Facebook has renamed itself Meta

We may have a new way to uncover the nature of dark matter, Elon Musk's net worth is closer to $300 billion Oct 29, 2021 # Good morning to the biggest corporate pivot of the century. CEO Facebook Mark Zuckerberg declared his firm is renaming itself “Meta”. At first glance, this could enable the pursuit of new augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) networking. But to many, this feels suspect. In the wake of major social media outages and repeated privacy scandals, the reason for the change might extend beyond human progress. But human progress exists: Scientists may have finally found a way to grasp the nature of dark matter, using one of the most destructive forces in the universe as a colossal particle detector. And on the subject of detection, CEO Tesla Elon Musk's wealth is nearing $300 billion in the wake of Tesla becoming a trillion-dollar company. This is The Blueprint. Happy reading. CULTURE [Facebook Is Officially Changing Its Name to Meta, Says Mark Zuckerberg]( [CEO Facebook (or ‘Meta’) Mark Zuckerberg.]( Facebook officially declared that [it has changed its name to Meta]( in a strategic move to shift commercial emphasis toward virtual and augmented reality systems, according to an announcement from CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the company’s annual Connect event. But this comes on the heels of the firm’s latest and greatest social media crises, including the widespread outages and privacy concerns. - Beyond the name. “Meta” is the Greek word for beyond, and Zuckerberg thinks this accurately describes the brand of the new company as it attempts to move into [augmented and virtual reality]( technologies. On the surface, this isn’t a completely hopeless strategy. The progression of social media trends has moved from Facebook offering a way for friends and family to “stay in touch”, to Twitter users watching news and trends emerge in real-time, to Instagram’s focus on visual storytelling and the ability to generate microtrends. And in the last few years, TikTok has incentivized the emulation of reactions via human gestures joined to emerging microtrends. Simulating society. But during the Connect event, Zuckerberg and his colleagues reviewed extensive plans for something the company calls a connected, “people-first” internet that can take the new company, Meta, away from a social media-centric business model, and into the novel media environment of AR and VR. On the heels of scandal. This will be a hard sell for many, especially in the wake of the website’s longest outage in a decade, and [repeated privacy scandals]( that stretch at least as far back as the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Despite losing $6 billion in one day, Zuckerberg and his social media empire aren’t going anywhere, for better, and potentially [also for worse](. A slow transition. But for now, the old ways will remain. No public-facing signs of the pivot to Meta have appeared on Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger. The appearance or even operation of these could change, but probably not drastically, since they have come to form the fundamental architecture of our digital reality. [Read More]( SCIENCE [We May Have a New Way to Uncover the Nature of Dark Matter]( [An artist's impression of a neutron star.]( In the search for a means of understanding the universe, scientists have discovered [a new way to finally grasp the nature of dark matter]( a substance that’s remained a mystery for decades. And it lies in the way ultradense material of neutron stars could trap dark matter particles, like a colossal cosmic sensor. - Why can’t we do it here? Scientists have as of yet only indirectly inferred the existence of dark matter particles, but haven’t directly observed the baffling substance that comprises most of the known universe. There’s no easy way to detect dark matter via Earth-based experiments, since the particles interact with ordinary matter at extremely rare frequencies. That means we need an unimaginable large detector, so big that we could never build it on Earth. Or massive. A recent study has uncovered a way to glean information of a much more accurate variety from neutron stars, which are the densest ones known to science. Neutron stars form when gigantic stars die in a maddening supernova explosion, which leaves only the core. The core then collapses into a tightly-packed sphere, dragged inward by gravity so immense that protons and electrons combine, creating neutrons. A heavy spoon. In this condition, a neutron star the mass of our own sun would have a radius of roughly 6.2 miles (10 km), and one simple teaspoon of its material would weigh one billion tons! This makes why it’s hard to recreate a feasible [dark matter particle]( detector on Earth very clear. Dark matter can move through an entire light-year, which is 6.2 trillion miles (10 trillion km), without coming to a stop. A giant dark matter trap. But Neutron stars are so unconscionably dense that they can stop dark matter particles in transit as they pass through them. The theory is that the particles would smash into the neutrons of the heavy star, then lose kinetic energy (or speed), and become trapped in the neutron star’s unyielding gravity. And, on a long enough timeline, the dark matter particles might accumulate within the core of the neutron star, heating the ancient, bone-shatteringly cold star to an observable temperature difference. Who knows, if enough particles are accumulated, they could even trigger the collapse of the host star into [a black hole](. [Read More]( CULTURE [Elon Musk's Net Worth Is Now Closer to $300 Billion]( [Elon Musk.]