Shpend A. Mustafa

Enthusiastic cyclist, avid reader, interested in technology and IR, and Westworld craziest fan. Everything here is personal.

[Shpend A. Mustafa @shpendium]

A battle of gods. Maeve and Hale. But, there is always the other god, who has been playing that role since the beginning. That god, that's a sick god.

Thank you @WestworldHBO.

#Westworld #WestworldS4 #westworldhbo

[Encyclopaedia Britannica @Britannica]

1000000000000066600000000000001 is a prime number…it is also a palindrome.

It’s called ‘Belphegor's prime.’

‘Belphegor’ refers to one of the Seven Princes of Hell (due to the ‘666’ in the middle & the 13 zeroes on either side).

So that’s cute.

[Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins]

I am bewildered, and not very impressed, by the visceral, naked, irrational hatred spat out by some defenders of Jason Arday. If a Cambridge professor is accused of being an unqualified charlatan, the accusation might be racially motivated. On the other hand it might not, depending on the evidence. The correct question to ask is not, ”What is the colour of his skin” but “Is it in fact true that he is an unqualified charlatan?” Please examine the evidence before leaping to the assumption of racism.
As for the idea that journalists “piled in on him” and “hounded him to his death”, most attacks were against Cambridge University. Jason himself was widely regarded as an unfortunate victim of foolish promotion way beyond his ability to cope. In appointing him to a professorship for which he was manifestly unqualified – in ludicrously describing him as “the best in the world” – certain senior members of the university showed a level of patronising condescension towards black people that could fairly be described as racism, while at the same time making him tragically vulnerable to such attacks as came his way.

[Tim Urban @waitbutwhy]

Abortion is an eternal debate but can we at least agree that the really extreme positions (“a 15-year-old girl who gets pregnant cannot have an abortion 2 days later” / “a healthy 38-week fetus can be induced and killed instead of given up for adoption”) are just mad?

[Shpend A. Mustafa @shpendium]

How can someone cheat on her? Like how mf?

[BUSTED🧌 @Bustedd__]

🚨Megan Fox on her split from Machine Gun Kelly in a new interview:

Interviewer: Everyone has their own version of why you and Machine Gun Kelly split. What actually happened?

Megan Fox: "People can believe whatever they want, but I stayed loyal the entire relationship. The truth is, he cheated on me more than once, and I kept forgiving him because I loved him. Every apology sounded sincere until the next time it happened. After a while, I realized I was the only one fighting for us.

I got tired of pretending everything was okay just to protect his image. Walking away wasn't easy, but staying would've meant losing my self-respect. Some people don't lose the love of their life,they lose the one person who kept giving them chances. He lost me because he never stopped taking my loyalty for granted."

[Jessica Meir @Astro_Jessica]

I‘ll stop posting timelapses of the aurora from the @Space_Station when I’m tired of looking at them . . . so basically never! Another unforgettable display of this ethereal phenomenon as it danced beneath us last night, this one even more special as it was shared with @astro_anil, as he witnessed it for the first time with such intensity. The red wavelengths (above the green) were particularly bright in this pass.

[Shpend A. Mustafa @shpendium]

You idiot. How the fuck can you make a historically accurate version of a fiction story?

[Pop Base @PopBase]

Elon Musk says Grok will make a full-length “historically accurate” version of ‘The Odyssey’ before the end of this year.

[ESPN @espn]

Happy to see Odysseus made it back to his wife in time for the World Cup final 🍿

[Kylian Mbappé @KMbappe]

Madame Celeste Amarilla,
Vous êtes une femme méprisable et indigne de sa fonction.
Vous ne représentez pas le Paraguay, ce pays qui a transpiré la passion et l’honneur tout au long de la compétition. Par votre inconscience et votre racisme décomplexé, le monde entier a déjà oublié le parcours et l’effort historique que vos joueurs ont réalisés durant cette coupe du monde pour laisser place à une dame incompétente donnant la pire image possible de son pays.
Je ne laisserai jamais aux gens comme elle, la liberté de laisser propager leur haine et leur racisme à travers le monde.

[Mukhtar @I_amMukhtar]

Elon challenged everyone to name someone who was killed by his DOGE cuts to USAID. Nicholas Kristof, who did the study, accepted the challenge.

Instead of explaining why Kristof was incorrect, he responded with personal abuse.

He is clearly rattled.

[Shpend A. Mustafa @shpendium]

This feature's a scam. @WhatsApp & @Meta want to gain more insights about you by connecting all your accounts and preferences so as to turn WhatsApp into an ad-business.

The only good thing here is my insta username can't be taken by someone else, so I won't claim it either.

