We get a great Fourth of July music and fireworks show on Boston’s Esplanade.
Me too. 
And the words to a national anthem.
Judge: You may proceed with your lottery
Elmo: Actually I picked all the winners ahead of time
Wow, that’s 20,000 ft, then do a face plant level of stupid.
Actually, as I read it, the defense that it wasn’t an illegal lottery was that they CHOSE the winners, it wasn’t a random giveaway. Thus, not a lottery. So they couldn’t be charged as a lottery… meaning they likely committed some flavor of fraud or deceptive practice against everyone who was under the impression they DID have a chance to win.
Exactly what I was going to say.
What’s worse than an illegal lottery is making something look like a lottery but have it rigged from the beginning to con people.
But would it be civil fraud or criminal fraud? Presumably none of the people involved had to pay to be included, but they did enter into a contractual agreement nonetheless.
So if Trump wins (knock on wood) and appoints Elon to all the powerful positions he says he will, then all those presumed Trump-and/or-Elon fans who signed up for Elon’s “lottery” and now know they were defrauded, will say…yay???
They helped make it happen!
Except for the fact that that kid looks kinda non-Northern European: yes. Probably on target.
I’ve finally gotten around to starting a Bluesky account. The few people I follow on Twitter are all over there as well and it has all the functionality of Twitter, but without the ads and bots and chuds, and because it’s an open protocol it can never be co-opted by a billionaire.
I don’t think I ever need to go back.
I follow about 200 media people on Twitter. I don’t think they’re on Bluesky.
Maybe they’ll eventually migrate! 
I finally turned off Twitter yesterday (deleted all the app interfaces, but haven’t killed the account yet in case someone contacts me there). I’ve been on Bluesky for a while; my three main areas of interest (chess, Bayern soccer, and an obscure third thing) don’t exist there at all, but it is what it is.
I’m Janicket the So-So at Bluesky, have also signed up for some other Xitter replacements but tend not to go to them as Bluesky is closest to what was the Xitter experience for me, plus the accounts I followed on Xitter have mostly moved to Bluesky.
The sooner you tell them you’re leaving for bluesky and then do so, the sooner they move.
The migration away from X must be led by the followers, not the providers. Economics demands this.
If instead you wait for the content to move, you will wait forever.
This sentence immediately reminded me of Network:
“You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr Beale!”
On the technology/science side, I’ve seen at least a dozen “starter packs” where you can follow a raft of people all at once, or pick and choose amongst them, and be tied into a community. That is absolutely accelerating adoption in the last two weeks.
ETA oh wait, I just did some scouting, it goes way beyond that.
Now I hear Elno has said there will be some “short-term economic hardship” while “restructuring the economy”. That sounds like a message of pure evil. They plan to privatize every damn thing they can and hand the country over to the billionaires. And “short-term” is not likely. We are well and truly fucked.