t3rmit3

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He / They

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t3rmit3 ,

I'm sorry, are you suggesting that allowing wealth inequality is the best course of action, simply because it's more harmonious than combating it?

t3rmit3 ,

As a huge Sanders fan, he's too old as well now. AOC for sure, but sadly in this shithole country that's a pipe dream.

t3rmit3 ,

the Earth

FTFY

t3rmit3 , (edited )

This defeatist, placatory attitude will ensure that we never make any progress.

No one has ever been VP for FOUR TERMS, but that's the hypothetical bar you set for her, because you assume that's what it would take? Leaving aside that it's an impossible ask anyways, being VP for 4 terms isn't going to satisfy the "old fat white guys" anyways.

Are misogynists gonna demand more of her? Yeah, of course. But don't go setting the bar higher on their behalf, before they even say anything!

t3rmit3 ,

I'm fine with her choosing whatever she wants to do (or not do), because she's already been given an incredibly difficult time just being a House Rep. But if she ran for President, I'd campaign for her non-stop from announcement to election day.

Shopping app Temu is “dangerous malware,” spying on your texts, U.S. lawsuit claims ( arstechnica.com )

Temu—the Chinese shopping app that has rapidly grown so popular in the US that even Amazon is reportedly trying to copy it—is "dangerous malware" that's secretly monetizing a broad swath of unauthorized user data, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin alleged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday....

t3rmit3 ,

Uh, as someone who does malware analysis, sandbox detection is not easy, and is certainly not something that a non-malware-developer/analyst knows how to do. This isn't 2005 where sandboxes are listing their names in the registry/ system config files.

t3rmit3 ,

There is leaked Windows source code online... Is that also freeware for me to train an OS-building model on?

Supreme Court strikes down Chevron, curtailing power of federal agencies ( www.scotusblog.com )

This sucks. This is leaning further into the Major Questions Doctrine that SCOTUS has been pushing, where agencies and their actually knowledgeable, employed scientists and technical experts, have no real control over regulatory policies, and instead are beholden to Congress and judges to decide e.g. how many ppm of a chemical...

t3rmit3 OP ,

The march into corporatocracy continues.

t3rmit3 OP , (edited )

Regulations are not laws. They are the specific implementation mechanisms of laws.

For example, