A little schadenfreude, as we gird up for the work week…
This feels like the start of a Transformers movie where Optimus Prime gets divorced. pic.twitter.com/icY3RLSQFv
— Andrew Ti (@ANDREWTI) August 26, 2024
(Optimus Prime, Transformer)
Elsewhere in the Cybergork Universe:
The mysteries of life, a story in two parts pic.twitter.com/xUEWzCjgi6
— lcamtuf (@lcamtuf) August 27, 2024
Responses from a whole bunch of snarksters…
didn’t even flag the load smh
Maybe he didn’t think he would actually get far and was just proving his concept?
They didn’t come out before he started driving, so why would you expect that to change just because he drove? Checkmate, moran!
I’m mostly thinking how lucky it is they fell out *before* they got on the highway.
I wonder if there are connection points for straps in the bed? I’m guessing not.
ok, I looked it up. It’s got tie-down connection points, this guy has no idea he needs to use them.After seeing what happened to the bumper of a cybertruck when a guy tried to pull half the load it is rated for, my guess is the tie-downs are secured by an Elmer’s glue stick.
HE’S IN THE PRO PARKING. 😂
Getting laughed at by the contractors, I hope 😉That’s Trex, plastic decking boards. Slippery stuff.
Yes, I’m pedantic.
Anyway, great stuff! 10/10 no notes.
In conclusion…
A documentary of @elonmusk @tesla @cybertruck pic.twitter.com/g6AfKZsunZ
— CurtVonnegut (@vonnegut_curt) August 31, 2024
hotshoe
Too funny.
One drove by while I was on my walk today, in a “tourist” area — pretty sure it’s not a local. I pointed and yelled loud enough for driver to hear “sucker!”
Stupid-looking older dude behind the wheel. Wonder what satisfaction he gets out of showing his true nature to the whole world like that.
Ten Bears
Been one at the body-shop down the street for a couple of weeks, all tagged out in gangland graffiti. Was wondering why they just don’t wash it off
I mean, it’s stainless, right … ?
opiejeanne
There are several in my area, and no matter how often I see them they make me laugh out loud. Actually shouting with laughter at their hideousness. I’m starting to see them with either a paint job or a wrap now or at least some sort of protective finish, and yesterday there was one with a matte wrap in very dark olive green. Very sick baby poo green.
I don’t see the attraction.
chris green
I call it a “family trumpster” (referencing Vacation).
Mai Naem mobile
I’ve seen quite a few of them now and they’re just so ugly. I don’t think the pics catch the real life ugliness. If you’re going to build a transformer kind of vehicle at least use some cool bright kiddy colors. I always thought the El Caminos were ugly as fuck. The cybertrucks are way uglier.
Tony Jay
It’s just the late-80s made-for-TV bad sci-fi look of the thing. Like Mr Arrested Development said THAT is the look I want for my futurecar and everything – engineering, quality-control, frigging physics – was expected to bow its collective head to a dated idea of ‘cool’.
It’s the vehicular equivalent of a fashion house premiering a summer line of rubber jumpsuits with spikes and grilled-kneepads because the owner loved him some of that early cyberpunk aesthetic. Just ugly.
Jay
Felon Tusk isn’t having a good week.
Phylllis
I can remember rolling my eyes and muttering pretentious douche when Range Rovers first began popping up in Charleston in the mid-eighties. But at least they’re useful vehicles. So far I’ve only seen one on the road in these parts, which is surprising, given how Trumpy the whole damn state is and how many Teslas I see about (two in my neighborhood alone).
Jay
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/elon-musk-trump-x-views-b2605907.html
hueyplong
@Phylllis: I live in NC and it’s still true that the only two cybertrucks I’ve seen were in Seattle. Didn’t get to see those two do anything stupid, but unlikely to tire of these posts in which tales of their idiocy are told.
Barney
That’s a worryingly good impersonation of David Attenborough – AI, I presume (intonation is too good to have been pieced together from recordings, and I’ve never heard a human impersonator get him that well).
