Looks like Twitter is going to force Elon Musk to adhere to the contract he signed and buy Twitter, telling the New York Times that "the board and Mr. Musk agreed to a transaction at $54.20 per share", "we believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders" and "we intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement". Meanwhile, Musk wants the SEC to investigate Twitter's claims (placed in their annual reports) that spam accounts are less than 5%. If I was Elon I wouldn't be attracting the SEC to anything I was part of, lest they uncover my deceit. On the topic of deceit, Tesla is holding another "AI Day" on August 19th.
Eftpos has launched QR code payments. At the moment you use it via an app called Beem. You add an eftpos card to it, scan a QR code in the shop or on a website to pay via your phone instead of using the card. It's only rolled out a Subway store (yes one) in Sydney and Brisbane right now. On the merchant end this is attractive because it should be cheaper than Visa/Mastercard and allows the merchant to bundle it with rewards programs. One the consumer side, I dunno. I'd love to be able to offer Sizzle subscriptions via eftpos instead of Visa/MC/Amex if it was cheaper. I pay Stripe almost $3,000 a year to take your money, would be nice to keep more of it.
Researchers from the University of Bath have published the results of a randomised control trial on the impacts of leaving social media for a week. 154 volunteers with a mean age of 29.6 were randomly split into two groups. Intervention (don't use social media for a week) and control (no instructions, continue as normal). At the end of that week, they found "significant between-group differences" on "well-being, depression, and anxiety, with the intervention group faring much better on all three metrics". It's one study, albeit a well done one, but it backs up many people's anecdotal evidence. Ease off social media, or take a break from it entirely and you'll feel better.
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