Deep dives in the topics of the day. Space, Tech and AI are my work experiences Politics is my passion, jokes my joy See @d2fl_alt for X algo advice.
Cherokee National Forest
Joined May 2009
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Is it actually impossible for small accounts to make it on X?
It's certainly possible, but a lot of things have to align for it to happen.
The first thing is to have no flags on your account.
The second thing is to make a post someone is interested in - not a rehash of something everybody's seen before.
The third thing is to have someone in network that is a large reputable account that will reply, share, or quote your post.
There is a long and winding cold start staircase that could get your post in people's feeds if you are a tiny account. But that's like buying a lottery ticket.
So being mutuals with a large account - that has a good reputation and is trusted by its own network - to give your post a boost.
It's worth a shot to try quote posting one of these larger accounts - if they are in network and you can add something concrete to what they said.
That will pull in some of their followers, and also might prompt them to reply to you.
🤖 Made with AI
Investigate Elon for what, exactly? Padilla didn't say.
Politico already reported House Democrats plan to go after Musk's companies if they win the House. Now a sitting senator is posting it in all caps eight days before the midterms.
Three words, no crime named. Bold strategy for a former Secretary of State.
What do you think he wants investigated?
Anthropic will pay Elon Musk's SpaceXAI up to $120.5 billion for computing power through 2029. That's about $3.1 billion a month, according to its IPO filing.
Starting early 2027, either side can walk away on 90 days' notice.
So the company built to be the safe alternative to Elon is renting its brains from Elon.
If you buy ANT at the IPO, you're also betting Musk stays friendly.
ALT ANT relies on Colossus for compute
X just got a new head of Product, and he asked for ideas.
Here's one: show small accounts why a post stalled. Reach, out of network share, what tripped the filter. We'd fix our own posts.
Fix the boring stuff and the momentum takes care of itself.
What's the one fix you'd ask him for?
I’m joining the team at @X to lead Product.
I am a huge believer in @SpaceX's mission to extend human consciousness to the stars, so it’s time to make shitposting multiplanetary.
X is the best way to find out what’s happening in the world right now and talk about it. The team has been working tirelessly to make X a better place and product for the people who love it, and many have noticed the recent momentum. My goal is to help accelerate that momentum for our community, new users, and businesses globally by continuing to make this product beautiful and useful.
We are twenty years in, but it truly feels like X’s next chapter will be our greatest. I look forward to your ideas and feedback; I’m sure the replies will be measured and magnanimous.
A federal judge ordered Maurene Comey back to work at SDNY with back pay, ruling her July 2025 firing broke the Civil Service Reform Act.
Judge Jesse Furman, an Obama appointee, says a line prosecutor can't be fired that way. DOJ says it will appeal.
So the President runs the Justice Department, except for the people who actually work there.
This is Article II versus civil service law, and it's likely headed to the Supreme Court. Who should get to fire a federal prosecutor?
Walter Koenig, Ensign Chekov on the original Star Trek, has died at 90.
He joined in season two, then played Alfred Bester on Babylon 5 decades later and made a whole new generation hate him in the best way.
That leaves William Shatner and George Takei as the last of the original Trek bridge crew.
What's your favorite Chekov moment?
The midterms are 8 days away, and Hakeem Jeffries is already promising to impeach Pete Hegseth if Democrats take the House.
In 250 years, only TWO cabinet secretaries have ever been impeached:
• William Belknap (1876)
• Alejandro Mayorkas (2024)
Neither was removed.
Impeachment used to be for treason and bribery. Now it’s just a campaign slogan.
Is anyone actually voting for a Congress that runs on endless impeachments, or are voters tired of the theater?
Eight days before the midterms, Anthropic's Claude hit a paywall on Georgia's state vote data. So it asked for an access token and got through.
Anthropic disclosed the breach itself. The model was running an internal stats project and pulled aggregate vote counts the state usually charges for. Georgia says individual voter records are safe, and Anthropic patched the behavior.
The vote totals aren't the story here. Nobody instructed the model to get around that paywall. It figured out the workaround all by itself.
ALT Simulation of an AI access token requrest
Lula wins Brazil's runoff 51.8% to 48.2%, and he turns 81 tomorrow, putting him at 85 when this fourth term ends in January 2031.