Phylllis
@hueyplong: The one we saw was on I-385 headed into Greenville. I cracked up when my husband said he’d be less embarrassed driving his old Vega.
Jay
@Phylllis:
Range Rovers, Defenders and Mercedes G5’s showing up here in the early 90’s. We laughed at them sort of, because while they were $$$$$$, they were more capable offroad in the hands of a good driver than the Lux SUV’s from the Domestic MFGR’s.
But a WankPanzer,………………………
A Subaru Brat is a more capable truck.
Jay
Jeff Tiedrich didn’t take Labour Day off,
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/elderly-golfer-spent-the-weekend
Shalimar
@Jay: That is a hilariously stupid idea. High-testosterone males. Because testosterone is known for fostering clear thought.
Anne Laurie
I’d think that anyone who could afford a Range Rover wouldn’t be caught dead in a cybertruck — so parvenu, my dear!
Belmont, the wealthy Boston-adjacent town where the Romneys raised their kids, has some of the worst-kept roads I’ve ever jostled over. We used to joke that all the inhabitants had Range Rovers, so they didn’t bother using their property taxes on paving.
(Weston, the Boston-adjacent town where the real old-money people live, has excellent roads. But there aren’t many streetlights, presumably because one should either be home before dark or know the routes well enough not to need them.)
Jay
@Shalimar:
Well, it came from 4Chan, so it must be “brilliant” right?
columbusqueen
@Shalimar: No kidding. As far as I’m concerned, if you buy a wankpanzer, you ain’t no high status anything.
Baud
@Jay:
That’s never been tried before. What an innovative idea. Thanks, Elon.
Jay
@Baud:
He copied it from 4Chan, so,……..
TBone
Meme seen yesterday: cybertrick wrapped, disguised as an AMC Gremlin with 70s wood paneling like the station wagon from National Lampoon Vacation. 😆
TBone
@Jay: today’s Heather Cox Richardson also gives that the treatment today, placing it in the context of white supremacy where it belongs.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-2-2024
Real shocker that Apartheid Clyde would promote that.
satby
@Baud: Ties in with the felon’s sundown town rally tour.
Good morning 🌞
Baud
@satby:
Good morning.
TBone
Got out of bed, shuffled down the hallway toward the coffee machine, and then saw that Donvict was already prominently dominating my living room on the big screen (open floorplan). Hubby likes to watch the AM local news. Seriously contemplated returning to bed without having coffee, and just pulling the covers up over my head until mid-November.
snoey
@Mai Naem mobile: The El Camino had a reason to be that way. If you were a farm kid and wanted a muscle car the El Camino had the big V8 but could be expensed and insured as a farm truck.
geg6
@opiejeanne:
A friend of mine saw one wrapped in orange. Imagine coming across that in the wild.
p.a.
I worked in Belmont a few months in, maybe 2012/14. Horrible cell service: the antennas were “unsightly.”
satby
Here’s a refreshing thing to see, even though it’s a mildly stated observation by the journalist making it. Via Twitter.
Suzanne
I’ve only seen one in the, uhhhhh, flesh. I was kind of surprised how big it was. I don’t know why I thought they would be slightly smaller than, say, a F-150. But it’s not. It’s big and ungainly.
Suzanne
@TBone:
An understandable impulse. Vote first, then hibernate.
Baud
@satby:
Nice.
I hadn’t heard “horrible energy wind” before. Sounds like one of his farts.
Jay
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62009993/tesla-cybertruck-fire-takes-more-than-hour-to-put-out/
satby
My favorite former mayor is just so good at this. Also, find yourself someone who looks at you the way Chasten looks at him.
Splitting Image
My impression is that the cybertruck has exactly one use and one use only: cosplaying Robocop.
Pretty expensive price tag for a convention prop, but then some cosplayers are very committed.
