Hahahahahaha….Facebook just changed its name to “Meta”. I bet Ron Artest, who changed his name to “Metta World Peace” back in 2011, will have a few things to say about that. At least he could blame the decision on drugs. I imagine the FBers charged with coming up with the new name spent millions and crowd tested the name.

Perhaps the brand had become so toxic they had to, but geez…taking a 100% recognizable worldwide brand and changing it to something inane like Meta? Smells like desperation.

Though really, anything they chose as the replacement name for Facebook was going to be mocked. Unless they chose 42.

I really like reading Casey Handmer’s blog about the state of space exploration. He goes pretty deep with details to justify his opinions. Today he’s written a long post, ostensibly about SpaceX’s Starship, but more accurately it’s a brutal indictment of NASA. It seems that NASA, Boeing and other “establishment” aerospace players can’t even admit that SpaceX, if successful with Starship, has changed the economics of orbital and deep space launch forever.

I really hope Handmer is right. If so, we’ll see at-scale trips to the Moon and back within my lifetime. Hell, within the next five years. Colonization becomes possible, even practical. This is a profound paradigm shift, as impactful as the invention of steam engines and automobiles. What wasn’t possible is now possible, even inevitable.

Musk can be a real jerk at times, but the combination of Tesla (cars), Tesla (energy), Starlink (satellites and broadband networks) and SpaceX (rocketry) still amaze me. How can one guy change the world through technology over and over?

Tesla and SpaceX being headquartered in TX, and the new space launch city being built on the TX Gulf coast, are the only good reasons I can think of to move to TX. (And Khraungbin. Can’t forget Khraungbin.) I missed all the Apollo and Shuttle launches, but I now have a chance to go see a Starship launch.