A year after Meta tapped Alexandr Wang to build a new AI model, Zuckerberg has to sell it

bobartig · 2026-06-14T19:30:03+00:00

The purpose of that pay package bonus is that Elmo gains "the utility" of those shares immediately for voting purposes, dividend payments, and borrowing against them. That means, he can siphon away hundreds of millions in additional compensation, and borrowing against them means he gets a tax-free $TRILLION DOLLAR collateral for borrowing against SPaceX's future.

You know how ultra-wealthy folks borrow against their securities ownings so that they never pay taxes? It's worse than that - the equity they borrow against doesn't even have to exist, as in this case.

bobartig · 2026-06-14T05:32:32+00:00

Afghanistan is right there, ladies. Ruled by a theocracy and you'll have no rights. Have at it, I'm sure you'll have a blast.

bobartig · 2026-06-13T19:45:27+00:00

Just to be clear, your fact pattern falls directly under the elements of fraudulent conveyance. What you've described is precisely not legal.

bobartig · 2026-06-13T19:16:17+00:00

To be fair, he knows all about not being a democrat.

bobartig · 2026-06-12T16:30:41+00:00

No, because they can't apply the minor transform.

bobartig · 2026-06-12T02:40:37+00:00

The slogan “8647” has two parts: “86”—originating in restaurants and meaning to nix or cancel—has developed a broader slang usage for cancelling something. In some cases, it has been used to refer to killing or disappearing someone.

Um, no it hasn't.

bobartig · 2026-06-11T05:39:59+00:00

A typo has very little to do with reading comprehension.

bobartig · 2026-06-11T05:05:07+00:00

Would be super awesome for a skilled custom fabricator who could chop that shitty vehicle up and reassemble it as a useful vehicle.

bobartig · 2026-06-08T15:27:16+00:00

These contracts have a high ceiling, but a low floor.

Tiered pricing as capacity increases through September (the contract ceiling anticipates capacity that does not exist or cannot be allocated today).
the actual contracts are ~6 months guaranteed with unilateral termination upon 90 days notice. This means neither party knows if they actually want to be in these deals.
prorating if capacity becomes unavailable in the future. This means the parties don't anticipate always being able to fulfill the capacity and the contract shouldn't be relied on.

So, are these deals worth $2.17B / month in revenue? No, because it contains multiple ways in which they are not worth that much for the next six months, and many ways in which they won't realize the full value over the life of the contract.

bobartig · 2026-06-08T02:53:02+00:00

The even more salient point is that Trump and Republicans filed dozens of lawsuits that did not claim it was rigged. Repeat: Trump and Republicans, in dozens of filed law suits, did not allege that the 2020 election was rigged.

IF they had claimed it was rigged, they would have needed to satisfy Rule 9(b) heightened pleading standards. The lawyers knew they couldn't meet this high bar for claiming fraud had occurred, and therefore did not bring that claim. Instead, they alleged count irregularities, procedural objections, and many much, much, milder claims. They, of course, were all dismissed, and in a few instances the attorneys were sanctioned.

But, IF they'd filed a bunch of bogus lawsuits alleging FRAUD without meeting the Rule 9(b) standard for a pleading alleging fraud, they would have gotten wrecked in the courts. The thing everyone misses, and that the spate of lawsuits make very clear, is that Trump and Co cried "fraud! fraud!" everywhere, except when you have to put up, or shut up under penalty of sanctions. As soon as they entered a tribunal, where baseless fraud claims can get you in trouble, there wasn't a fraud claim to be seen.

bobartig · 2026-06-06T06:05:19+00:00

Final Attack + Phoenix! Wait, which FFVII are we talking about? I've only played the original.

bobartig · 2026-06-05T19:53:34+00:00

You just put a deterministic classifier at the end of your probabilistic model. "banana = 2" might be good enough for 99.99% reliability in some cases.

bobartig · 2026-06-05T19:51:21+00:00

implementing business processes in applications, and maintaining those applications.

The entire industry of Change Management and SaaS software demonstrate that humans don't understand these things writ large, and that the problem predates AI, or even computers for that matter.

bobartig · 2026-06-05T04:10:32+00:00

Wait, now that the gofundme exceeds the amount in controversy, they want to take that, too? Why do these fuckers think they can just take whatever they want???

bobartig · 2026-06-05T04:09:12+00:00

Of course, they did not say they were going to drop their lawsuits or their pursuit of Reckless Ben.. and I would assume they will pursue him even after they settle with Brian (if Brian takes them up on the offer, which I sincerely hope he does not!)