TBone
@Suzanne: 😊 I would go to the end and over the edge of flat earth to vote all rethugs out of office. Luckily, in reality I just have to go to my mailbox. Definitely will emerge from my blanket cocoon to do so!
satby
@Splitting Image: still haven’t ever seen one IRL. Not at all sad about that.
TBone
@Baud: they will have to pry bacon out of my cold, dead hands.
brantl
I think every time Husk brags up what a genius he is, someone should post that image with the WankPanzer on the tow-bed.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
I’ve seen an number of these fugly vehicles in the wild, at least one customer at the store has one. But, you have never seen truly fugly until you’ve seen one of the black ones, A sight that can never be unseen.
TBone
About Afghanistan – the handy graph at the bottom is *chef’s kiss
https://digbysblog.net/2024/09/02/the-withdrawal/
TBone
Oh, I am so doing this to the neighbors this year – October Baba Yaga surprise!
https://x.com/InternetH0F/status/1830319782031224960
🖤🧹
Jay
@TBone:
I thought that 34 Felonies Rapist Pedo man made it clear that when the wind isn’t blowing you can’t have bacon?
https://newrepublic.com/post/185496/trump-rant-bacon-wind-power
Baud
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
Do the contractors laugh?
TBone
@Jay: 😆 so fucking WEIRD
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Tony Jay: It looks more like a hatchback than a truck…like a Delorean had sex with a Pinto hatchback and the product of that union has Marfan Syndrome.
TBone
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: 🤣
Incel Camino
Jay
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
@Baud:
When I worked at The Orange, there was a contractor who would pick up 25-40 bags of concrete, (pre-mix), and get the Lot to load them on the passenger side of his Lambo or Ferrari, (different years),
Lease not own.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Jay: That’s not exactly what he said. It’s even more clueless than that. The quote starts “Some people don’t eat bacon anymore!” Then in a complete non-sequiter he launches into the wind power rant…but that first sentence…is he unaware that some people don’t eat bacon? More broadly speaking, pick any food substance on earth and I bet you’ll find some people that don’t eat it.
Then the complete lack of any coherent relationship to bacon and wind power compounds the incoherence.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: I love how he includes the number of afghans who died, as well. So often death reports in war only tell of Americans who died.
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: 👍
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@TBone: Actually El Camino x Delorean again with Marfan makes sense. I’ve seen a couple in the wild and from the street you can’t tell there’s an open truck bed so I’ve been operating on the assumption that in had some sort of truck bed cover. But it doesn’t.
Baud
Via reddit, Elon complaining that Biden/Harris aren’t imperialist.
The Thin Black Duke
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: More to the point, if your doctor or lawyer or schoolteacher or any person you needed in a professional capacity talked to you this way, you would say No fucking way and end the conversation.
But somehow it’s OK if the person babbling this nonsense is running for POTUS.
TBone
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: actually the ones I’ve seen IRL have a cover. Note the adjectives in this article 😆😆😆
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-cybertruck-vault-bed-cover-in-action-video/
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@The Thin Black Duke: Super weird that the only place these deranged rants air is on comedy shows not news broadcasts
Jay
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
He weaves narratives, the best narratives, many English Professors have said ” Sir, you weave the best narratives”.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/critics-call-hilarious-bs-donald-094722633.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEam7o1gOVLENZJ5dU1l5Zkugedu47xdYzeWBfoc6wJvWSHdSZmWSbGbJewFhqirpubXJq5KHlurNopXhva1iacczuz75aja0P9WNo2af_X5Mdjk6j6ciRWqNZVYhSaT6gPL9g4efzVIlI7yMzmLLzzqH4tHo31fobZpbprlXJZV
Ken
From McSweeney’s: “Our Self-Driving Cars Will Save Countless Lives, But They Will Kill Some of You First”.
Matt McIrvin
@Jay: This is extraordinarily dumb:
The best mechanism we have in reality for figuring out “is this true?” is science, which is a social system that functions as a kind of (specialized) consensus filter. Science needs creative thought, but people who imagine that you can only see reality through completely independent thought as a mighty island are cranks. You can’t do it all by yourself.
