Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
Awkward Silence: Ron DeSantis’s Bold Twitter Gambit That Flopped
The Florida governor wanted to show off his tech savvy by announcing his presidential campaign on Twitter. It quickly devolved into the conference call from hell.
It was the announcement not heard ’round the world.
Ron DeSantis plotted to open his presidential campaign early Wednesday evening with a pioneering social media gambit, introducing himself during an audio-only Twitter forum with Elon Musk. His 2024 effort began instead with a moment of silence. Then several more.
A voice cut in, then two — Mr. Musk’s? — only to disappear again.
“Now it’s quiet,” someone whispered. This was true.
“We got so many people here that we are kind of melting the servers,” said David Sacks, the nominal moderator, “which is a good sign.” This was not true.
Soon, all signs were bad. Hold music played for a spell. Some users were summarily booted from the platform, where hundreds of thousands of accounts had gathered to listen.
“The servers are straining somewhat,” Mr. Musk said at one point, perhaps unaware that his mic was hot, at least briefly.
For 25 minutes, the only person unmistakably not talking (at least on a microphone) was Mr. DeSantis.
The Florida governor’s chosen rollout venue was always going to be a risk, an aural gamble on Mr. Musk, a famously capricious and oxygen-stealing co-star, and the persuasive powers of Mr. DeSantis’s own disembodied voice. (“Whiny,” Donald J. Trump has called him.)
Gov. Ron DeSantis and His Administration
Propelling Florida to the Right: Before joining the presidential race, Gov. Ron DeSantis has checked off many boxes on the far-right’s wish list. Here are the bills he has signed this year.
Rift With Disney: As DeSantis and Disney continue to feud, the company said it is pulling the plug on a nearly $1 billion development planned for Orlando.
N.A.A.C.P. Travel Advisory: The organization issued a travel advisory for Florida, urging people to consider the state’s policies on diversity and race under DeSantis when thinking of traveling there.
Textbooks: Florida rejected dozens of social studies textbooks and worked with publishers to edit dozens more, in an effort led by the DeSantis administration to scrub textbooks of contested topics.
But the higher-order downsides proved more relevant. Twitter’s streaming tool, known as Spaces, has been historically glitchy. Executive competence, core to the DeSantis campaign message, was conspicuously absent. And for a politician credibly accused through the years of being incorrigibly online — a former DeSantis aide said he regularly read his Twitter mentions — the event amounted to hard confirmation, a zeitgeisty exercise devolving instead into a conference call from hell.
“You can tell from some of the mistakes that it’s real,” Mr. Musk said.
At 6:26 p.m., Mr. DeSantis finally announced himself, long after his campaign had announced his intentions, reading from a script that often parroted an introduction video and an email sent to reporters more than 20 minutes earlier.
“Well,” he opened, “I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback.”
After ticking through a curated biography that noted his military background and his “energetic” bearing, Mr. DeSantis stayed on the line. Mr. Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is close with Mr. Musk, acknowledged the earlier mess.
“Thank you for putting up with these technical issues,” he said. “What made you want to kind of take the chance of doing it this way?”
Mr. DeSantis swerved instantly to his Covid-era stewardship of Florida.
“Do you go with the crowd?” he asked, recalling his expert-flouting decision-making, “or do you look at the data yourself and cut against the grain?”
Rivals agreed: If he hoped to differentiate himself, Mr. DeSantis had succeeded, in his way.
“This link works,” the @JoeBiden account mocked, inviting followers to donate.
“‘Rob,’” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social, a standard troll-by-misspelling, winding to a confusing (if potentially juvenile) punchline: “My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working.”
Even Fox News piled on.
“Want to actually see and hear Ron DeSantis?” read a pop-up banner on its website. “Tune into Fox News at 8 p.m. E.T.” (Urging donations once he got on the air, Mr. DeSantis wondered if supporters might “break that part of the internet as well.”)
Minor as a tech snag might prove in the long run, it was a dispiriting turn for Mr. DeSantis after months of meticulous political choreography.
So much of his strength as a contender over the past year was theoretical — the mystery-box candidate constructing a national profile on his terms: slayer of liberals, smasher of foes, the Trumpy non-Trump.
