Jia Hui

[Race 🕊️ @multiplanet1]

A young SpaceX employee asked Elon what happens if they fail to reach Mars in his lifetime. The room was full of engineers and the question landed heavier than anyone expected.

It was a simple question but it cut to the core of everything SpaceX exists for. The entire company, every late night, every exploded prototype, every engineer who missed their kid's birthday for a launch window, it all points at Mars. What if it doesn't happen in time?

Elon paused.

He said that the goal was never for him personally to walk on Mars. The goal was to build the infrastructure that makes it inevitable. That even if he dies before the first crew lands, the system he built would carry the mission forward without him.

He said the rockets, the factories, the team, the culture, all of it is designed to outlast any single person. Including him. Especially him.

Then he said something that reportedly moved people in the room.

He said that if he thought success depended on him being alive, he would have already failed. The whole point is building something that doesn't need its founder to keep going.

He compared it to a cathedral. The architects of medieval cathedrals knew they would die before the building was finished. They designed it anyway. They poured their life into something they would never see completed because the completion wasn't the point. The commitment was.

SpaceX is his cathedral. He may never set foot on Mars. But the road between here and there will exist because he refused to accept that nobody was building it.

The most ambitious man alive has already made peace with the possibility that his greatest achievement might happen after he's gone. That's not failure. That's faith in something bigger than yourself.

[Gurwinder @G_S_Bhogal]

A lot of people seem angry that Elon is now a trillionaire, so it’s worth reminding them that he didn’t achieve this by making anyone else poorer. Wealth isn't zero-sum. Paul Graham explained it well:
https://t.co/W97pq3FLYg

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@htmx_org What's the motivation for htmx 4 again?

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@PierreDeWulf Maybe you can share more about your SEO strategy now that you are no longer in scrapingbee? Sucked that you stopped because of copycats!

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@joelgrus I still remember your talk on jupyter notebook was good

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

Amazon just got caught running a secret price manipulation operation with Levi's, Home Depot, Walmart, and many more.

Every time you "comparison shopped" online, you were looking at prices that were already rigged.

Here's what happened:

Amazon would monitor prices on Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Chewy in real time. The second a competitor listed a product cheaper than Amazon, they'd contact the brand directly and tell them to "fix it."

And the exact emails are now PUBLIC.

Amazon sent Levi's links to two Walmart listings with the subject line "styles of concern." They basically said the prices on Walmart are too low and we have a problem.

The next day, Levi's responded: "I talked to Walmart and they have partnered with us to take Easy Khaki Classic fit back up to ladder SPP price, $29.99 immediately."

Levi's literally called Walmart and told them to raise the price. Because Amazon told Levi's to make the call.

Walmart complied. Then Amazon matched the HIGHER price.

Both retailers ended up charging more. The customer paid extra. Nobody competed.

Same playbook with Hanes:

Amazon sent them links showing Target and Walmart prices were lower. Hanes confirmed they "reached out to Target and Walmart to have the prices increased."

Target increased the prices. Walmart increased the prices. Amazon kept their margins.

But it gets even worse...

Amazon told Allergan (the company that makes eye drops) that their product was "suppressed" on Amazon because it was cheaper on another site.

Allergan responded: "Walmart got their price back up to $16.99." Amazon then unsuppressed the listing.

They did this with pet treats on Chewy. Furniture on Home Depot. Products across dozens of categories spanning YEARS.

The mechanism is simple but terrifying:

If you're a brand and you sell cheaper on Walmart than on Amazon, Amazon suppresses your product, removes you from the Buy Box, buries you in search results, and effectively makes you invisible to 300 million customers.

Brands can't afford that. So they call Walmart and Target and say "raise your prices or we'll lose our Amazon listings."

Walmart and Target comply because they need the brand's products.

Amazon captures 40 cents of every dollar spent online in America. That gives them the leverage to set prices across THE ENTIRE internet. Not just their own platform.

So turns out, you were never comparison shopping.

You were looking at a coordinated price floor set by Amazon through backroom phone calls between brands and their competitors.

"Amazon is working to make your life more unaffordable."

3 separate antitrust trials are now scheduled for 2027. The FTC has its own case. 18 states plus the DOJ are piling on.

This is literally happening during the WORST affordability crisis in a generation. Groceries up 25% since 2020. Housing unaffordable. Wages flat.

And the largest ecommerce company on Earth has been secretly coordinating with brands to make sure you can't find a cheaper price ANYWHERE.

"Competition" in retail is just a fantasy.

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@DandiG_ I was rejected from opening an account at @slashapp though. Can anything be done about it?

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@theo You know what they say about wrestling pigs

[@levelsio @levelsio]

And after voting that out too...

🇪🇺 ChatControl is back with a vengeance

The Conservatives (EPP) are attempting to force a new vote TODAY (March 26) seeking to reverse the European Parliament's NO on indiscriminate scanning of ALL your private messages, emails and photos

This is a direct attack on democracy and blatant disregard for your right to privacy

If you're European contact your representatives now, with this handy form:
https://t.co/Zypz9GS9hB

If not, please share this tweet so more people see it and we can block the vote

It's crazy they keep just bringing back whatever they want until it's passed!

Obviously now we see the European Commission is controlled by powerful evil lobbying groups 👺

[Brigadier Ketchup 🦨 @Random_Walk_PDX]

1. Prices rocket because Lloyds of London says they won't insure oil tankers in the Strait.

2. Trump puts out an announcement that the US Gov't will take over as insurer where Lloyds won't, to all comers foreign or domestic, and at lower prices to boot.

3. Less than 24 hours later, Lloyds announces that they are suddenly quite eager to re-start tanker insurance again. After all, why would they risk being kicked to the curb by a new (and infinitely-moneyed) competitor?

4. The oil must flow (through the strait), and it does.

[zhil @zhil_arf]

What the fuck is Linux age verification. If I spin up a VM, do I have to fucking provide my ID card? Someone should hang these Californian regulators on a tree

[Rain Drops Media @Raindropsmedia1]

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski goes viral after seeming reluctant to eat his own burgers—he takes a tiny bite, looks uncomfortable, and calls the food ‘product.’ 👀 🍔 😳

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@simonw @Eduardopto Definitely for a new startup, you get to take more shots before your runway ends

[Years Progress @YearsProgress]

2026 is 3% complete.

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@realEstateTrent It's about (AI being used for) deception and not AI. Why would anyone trying to deceive comply?

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@dhh Probably buying the team?

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

https://t.co/1ls2w4PrdE

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@joelgrus It's log scale, that can hardly be considered appropriate for income

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@PierreDeWulf Would you feel like you might have sold too early? Especially if bigger and bigger sized sales keep coming in

[Jia Hui @lu_jiahui]

@PierreDeWulf Only the OG will remember that scrapingdog copy and pasted your developer docs as their own.