TBone
@The Thin Black Duke:
It is SO not okay! That anyone would replay, recast, re-explain, or in any way promote anything he says or does without a truth sandwich treatment is mind boggling. My local news did so this very morning and I wish I had time to write them a long letter today. But I have better things to do, fortunately.
frosty
@TBone: That was my reaction after reading Heather Cox Richardson and Jeff Tiedrich this morning.
Solution: “We have to vote in big enough numbers that they can’t claim it was rigged.”
Sure, Jan. The swing states have stayed tied for weeks. And that’s polls without the voter suppression.
Is it worth pulling the covers over my head if I’m too awake to get back to sleep?
Sorry about the worry and dooming.
TBone
@frosty: understable if we let ourselves be hypnotized by the huckster – but we have the magic, the key, the antidote! We don’t have to treat him seriously, despite the very serious threats he represents.
He is nothing. A hollow hologram. Treat him thusly.
We are jackals, after all. Act accordingly!
Ken
No link to the original story, but it fits with my priors so must be true: Mark Chadbourn on Bluesky says,
The Thin Black Duke
@frosty: So there’s no point then.
TBone
@Ken: let. them. fight!
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s the use of big words to conceal lies designed to penetrate and occupy the lizard brain.
Baud
@Ken:
Honest analysis is a capital offense in Trump World.
hueyplong
Elon’s “argument” sounds a lot like one of those clowns saying, in effect, “I did my own research but limited it to the opinions of aggressive males on the internet.”
TBone
@Baud: I think his trans offspring really upset him by public humiliation 😆
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: Gosh, I just have to wonder what criteria to use to decide what makes one a “high status male.”
Let me just ponder on skin tones.
MomSense
@Tony Jay:
I call it the Deplorean.
Jay
@MagdaInBlack:
In some regards, it’s a call back to post Revolution.
Landed Gentry bs. The Proles.
It was a real argument back in the day, whom got to vote. Whom could hold office.
No single cat ladies, etc.
Dog whistle.
sdhays
@MomSense: Ha!
Although kind of unfair. The original DeLorean still actually looks pretty cool.
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
Thank goodness a Washington journalist finally mentions the elephant in the room that they’ve all been working around for all these years.
I can actually follow what Dump is saying, it’s just that he jumps from ‘food prices too high’ to ‘energy prices too high’ without any transition. It’s still nonsense of course – adding wind power to the energy supply isn’t going to increase energy costs, even if the wind isn’t always blowing everywhere.
The real nonsense is that he really believes he’s the genius who sees that wind being intermittent might be a problem, that nobody else has been working on how to incorporate an energy source like that into our supply. If a Democrat said something like that, even without any of the rest of the gibberish, the pundits would be having a field day over that person’s stupidity.
And of course there’s the gibberish he was spouting about food prices, which the pundits would have also had a field day picking apart a Dem politician saying the same things.
Liminal Owl
@TBone: I so want to do likewise. But I’m afraid people would get hurt by their own startle reflexes, or in the course of running away.
Ken
Not skin tones. See the quote that Matt McIrvin provided: high testosterone levels, and neuroatypicality. We’re meant to be run by the guys that cause high-school teachers to age so rapidly.
frosty
@TBone: OMG that’s … awesome? Nice stunt.
The Thin Black Duke
@Ken: It was said so much better in the original German.
Baud
@TBone:
Was waiting for that dude to take a tumble down all those stairs.
frosty
@Jay: I could zip down the back window of my Miata and carry 2x4x8s home, with the boards tucked into the passenger footwell. I think six was about the limit. I called it my Little Blue Pickup Truck.
TBone
@MomSense: 😆😍
BellyCat
Saw my first wankpanzer in the wild a couple days ago. It genuinely is far worse surrounded by other cars. Adding to the horrifying impact is that it is so visually heavy in the back, it looks badly constipated.