He would conquer and coast. He would Make America Florida.
He would be a sight to behold. Presumably.
The reality of Mr. DeSantis’s pre-candidacy has been less imposing, shadowed by uneasy public appearances, skittish donors and a large polling gap between him and Mr. Trump.
With better tech, perhaps, a visual-free campaign debut might have been a clever way to rediscover that past aura, to let listeners fill in the mystery box as they choose, before Mr. Trump tries to chuck it offstage.
Or maybe the governor’s ostensible advantages — looking the part, before the full audition — were always doomed to translate poorly on Wednesday when there was nothing to see. It is difficult to project indomitable swagger and take-on-all-comer-ism at an invisible gathering devoid of non-friendly questioning or workaday voters.
Mr. DeSantis suggested he needed no such inputs. “I just know instinctively what, like, normal people think about a lot of this stuff,” DeSantis said of culture war issues, amid meditations on “woke banking” and “accreditation cartels.”
But then, this was not supposed to be a typical kickoff event, governed by visual cues and administrative precision: a stately lectern, wrinkle-free American flags, plausibly enthusiastic supporters positioned optimally behind the candidate.
Story continues below advertisement
Continue reading the main story
“It’s not about building a brand or virtue-signaling,” Mr. DeSantis said of his leadership at one point. And if his ambition was to generate organic buzz, the governor got his wish.
This was unique, compelling, viral on the merits.
It was a sight to behold. Presumably.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/24/us/p ... itter.html
There isn't any reason for me to think of twitter as anything other than a right wing megaphone. Maybe the dems can frame the narrative of Elmo the same way the gqp does Soros......
The Florida governor wanted to show off his tech savvy by announcing his presidential campaign on Twitter. It quickly devolved into the conference call from hell.
It was the announcement not heard ’round the world.
Ron DeSantis plotted to open his presidential campaign early Wednesday evening with a pioneering social media gambit, introducing himself during an audio-only Twitter forum with Elon Musk. His 2024 effort began instead with a moment of silence. Then several more.
A voice cut in, then two — Mr. Musk’s? — only to disappear again.
“Now it’s quiet,” someone whispered. This was true.
“We got so many people here that we are kind of melting the servers,” said David Sacks, the nominal moderator, “which is a good sign.” This was not true.
Soon, all signs were bad. Hold music played for a spell. Some users were summarily booted from the platform, where hundreds of thousands of accounts had gathered to listen.
“The servers are straining somewhat,” Mr. Musk said at one point, perhaps unaware that his mic was hot, at least briefly.
For 25 minutes, the only person unmistakably not talking (at least on a microphone) was Mr. DeSantis.
The Florida governor’s chosen rollout venue was always going to be a risk, an aural gamble on Mr. Musk, a famously capricious and oxygen-stealing co-star, and the persuasive powers of Mr. DeSantis’s own disembodied voice. (“Whiny,” Donald J. Trump has called him.)
Gov. Ron DeSantis and His Administration
Propelling Florida to the Right: Before joining the presidential race, Gov. Ron DeSantis has checked off many boxes on the far-right’s wish list. Here are the bills he has signed this year.
Rift With Disney: As DeSantis and Disney continue to feud, the company said it is pulling the plug on a nearly $1 billion development planned for Orlando.
N.A.A.C.P. Travel Advisory: The organization issued a travel advisory for Florida, urging people to consider the state’s policies on diversity and race under DeSantis when thinking of traveling there.
Textbooks: Florida rejected dozens of social studies textbooks and worked with publishers to edit dozens more, in an effort led by the DeSantis administration to scrub textbooks of contested topics.
But the higher-order downsides proved more relevant. Twitter’s streaming tool, known as Spaces, has been historically glitchy. Executive competence, core to the DeSantis campaign message, was conspicuously absent. And for a politician credibly accused through the years of being incorrigibly online — a former DeSantis aide said he regularly read his Twitter mentions — the event amounted to hard confirmation, a zeitgeisty exercise devolving instead into a conference call from hell.
