Elon Musk: POTUS 45, But With Money

Last night, Chief Twit Elon Musk apparently decided my latest main Twitter account needed a permanent suspension, with no reason given. Suspension was made days after his tweeting to the effect that Twitter's typically draconian ToS enforcement would be paused while some mysterious committee is on his to-do list to create.

Musk's hypocrisy in claiming to "free the bird" and declaring Twitter a safe haven for free speech is now crystal clear. Most of my tweets are gone (conspicuously those popular ones critical of him) but a few linger, which I'm sharing here. Each screenshot links to various cat ass trophy merch on Amazon, which I invite you to browse in thinking about the upstanding, bloated, would-be oligarch who's too much of a bitter little snowflake to withstand criticism.

First, some background, a screen of my late account profile, R.I.P. I do not abide the MAGA cult, their "leader", nor people like Elon who are similarly deplorable.

Next, from earlier this year, a jab at his stupid comparison of Canada's Justin Trudeau to Hitler, of all people.

Back in May I called him out for having quietly paid hush money to a SpaceX flight attendant whom he allegedly sexually harassed. Naughty, naughty!

Last, but not least, as far as little Elon is concerned, the left-leaning group Occupy Democrats called out Musk rolling the notion of restoring Donald Trump aka POTUS 45's Twitter account, long after previous CEO Jack Dorsey squeezed 45 for all he was worth ad revenue wise like the proverbial turnip. This, until it was unavoidably clear it'd be bad press to just continue letting him off with slaps on the tweet in the form of various warnings about misinformation accompanying his, well, misinformation.

To wrap up, a couple more tweets which thanks to Elon Musk will be seen anew, despite having been censored just days before the 2022 midterms. 

First, the Republican-in-name-only schemes to destroy Social Security and Medicare in the U.S.

Finally, me with wordplay for the University of Florida's recent, unanimous decision to pick Republican Senator Ben Sasse as president. There were vigorous protests on the UF campus and notably the administration restricted protests of any kind indoors, which is telling and speaks to how broken today's U.S. political system truly is. 

I've been faced with disagreeable people many times in my online travels. Musk is the latest and surely not the last. I see what he's doing, and I hope others see it too. He has money and power but fortunately lacks the brains and drive and passion to become the information technology overlord he fantasizes becoming while hitting his bong in his new Twitter onesie. 

🖕🙂🖕

Troubleshooting a Tablet with a Teeny, Tiny Tile

Tablet or smartphone repair is not fun, I hate it! That said, I managed a creative solution for my old Samsung Galaxy E 9.6 which I'd recently had to replace the battery on.

Removing the old battery and installing a new one was relatively easy. Carefully pry open the tablet, taking care to not damage its electronic internals, remove the old battery, install the new one, then close it up. Right?

Unfortunately, that turned out to be a best case scenario which was made worse thanks to the ribbon connector circled below. 

It wasn't the connector itself (fortunately the individual pins were intact), but the incredibly, aggravatingly delicate piece of plastic designed to snap atop the cable to connect solidly to the motherboard pins, also known formally as a ribbon cable snap.

I spent about an hour with a jeweler's loupe which clips on to a temple piece of your eyeglasses making like Popeye the sailor man and zooming in with one eye on the incredibly tiny pins trying to get a replacement ribbon connector clip (cannibalized from a nearly identical tablet purchased cheap off eBay due to a cracked and dead LCD screen) to assume the position.

Thanks to my frustration and a not quite true pair of forceps, I got nowhere. While the ribbon cable would slide in perfectly, without that infuriating clip in place I was unable to snap it down to make the connection hug between connector and motherboard. On top of that, the design of my tablet and the busted one was almost, but not quite, identical, and for all I knew the clip I salvaged might've been for a different type ribbon connector.

After that, I reflected on the fact that for a silly crafts-related idea I purchased a bag of miniature clay roof tiles meant for things like birdhouses, dollhouses, fake houses, train sets, and other realistic depictions of life in a smaller scale.

If you examine one of these tiles on its side, you'll notice it has a couple of curved sections, one around a quarter inch long, and another a bit less round and rather straight, with just a gentle curve. 

The latter got me thinking. What if I could carefully snap that piece off, and use it as a surrogate ribbon cable holder along with some duct tape (what else??) to secure it into place?

Turns out, it worked!

Using one of the tools out of a kit I got specifically for performing surgery on a tablet, I used a very thin and flexible metal pry tool as a firm edge against which to hold the small piece down, then gently but firmly applied force to snap it away.

Next, I carefully inserted the ribbon cable in its socket on the tablet board and ensured it was in under the pins as level and far as possible. At bottom in the photo above is a similar sliver of tile which I placed so that the curve was facing up as shown below, and so the rather cylindrical little edge (referenced by red arrow) was applying pressure to the ribbon cable just like the flimsy plastic connector would by design.

Success! Upon first verifying my touchscreen was working properly by carefully applying pressure with my fingers to the top of this improvised "clip", I then stuck the tablet motherboard and its connected components and snapped things back into place. The curve of the tile fragment seems adequate, at least, to ensure a nice, firm connection far more resilient than electrical or duct tape alone.

Aside from being nonconductive like its flimsy counterpart, the clay tile more importantly provides a sort of firm, structural pressure along the length of the pins to ensure they're firmly connected. For the touchscreen to work fully, all pins must be engaged, and without either the manufacturer's flimsy clip or this improvised solution, that wouldn't happen.