messages from his lawyers.
You can read the tweets here. It's truly a wild ride seeing the richest man in the world basically throw middle school grade insults towards a former employee who just wanted confirmation that they were terminated.
The French are doing what they do best
Showing us how its done once again, the people of France are protesting their leader's proposed changes to retirement, bringing the country to a standstill. President Macron's proposal raises the retirement age in France from 62 to 64 in an effort to keep pensions afloat.
I want to take a quick moment. Me and you together. I'm from the United States of Free Country USA. You probably are as well, if my audience analytics are at all accurate. If not, you are quite lucky. The notion of retiring at 62 alone is amazing. 64 would be nice. And… PENSIONS????
Anyway, a bunch of unions over yonder are going hard and basically plan to bring the country to its knees until they stop doing the whole "make people work longer because money" stuff.
Biden reportedly considering detaining migrant families again
As COVID-19 emergency measures lift, the Biden administration is trying to figure out what to do about the expected increase in migrants coming to America. Instead of—I dunno—welcoming people into a country with abundant land and bolstering our economy with additional labor during a time where population stability is in question, Biden is considering putting families into cages again.
Because that's what heroes do. 🇺🇸
Scammers use AI to fake family emergencies
Oh look! Horrifying issues with AI due to a lack of consideration of ethical implications!
As we all laugh at the funny videos of AI generated Trump, Obama and Biden voices playing video games (I genuinely do love those I mean come on), something far more horrifying is happening.
Scammers are using AI-driven voice generation models to mimic the voices of peoples loved ones, then use the generated voices to fake emergencies over the phone. So far, an estimated $11,000,000 has been scammed using this novel method, and that is likely to be much higher in just a few months. Stay vigilant and be sure to talk with your loved ones to have an understood secret password of sorts to be sure they are who they say they are if you cannot otherwise confirm.
Mayor of NYC suggests people reveal their face to security cameras if they wear a mask
Mayor Eric Adams of New York City is recommending that local businesses require customers to reveal their face when entering a store so that security cameras can pick them up.
Notably, Adams is a former cop, and insists that this is in the best interest of shop owners and this is just to keep everyone safe. Because surveillence is the only way!