“You can tell from some of the mistakes that it’s real,” Mr. Musk said.
At 6:26 p.m., Mr. DeSantis finally announced himself, long after his campaign had announced his intentions, reading from a script that often parroted an introduction video and an email sent to reporters more than 20 minutes earlier.
“Well,” he opened, “I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback.”
After ticking through a curated biography that noted his military background and his “energetic” bearing, Mr. DeSantis stayed on the line. Mr. Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is close with Mr. Musk, acknowledged the earlier mess.
“Thank you for putting up with these technical issues,” he said. “What made you want to kind of take the chance of doing it this way?”
Mr. DeSantis swerved instantly to his Covid-era stewardship of Florida.
“Do you go with the crowd?” he asked, recalling his expert-flouting decision-making, “or do you look at the data yourself and cut against the grain?”
Rivals agreed: If he hoped to differentiate himself, Mr. DeSantis had succeeded, in his way.
“This link works,” the @JoeBiden account mocked, inviting followers to donate.
“‘Rob,’” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social, a standard troll-by-misspelling, winding to a confusing (if potentially juvenile) punchline: “My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working.”
Even Fox News piled on.
“Want to actually see and hear Ron DeSantis?” read a pop-up banner on its website. “Tune into Fox News at 8 p.m. E.T.” (Urging donations once he got on the air, Mr. DeSantis wondered if supporters might “break that part of the internet as well.”)
Minor as a tech snag might prove in the long run, it was a dispiriting turn for Mr. DeSantis after months of meticulous political choreography.
So much of his strength as a contender over the past year was theoretical — the mystery-box candidate constructing a national profile on his terms: slayer of liberals, smasher of foes, the Trumpy non-Trump.
He would conquer and coast. He would Make America Florida.
He would be a sight to behold. Presumably.
The reality of Mr. DeSantis’s pre-candidacy has been less imposing, shadowed by uneasy public appearances, skittish donors and a large polling gap between him and Mr. Trump.
With better tech, perhaps, a visual-free campaign debut might have been a clever way to rediscover that past aura, to let listeners fill in the mystery box as they choose, before Mr. Trump tries to chuck it offstage.
Or maybe the governor’s ostensible advantages — looking the part, before the full audition — were always doomed to translate poorly on Wednesday when there was nothing to see. It is difficult to project indomitable swagger and take-on-all-comer-ism at an invisible gathering devoid of non-friendly questioning or workaday voters.
Mr. DeSantis suggested he needed no such inputs. “I just know instinctively what, like, normal people think about a lot of this stuff,” DeSantis said of culture war issues, amid meditations on “woke banking” and “accreditation cartels.”
But then, this was not supposed to be a typical kickoff event, governed by visual cues and administrative precision: a stately lectern, wrinkle-free American flags, plausibly enthusiastic supporters positioned optimally behind the candidate.
Story continues below advertisement
Continue reading the main story
“It’s not about building a brand or virtue-signaling,” Mr. DeSantis said of his leadership at one point. And if his ambition was to generate organic buzz, the governor got his wish.
This was unique, compelling, viral on the merits.
It was a sight to behold. Presumably.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/24/us/p ... itter.html
There isn't any reason for me to think of twitter as anything other than a right wing megaphone. Maybe the dems can frame the narrative of Elmo the same way the gqp does Soros......
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
He's a bad candidate personality wise - Ted Cruz 2.0. Unless something drastic happens it will be Biden vs Trump round two.
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
Tiny: "I am the candidate or I run as an independent and take with me 35 million votes".
...
...
...
GQP: "Yes, sir!"
...
...
...
GQP: "Yes, sir!"
Ego figere omnia et scio supellectilem
- Suliso
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
It's not just that. In my opinion DeSantis wouldn't be a candidate even if Trump drops dead tomorrow. He's that lousy.
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
I don't think so. He is a very typical GOP candidate and we have seen that his line of thinking resonates with many people. He would be a lousy president because indeed, he is a very bad administrator. But that is not what people on the GOP are looking for nowadays; they do not understand politics that much.
He is against immigration, against minorities, anti-environment and is seen by many as fighter against the woke. That appeals to many people.