[WhatsApp @WhatsApp]

your phone number is personal and sometimes you want to connect without handing it over. that's why we're introducing usernames for WhatsApp.

starting this week, you can reserve a username to use later this year when we launch the feature. It takes just a few seconds, make sure you have the latest version of WhatsApp and then go to Settings > Account > Username.

[Rajeev Mantri @RMantri]

This is a colossal data harvesting and data pooling scheme - Meta’s objective is to get you to link social accounts across WhatsApp and Instagram, to move the needle on ad targeting and thus improve engagement and revenues.

They are playing on consumers’ FOMO to quickly grab the username of choice.

Clever.

[Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof]

.@elonmusk says that no one can name a person who died from his aid cuts. In fact, I've met the kids who are dying, and I've talked to the families who lost children. In my columns, I've cited many, many names of people who have died because of Musk's aid cuts. A few examples:
*Yamah Freeman was a 23-year-old woman who died in childbirth because Musk cut funding for the diesel for ambulances in her part of Liberia. She couldn't get to a hospital and died as people were carrying her there. I talked to her parents and sister in their village.
*Gbessey Kiadu, age 1, died of malaria because of his cuts to malaria medication in Liberia. I talked to his mom in her village.
*Ibrahim Koroma, an infant, died of AIDS in Sierra Leone after he interrupted HIV supplies. I talked to health workers who cared for him.
*Achol Deng was an 8-year-old girl with HIV in South Sudan who died when Musk cut funding for the health care worker who provided her medicines. I talked to the healthcare workers.
I could go on and on. In almost every village you go to in South Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone or other countries I reported in, you find people dying because of aid cuts. I challenge Musk: Come with me on a reporting trip, and we'll talk to these moms and dads, and you'll see the dying children themselves. I think if you see the kids whose lives are at stake, maybe you'll change your mind.

[Shpend A. Mustafa @shpendium]

.@antigravity is ruined completely after the last update. It keeps throwing errors that the agent has been terminated due to an error. There is no way to use other extensions, as in Visual Studio Code, and therefore, it has lost all sense of why people chose it.

[Shpend A. Mustafa @shpendium]

.@instagram I can't login into an old account of mine. When I enter the username and password, it keeps asking me for a code that is sent to an old mobile number of mine, which I no longer have access to. Please help.

[VeryBritishProblems @SoVeryBritish]

A recent report says that voice notes are huge across the world… apart from in Britain.

Here’s my two cents (or pennies) on why I dislike voice notes:

1. I don’t want to have to put in earphones or find a quiet place when out and about, just for you to tell me “yes” or “no” about whether you’re free for a cup of tea next Wednesday.

2. While I’m watching telly, I want to be able to glance down at my phone and get the information I need in text form. I don’t want to have to turn the telly off and listen to your private podcast that’s just for me.

3. I don’t want to wade through three minutes of waffle and chit-chat I never asked for when a thumbs-up emoji will do.

4. It makes me feel like you expect a voice note back - and I’m not doing that.

5. I have no interest in tangents about how you’ve just seen an interesting pigeon on the pavement. I asked if you could give me a lift to the station, and 12 minutes in you’re talking about a pigeon and I’ve missed my train.

6. The convenience is all yours. It’s quick to send a voice note, but much slower for me to consume it. It’s bad manners.

I think that about covers it. Of course, if voice notes are a more accessible option for the sender (due to difficulty typing, vision impairment, language barriers, etc.), that’s completely understandable - a different kettle of fish! But if you just like waffling, I’d rather not be the waffle sounding board.

(Really I think I’m just jealous of people who are able to talk coherently for minutes at a time).

[Mepassistant (Quentin) @mepassistants]

Peak Magyar trolling:

- Goes to see the President who has no choice but to name him Prime Minister.
- Tells him to his face that he is a disgrace to his function and unworthy of the title.
- Calls him to resign the second after he will have named Magyar Prime Minister.
- Takes a pic with the guy after all.

Talk about asserting dominance.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

And it will forever be appalling to me that a bunch of celebrities with influence over young people used their platforms to amplify unevidenced claims for the benefit of transitioning minors while smearing those urging caution as bigots.

[Shpend A. Mustafa @shpendium]

Pedophilia institutionalized.

[Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @DrewPavlou]

Today I decided to download the Ayatollah Khomenei's manual of Islamic law, the Tahrir al-Wasilah.

Page 229, Volume 3: ''Intercourse with a woman is not allowed unless she attains the age of nine years, regardless whether the marriage is permanent or temporary. There is, however, no objection in other sexual enjoyments like touching lasciviously, hugging and rubbing the thighs, even with a suckling infant.''

[Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump]

Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly-not skilled!