( Elon Musk just won’t stop getting richer. When markets closed on Wednesday, Tesla’s share price had risen a full two percent, [lifting its tech CEO’s wealth to nearly $300 billion](. Since the all-electric automaker’s market cap soared beyond $1 trillion earlier this week, the stock has not fallen back to pre-October levels, causing Musk’s portfolio to bloat like a giant pumpkin. - The Great Pumpkin. The [Bloomberg Billionaires Index]( listed Musk’s net worth at $292 billion on Thursday, $122 billion of which came from 2021 alone. Early this year, Musk consistently fired shots at Bezos on Twitter, his erstwhile rival for the title of the richest person in the world. But now Bezos is becoming a distant second, sitting at $200 billion on Thursday after gaining only (only!) $6 billion this year. It should but doesn’t go without saying that Musk could single-handedly save 42 million people from starvation if he donated that two percent of his newly-gained money. United Nations World Food Program Executive Director David Beasly has asked billionaires and space barons to do something about the food security “emergency” currently afflicting many in the world. Don’t count on it. Musk isn’t famous for his humanitarian philanthropy. But a newly-proposed “unrealized capital gains tax” that would tax billionaires and millionaires could require him and his peers, like Bezos, Bill Gates, and many others, to pay. In response, Musk, who said he didn’t pay any taxes in 2018, replied to the news [with conventional irreverence]( “Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you.” But, do they? Musk has donated $257 million to his own foundation. But that’s literally 0.001 percent of his current net worth, which is why Gizmodo aptly described it as a “pittance of a donation.” But this tiny fraction of the tech billionaire’s portfolio was enough to avoid IRS penalties. If the new tax is passed, Musk could be required to pay up to $50 billion through the next five years. In response to this news, [Musk then tweeted]( “My plan is to use the money to get humanity to Mars and preserve the light of consciousness.” It sounds nice, but without food or shelter, millions worldwide could really use help keeping their light alive. [Read More]( QUOTE OF THE DAY “ By looking far out into space we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe, back toward the epoch of the Big Bang. ” Carl Sagan, in his book 'Cosmos' [Video]VIDEO OF THE DAY [Here's How NASA Taught the Space Shuttle to Fly Like a Glider Using Trial and Error]( Test it until it's flawless. [Here's How NASA Taught the Space Shuttle to Fly Like a Glider Using Trial and Error]( TODAY IN HISTORY In 1991, the space probe Galileo become the first human object to perform a flyby of an asteroid, Gaspra. The probe made its closest approach at an impressive distance of roughly 1,000 miles (1,604 km), while moving at ludicrous speeds of 5 miles per second (8 km/sec). The encounter generated a lot of data, including 150 images, which depicted Gaspra's bountiful craters, suggesting it's suffered an unimaginable number of collisions since its formation. MAIL & MUSINGS Space baron billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson were well-known as the heads of vast tech empires long before they came close to feasibly lifting humans into space. Yet Musk has promised to build a better, sustainable future for humans on Mars. Would life be better on Mars? Be sure you check back tomorrow for the results! [I will literally do anything to go there!]( [Yes, but only if we protect ourselves from solar radiation.]( [Big tech with even less regulation? Count me out.]( [Mars isn’t real. This is a simulation (1010011).]( Yesterday’s Results And now the answer to yesterday’s question! We asked readers which of two pricey SUVs they would take for free, the Tesla Cybertruck, or the Karlmann King. And it looks like nearly half of you think both are atrocious machines and are wondering what we're talking about. But on the other hand, nearly 10 percent of you don't even have a license. These are atrocious machines, what are you talking about? 46% I’d drive the Karlmann, like the King I am. 25% Cybertruck. I’ve waited too long to change. 19% I don’t even have a license lol. 9% AND ANOTHER THING... - NASA is wondering how we should report finding alien life beyond Earth, and it looks like [the public won’t be first]( on the need-to-know hierarchy. - A YouTuber needed help with a tricky exam question, so [he rented a helicopter]( to test his theory. - An artificial intelligence algorithm was investigating the history of the human genome, but [it found an unexpected “ghost” ancestor](. (Science Alert) - The U.S. Army commissioned a 300-kW laser weapon, and it’s big. [Really, really big](. - A wriggling, freaky-looking worm contorts itself into a terrifying blob when approached, and scientists [just gave it a computerized twin](. (The New York Times $) - A company that used to build barracks for overseas U.S. troops is now building [the world’s largest 3D-printed neighborhood]( in Austin, Texas. - SETI and other initiatives have long sought signs of alien intelligence, but a recent essay argues that we should give this up, and instead [look for their technology](. (Aeon) Prepared by Brad Bergan Enjoy reading? Don't forget to forward to a friend! Was this email forwarded to you? [Subscribe]( [About Us]( | [Advertise]( | [Contact Us]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Youtube]( [Linkedin]( [Instagram]( You are receiving this email because you have subscribed to our newsletter. Manage your email preferences or unsubscribe [here]( © Copyright 2021 | The Blueprint is by Interesting Engineering, Inc. 201 Spear Street, Suite 1100 San Francisco, CA 94105 | All Rights Reserved [Interesting Engineering]