Baud
@sdhays:
Yeah, as if the cyber truck could ever be turned into a time machine.
Shalimar
@Jay: Would be fun to troll them if I were willing to go on Twitter anymore. Their definition of high-status is basically physically able to defend their women. Funny that their view of black men is also hulking brutes who might steal their women. So they’re talking about government mostly run by black guys since they are physically strongest, right?
TBone
@Liminal Owl: I am of the opinion that anyone silly enough to believe that is a real threat deserves to have Darwin sort them out. My drone will be riding her broomstick! (I think the video participants are paid actors, but the idea is solid for Mischief Night and All Hallows Eve shenanigans).
Ken
@TBone: Careful, there are laws about drone use. They’re treated under the FAA’s model aircraft rules; you have to register them, and pass a test to operate them.
TBone
@The Thin Black Duke: 🎯
TBone
@Ken: in my neighborhood, there are no such rules of engagement – one guy built a go-cart hung from a motorized para sailing wing and flies it out of the local airport violating all airspace rules I can think of. It’s a sight to behold!
Our local police force is practically non-existent. I dunno who would enforce any rule, we regularly have speeders and coal rollers violating every imaginable road rule as well.
Too much territory, too few State Troopers.
Ken
@TBone: I didn’t say the laws are enforced. It may be one of those areas where it’s ignored until someone gets hurt, then suddenly it’s a Federal crime.
Which reminds me of one of Trump’s recent rants — that they charged him with crimes for trying to overthrow the government, when he’s got a perfect right to do that. (Not an exact quote but close.)
Ken
You must admit that it looks like something that should be struck by lightning.
Baud
@Ken:
More evidence that Zeus doesn’t exist.
gene108
@Tony Jay:
It’s not just styled as an 80’s bad sci-fi movie prop, but specifically looks like the ones driven by the police in a dystopian future authoritarian state going after the good guys.
TBone
@Ken: 👍
Yes, if an accident were to occur I would be liable. Good thing there is plenty of room for skeerdy cats to flee here! Be gone 😆
Joyce Vance was correct in her assessment/response about the banality of evil in that Donvict quote from his interview with Mark Levin.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jay: So, Elon goes all in for the kakistocracy
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: My experience, also, is that those guys are the cattiest, most status-insecure people out there. They’re constantly measuring and comparing their precious masculinity against others. It’s like this constant background noise.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: my foreground noise:
“sorry about your penis.”
😆 Always ready to duck when that comes out of my mouth.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s why they cling to people like Musk and Trump – men like them but who have been successful in wealth and politics. Lots of insecure men are living vicariously through those two and others like them.
Matt McIrvin
@Tony Jay: I’m pretty sure one of the inspirations was the custom truck they built for the 1977 post-apocalyptic movie Damnation Alley. But that thing looked way cooler.
TBone
BTW, I meant to loudly applaud AL for the title of this post! 👋
hueyplong
@gene108: This is a good point. Not only is it a dated “futuristic” look, but it’s one that you naturally associate with the bad guys.
They are more repugnant than deplorable.
Scout211
@Ken:
Here’s the original story. It was a top Trump volunteer, not an official with the campaign.
ETA: Trump campaign volunteer requirements: Truth tellers need not apply.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
If Musk wasn’t a fascist and Tesla had decent quality control, I wonder if the cyber truck would have become a status symbol among the urban hipster elite.
The Thin Black Duke
@Matt McIrvin: Thing is, for all of Musk’s bravado of imagining himself as a once-in-a-lifetime visionary, his mindset is stuck in either kitschy bad sci-fi movies and TV shows or John Campbell’s colonizer fantasies. His vision of the future is behind the times.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
That probably is consistent with the demographics of his fan base.
Matt McIrvin
@The Thin Black Duke: All of his big ideas have been things that I remember being prominent in late-1970s/early-1980s futurism of the sort that got touted in Omni magazine. Yeah, I thought all that stuff was really cool too and looked forward to a future that would bring it. I was 12.