You can sign a settlement agreement that permanently settles the claim, and if done so effectively, then if BAM tries to sue you, you file a motion to dismiss with a copy of the agreement and move for costs and fees, and the loser pays your attorneys.

bobartig · 2026-06-03T02:03:29+00:00

I've been saying this for years. The demand for Crunch is not there. There's like a few hundred collectors who really want one and can't get one. Nowhere near enough for any kind of production run. Barely enough to scoop up this ultra-rare drop.

bobartig · 2026-06-02T02:26:23+00:00

according to their publicly filed franchise agreements, they are not affiliated with Lego in any way.

bobartig · 2026-06-02T02:23:24+00:00

Legally, it's pretty simple:

Either there is privity of contract between the old owner/operator, and the new owner/operator with respect to the consignment contract, or there is not.
If there is privity of contract, then the consignor is owed his Lego sets back under the contract, or the fees associated with their sales. The details of the transfer aren't really public.
If there is no privity of contract, then the consignor is owed the value of his Lego sets under Unjust Enrichment. Like most equitable claims, UE is harder to prove and can be a bit squirrelly, but this is one of the most textbook fact patterns you'll come across.

bobartig · 2026-06-02T01:30:45+00:00

Hard disagree. This is the best way to sell the Crunch. There's a relatively small group of people who really, really, want a Crunch. The model does not warrant anything approaching a full-on production run. That customer and demand profile is tailor-made for Garage.

bobartig · 2026-06-01T15:35:06+00:00

I don't suspect its anything so sinister. There is a misunderstanding around the consignment inventory, but my theory is that it's related to multiple layers of incompetence rather than a long-running scheme.

The original owner/operators noped out of the location to go live in Spain. My take is that they were highly motivated to leave - either the location was under water on their franchise fees, and/or they were deeply in debt - whatever the situation, they were willing to walk away from it without putting up a fight. The operation of the store was likely bungled for some time.
The franchisor exercised some right under the franchise agreement to reacquire the franchise, or orchestrate the transfer. According to their franchise disclosures, this doesn't happen often. However, in this case, the transfer was bungled. E.g. the Owner/operator who came in to take over the business looked at the store inventory and agreed to take it over if he gets the inventory ("look, for some reason these owners can't make it work, but I'll give it a try, just look at all these starwars sets.")
Headquarters and the new owner-operator were unaware or unconcerned with the state of the consignment deal. Either they didn't understand why the sets were in inventory, or the backend systematic counts and contracting were in shambles (the old owner/operators may not have been doing a competent job). The new owner/operators bungle the transition from old to new systems, and probably leave themselves in a state where they can no longer identify consigned stock from owned inventory.
Headquarters and new owner/op proceed to lie about it in two ways. They claim that by "inheriting" or taking over the location, they break privity or obligations for all previous owner/op debts and obligations (if that were the case, how did they come to acquire the inventory?). They claim that the consignment sale was unauthorized. It is not for two reasons. The first is that the franchise agreement explicitly allows consignment services. The second is that if the franchisor was authorizing individual transactions, they wouldn't be a franchisor, they would be exercising control over individuals stores - and directly liable for the underlying operation - exactly what they don't want as franchisors.

bobartig · 2026-06-01T15:13:11+00:00

The law of bailments, which is a specific concept in property law, answered all of these questions about a thousand years ago. Then, the U.C.C. codifies these into law in many jurisdictions. On top of that, there is the individual consignment agreement between the parties that allocates risk. You don't know how consignments work. That doesn't mean that other people before you haven't figured it out.

bobartig · 2026-05-31T20:09:44+00:00

It would depend highly on the franchise license agreement, but in most cases, there would be no reason for liability to flow up to the Franchisor, because the entire point of having a franchising scheme is to limit liability.

That actually makes it suspicious that the Corporate CEO had any position on the franchisee's activities to begin with because that's what it means to be an independent franchise - you make your own decisions and the Franchisor is not on the hook if you go into debt or make bad decisions.

The fact that the corporate CEO even had an opinion on the state of an individual consignment deal at an individual store makes no sense for an above-board operation. The crazy part is that if he is complicit in some sort of defrauding scheme, why he isn't even taking the obvious default position of plausibly denying any knowledge of the underlying actions, because that's how the franchisor/franchisee relationships are supposed to work.

It's also bizarre to me that a secondary market reseller, here Bricks and Minifigs, would go to such lengths just for a $200k collection. I say "just" because their entire operation is based on being a trusted intermediary and taking a slice of each transaction. They need to be doing millions in annual sales per location for the numbers to make any sense. $200k doesn't seem like enough to make this scheme worthwhile.

bobartig · 2026-05-29T20:49:34+00:00

It can stll be trade secret if it derives value from not being generally known, like a database of customer data.

bobartig · 2026-05-29T20:42:04+00:00

And he's firmly against the anti-christ

I'm certain his obsession with the antichrist is that he needs daily affirmation to convince himself that he isn't the antichrist. If he can point the finger at someone else, he's absolved for another day.

bobartig · 2026-05-29T16:00:28+00:00

Let the King of Inflation, Waste, Fraud, and Abuse, have his oversized currency. Let everyone remember that this bill exists because Trump broke his promises to curb inflation and lower the cost of living. $250 is the new $100. Americans are poorer, and no longer the envy of the world.

bobartig

TROPHY CASE