He is a lousy candidate for people like us. For voters in the USA, he is an item in the menu, and many will go for him.
Ego figere omnia et scio supellectilem
- Suliso
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
I'm not even considering his views. He's lousy candidate because he doesn't know how to connect with people, how to inspire them. In this sense Trump is a great candidate.
Of course if he were to become a candidate 45%+ would vote for him. The hard part is fight off others with similar views.
Of course if he were to become a candidate 45%+ would vote for him. The hard part is fight off others with similar views.
- ti-amie
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
Of course that guy from Florida has said he will do just that if elected.
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
I think you'll have to be more specific about which guy from Florida you mean.
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
In this case, that guy from Florida had a glitch in the Twitter system this week and currently has a title only as that guy has not done anything for the state in months. Ignored the unusual flooding in Fort Lauderdale while traveling around the world.skatingfan wrote: ↑Fri May 26, 2023 4:28 amI think you'll have to be more specific about which guy from Florida you mean.
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
I don't like the ethnic slurs some are using to describe the man nominally in charge of running the state of Flori-duh but what do you call him, chubby as opposed to fat, middle aged as opposed to elderly criminal?
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
Guy that is supposed to be running Flori-duh is not doing anything to help. That guy is scheduled to see Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
Meanwhile the NYT is running fluff pieces about the wife of the the guy supposedly running Flori-duh's and how she's the next Jackie and is as stylish as TFG's former escort of a wife. Is the world ready for nude pics of the wife of that guy sprawled naked on a fur rug?
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
My paranoia about AI is well documented. But here is something else.
I am actually a bit fond of MS EDGE; it is as good as Mozilla's Firefox and I like the interface. As we all know, MS has had a lot of problems with its BING search engine, in that it is good but it has not been able to displace google as the main search engine on line.
But, now, BING is AI driven.
So I decided to test it a little bit. And, for my money, right now it surpasses Google. Why?
I am looking into some programming things for the board, so I decided to ask BING for some code. I started with a very simple thing: what is the code for inserting a button on an HTML page. BING PRODUCED the code; easy to copy and paste in your code editor. Google "simply" gives you the list of pages where the code can be found.
So really, BING is a bit better now if you want to ask questions like that.
Of course, that still keeps me in edge, pun intended. Now you really do not need to go to a school to learn to code, or even write the code: BING can do it for you. If you are organized, you can then ask it to keep writing code and you integrate it. No need to hire somebody to write the code for you, no need to go to a school to learn how to code.
Whether that is good or bad is up for debate.
I am actually a bit fond of MS EDGE; it is as good as Mozilla's Firefox and I like the interface. As we all know, MS has had a lot of problems with its BING search engine, in that it is good but it has not been able to displace google as the main search engine on line.
But, now, BING is AI driven.
So I decided to test it a little bit. And, for my money, right now it surpasses Google. Why?
I am looking into some programming things for the board, so I decided to ask BING for some code. I started with a very simple thing: what is the code for inserting a button on an HTML page. BING PRODUCED the code; easy to copy and paste in your code editor. Google "simply" gives you the list of pages where the code can be found.
So really, BING is a bit better now if you want to ask questions like that.
Of course, that still keeps me in edge, pun intended. Now you really do not need to go to a school to learn to code, or even write the code: BING can do it for you. If you are organized, you can then ask it to keep writing code and you integrate it. No need to hire somebody to write the code for you, no need to go to a school to learn how to code.
Whether that is good or bad is up for debate.
Ego figere omnia et scio supellectilem
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Re: Science/Techno Babble Random, Random
@pochi: I'm on the "no good can come of this" side of the AI discussion, though it will probably help a lot of people if we're looking at this from the perspective of, say, the medical field. That said, like with modern digital communication/the internet, and many other major advancements in the past century or so, I strongly feel that as a species, even though we've been smart enough to invent these things, we greatly lack the maturity to use them in a responsible way and will only ever say "oh dear, that's not what we want!" after the damage has already been done in some way or another. Not looking forward to AI having to fight AI with regards to fake news, to name but one thing amongst many, many upcoming battles...
My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger.
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