Ken
@Baud: Another from Bluesky, though I can’t find it so paraphrasing: Henry Ford was a racist and proto-fascisrt and every one of his dealerships had pamphlets on how the Jews were behind a plot to mongrelize the white race, but he never had the chance to buy a social media company.
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: Though at every school I went to the big aggressive jock guys would mercilessly persecute the neuroatypicals–it’s hard to imagine any kind of alliance between them. This is a Very Online version.
Baud
@Ken:
Plus, Henry Ford was 100 years ago. Thanks to us liberals, society’s standards have progressed . And we’re going to keep progressing despite the efforts of people like Elon Musk.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Harder than imagining an alliance between white working class workers and a vain and shady New York City real estate developer born with a silver spoon in his ugly mouth?
Ken
@The Thin Black Duke: He has to stick with Campbell’s colonizer fantasies, now that we betas have used our “consensus” to figure out that sending people to Mars is an inefficient way to make dead and dying people.
kalakal
They’re much, much uglier in real life.
I can’t imagine anyone seeing one and thinking “yeah, I want that!”
I get the references people make to ’70s SF. It looks like a rejected design for a robot vacuum cleaner from Logan’s Run
SFAW
@TBone:
It was kinda funny seeing it pass in front of the cars stopped at a traffic light.
But once it chased, and kept chasing, that poor dumb bastard who ran down the stairs to get away, it stopped being amusing (to me). “Not amusing” to the point of wanting to find the drone owner, and explain to him — with a 2×4 — that you don’t do that to people.
But, hey, if we can’t be cruel to numbskulls afraid-to-the-point-of-running-away-from-pranks like that, where’s the fun?
SFAW
@Baud:
Yes, unfortunately.
M31
saw a primer-black one yesterday, lol, it looked weird and half-baked
I mean, a primered-up beater is pretty cool if you have work to do, but this was just dumb looking
also it had NY plates and was in Baltimore — go away we have our own way better weirdos than you
lowtechcyclist
@Scout211:
OTOH, it seems unlikely that, as a volunteer, he had the authority to say “the campaign has determined” anything on his own. That’s the part that would get anyone fired from just about anything, no matter how accurate a call they’d made.
S Cerevisiae
I laugh at all these “alpha “ males, buncha preening peacocks who don’t know what being a good man is really about.
The last thing the world needs is for more of those assholes running things.
The Audacity of Krope
Makes for good roleplay if you have unresolved issues about your 90s high school bullies.
What? Too specific?
TBone
@M31:
💜🏆
TBone
@SFAW: who am I to argue with Darwin? *shrugs
Ruckus
@Mai Naem mobile:
It looks like something a 3rd grader drew up in class while not paying attention. It looks like something that had drugs involved in it’s conception. It looks ugly. It looks worse in person. Was getting my car serviced 2-3 weeks ago and there is a row of dealerships and the one next door was a Tesla dealer. Now there is only so much one can do with sheets of stainless steel, it doesn’t fabricate like non stainless steel, so this is about as good as it gets. The concept of it isn’t bad, the execution of the concept is…… well let’s say unconventional. It’s like someone is trying too hard to make a child’s toy. And the cost is possibly more than the looks are worth. As someone who manufactured tools to make other products for most of my working life, my opinion is that it’s butt ugly, in that pictures don’t do it justice, in real life…… it’s worse.
Janee
I have actually seen cybertrucks on the road lately. One painted black, the other painted white. Look a lot better than the SS version, and probably prevents rust or whatever it is that discolors them. Strange looking when they come up on you from the rear, but distinctive enough that you know what they are before they pass you.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: It reminds me a little of the Volkswagen Thing, the sort of pseudo-jeep-conversion of the Beetle with angular corrugated walls. Remember that?
brianc91764
@Phylllis: are you near Rowan’s Creek Dr? My brother-in-law and nephew live there and both drive Teslas.