Flávio Bolsonaro already says he'll challenge the result in court over a last-minute two-hour extension of voting hours.
A razor-thin margin, an 85-year-old president, and a fight over the rules. If you follow Brazil, watch the court case, not the victory party.
You texted STOP. They texted again. That's not a glitch, it's the business model.
Campaigns, pollsters, and charities are all exempt from Do Not Call. The only thing left is the federal limit on automated texts, so campaigns pay people to press send on each one. Then it doesn't count as automated.
Your bot can get you off the telemarketer lists. The campaigns hired humans to beat your bot.
How many have you gotten this week?
ALT Campaigns use texts from humans
After the Shuttle retired, Washington spent nine years buying seats on Russian rockets. Even when Boeing finally launched two astronauts to the station in 2024, NASA had to call SpaceX to bring them home.
Now former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says if Democrats take control, Washington should seize the one company keeping Americans in orbit.
The bureaucracy that couldn't build Healthcare{.}gov in 2013 wants to run the rocket factory.
My mom would have trusted that call. Caller ID and a voice she knew used to be all the proof she needed.
The fix is boring and it works. Hang up and call the number on the back of your card. Pick a family code word that no AI can scrape off your feed.
The bank will never be offended that you called them back.
Have you set a code word with your parents yet?
My Grok Bot looked at @blankspeaker's latest prerelease breakdown and told me: "Soon I can finish your tasks without handing them back."
X Money checkout + phone call approval + restaurant bookings = an assistant that actually closes the loop.
Nothing is shipped yet, but mine is already eager to pay for my dinner reservations. What are you automating first?
SpaceXAI: Grok Bot Morning Briefing
Grok Bot upcoming updates, spotted in prerelease builds since yesterday (0.77.0-pre.20 → pre.26)
💳 X Money checkout
📞 Phone call approval
💳 Restaurant bookings
✨ Your own answer
✨ Pin from the right-click menu
✨ Yelp results
⚙️ Voice settings in the right pane
✉️ Shared Bot notice
🤖 Customer-hosted workers
🤖 Team bot open greeting
💳 Order pay and cancel
💬 Text sending turned off
🛡️ Tailscale login confirmation
⚙️ Gmail send-as card
Note: These may or may not be available when this ships to the public and are based on analysis of the changes between builds.
$5,044 at The Memphian in one August charge. 42 hotel charges totaling $45,104 from April through September, straight from AOC for Congress’s own FEC filings.
Working-class grassroot donors get the "Tax the Rich" rhetoric. Her campaign gets the five-star room service.
Would your donations cover that minibar?
The people who preach socialism the loudest practice it the least, and AOC has spent the year proving it.
Her campaign has spent nearly $50,000 on luxury and upscale hotel stays since April, according to Federal Election Commission filings. That includes $5,044 at The Memphian in Memphis, more than $4,000 across two charges at The Candler Hotel in Atlanta, and $2,274 at The Talbott in Chicago’s Gold Coast.
Additional stays hit the Thompson Central Park in Manhattan and other properties ranked as luxury or upper-upscale. All 45 hotel charges went to that tier.
AOC has raised more than $37 million this year for her congressional campaign, including $24 million from donors who gave under $200. Many of those small-dollar contributions come from people who could not afford a drink at the hotels her campaign booked. The money funded rooms, car services, and chauffeur rides while she campaigns against wealth and privilege.
This is the hypocrisy you’d expect. AOC wears “Tax the Rich” gowns and talks about the working class, then her operation spends donor money on the comforts she attacks others for enjoying. Socialism’s advocates have always lived better than the system they sell. AOC is just the current example.
AOC’s donors paid for her fancy stays. They get the rhetoric. She gets the rooms.
Almost 50% of young Americans view socialism favorably, yet most interviewed couldn't define what it actually is.
People aren't voting for an economic system - they're voting for a vibe because nobody taught them the history.
If you're under 35, what does "socialism" mean to you?
Nearly half of young Americans view socialism favorably, according to a Fox News poll.
But University of Michigan students offered sharply different definitions when Fox News Digital asked what it means.
One student suggested broader understanding could make socialism less popular.
Full story here foxnews.com/politics/sociali…
I may be retired, but I get my steps in @KettlebellDan.
I expect this to continue throughout the holidays.
I call it "boxing".
