Thread: Trivia and other useless but interesting items

Originally Posted by JDNSW

At present it seems rather unlikely that Twitter will still be operating by Christmas the way things are going at the moment.

In its current form, perhaps. $US 44Billion is a little too much to throw away, even for Elon. Sam Bankman-Freid would seem to be an exception to this.

Have to say it might be a longest I have heard of. Will the prision be standing in 1000 years? Not likely


"A court in Turkey has sentenced a televangelist, who surrounded himself with young women he referred to as his "kittens", to 8,658 years in prison.



Adnan Oktar, who has been described as a cult leader, was convicted of sexual assault and abuse of minors.



Oktar, 66, fronted his own television channel, through which he delivered religious sermons.


He is a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution, and wrote a widely mocked book on creationism.



He was originally given a jail sentence of 1,075 years but an appeal court ordered a retrial involving 215 defendants.



"

He also wrote lots of rather funny books "All the subjects concerning #### verses are explained so as to leave no doubt or room for questions in the reader's mind. " Its a big PDF!!

"Oktar's views have earned him a degree of notoriety both in Turkey and abroad, having been arrested multiple times before 2018 and having spent time both in prison and a psychiatric unit over the years.



Multiple copies of his widely ridiculed book "the Atlas of Creation" were reportedly shipped unrequested to academics and libraries. In the book he claimed Darwin's theory of evolution lay at the root of global terrorism.



"

I have my doubts

Originally Posted by Tins

In its current form, perhaps. $US 44Billion is a little too much to throw away, even for Elon. Sam Bankman-Freid would seem to be an exception to this.

Nothing Elon has done since taking it over appears to have the slightest hope of ever making the business profitable. Before he bought it, it was barely profitable. Since then he has managed to greatly reduce the amount of advertisers who are prepared to advertise on it, simply by doing stupid things, driven away many celebrities (same reason) failing to realise that these are why a lot of twits are there to look at the advertising, and open the company up to prosecution for failing to observe the terms of an FTC agreement, and ignoring Federal and California labour laws.

Looks like he is making preparations for a real lawyers' picnic. And this on top of paying a lot more than it was worth by any stretch of imagination.

From another thread, submitted by BradC.

ENVIRO+ 5W-40 (FULL SYN.) | Penrite Oil

I wonder why the 'American Petroleum Institute' isn't called the 'American Gasoline Institute'?

Originally Posted by Saitch

From another thread, submitted by BradC.

ENVIRO+ 5W-40 (FULL SYN.) | Penrite Oil

I wonder why the 'American Petroleum Institute' isn't called the 'American Gasoline Institute'?

For that matter. why isn't it called the 'US Gasoline Institute'? America is a big place that extends over two large continents.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Nothing Elon has done since taking it over appears to have the slightest hope of ever making the business profitable. Before he bought it, it was barely profitable. Since then he has managed to greatly reduce the amount of advertisers who are prepared to advertise on it, simply by doing stupid things, driven away many celebrities (same reason) failing to realise that these are why a lot of twits are there to look at the advertising, and open the company up to prosecution for failing to observe the terms of an FTC agreement, and ignoring Federal and California labour laws.

Looks like he is making preparations for a real lawyers' picnic. And this on top of paying a lot more than it was worth by any stretch of imagination.

He's only owned it for three weeks. He bought it from that well known stoner Jack Dorsey, who ran it as a kind of sheltered workshop. Elon is many things, but stupid isn't one of them. The instantaneous attacks from certain sectors were predictable. I, for one, will wait and see.

Still not going to use Twitter though.

Originally Posted by Tins

He's only owned it for three weeks. He bought it from that well known stoner Jack Dorsey, who ran it as a kind of sheltered workshop. Elon is many things, but stupid isn't one of them. The instantaneous attacks from certain sectors were predictable. I, for one, will wait and see.

Still not going to use Twitter though.

I did not think he was stupid either - but his behaviour over Twitter can hardly be described any other way.

1. Signed a binding contract to buy the company for 25% over market pricewithout doing "due diligence"
2. Refused to honour this contract, and was taken to court over this refusal, finally doing so literally the day before the hearing.
3. Dismissed substantial parts of the company workforce in breach of California and EU employment law.
4. Dismissed large numbers of staff without even knowing what they do (see 1.)
5. Begged key staff to come back (unclear whether any did - in fact since Twitter no longer has a communication department, who knows?)
6. Introduced an $8 payment to verify that the account holder is who they say they are instead of actually requiring proof of this
7. Dropped this when large numbers of $8 accounts with false names started Tweeting - exactly as he had been warned in writing by his staff - who were fired for disagreeing with him.
8. Gave all staff an ultimatum to agree in writing to "work at high intensity for long hours" - failure to agree would result in immediate dismissal
9. Failed to comply with FTC consent decree agreed by the company earlier this year
10. Twitter has never been consistently profitable - now he has saddled it with an annual additional interest bill of over $billion, while the antics above have by some estimates reduced their income by over 50% - most of Twitter's income is from advertising, and advertisers are dropping them because of the above antics and because with Twitter no longer moderating offensive content, they do not want their ads alongside this stuff.
11. His behaviour has prompted urgent and apparently unanswered requests to know what is going on from a number of governments - including Australia.

He may not be stupid, but achieving this all in three weeks without being stupid is pretty impressive.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I did not think he was stupid either - but his behaviour over Twitter can hardly be described any other way.

1. Signed a binding contract to buy the company for 25% over market pricewithout doing "due diligence"
2. Refused to honour this contract, and was taken to court over this refusal, finally doing so literally the day before the hearing.
3. Dismissed substantial parts of the company workforce in breach of California and EU employment law.
4. Dismissed large numbers of staff without even knowing what they do (see 1.)
5. Begged key staff to come back (unclear whether any did - in fact since Twitter no longer has a communication department, who knows?)
6. Introduced an $8 payment to verify that the account holder is who they say they are instead of actually requiring proof of this
7. Dropped this when large numbers of $8 accounts with false names started Tweeting - exactly as he had been warned in writing by his staff - who were fired for disagreeing with him.
8. Gave all staff an ultimatum to agree in writing to "work at high intensity for long hours" - failure to agree would result in immediate dismissal
9. Failed to comply with FTC consent decree agreed by the company earlier this year
10. Twitter has never been consistently profitable - now he has saddled it with an annual additional interest bill of over $billion, while the antics above have by some estimates reduced their income by over 50% - most of Twitter's income is from advertising, and advertisers are dropping them because of the above antics and because with Twitter no longer moderating offensive content, they do not want their ads alongside this stuff.
11. His behaviour has prompted urgent and apparently unanswered requests to know what is going on from a number of governments - including Australia.

He may not be stupid, but achieving this all in three weeks without being stupid is pretty impressive.

Blimey! I bet he has the gall to call himself a "Businessman" as well.

Just as well he doesn't need to change jobs & ask his boss for a Personal Reference.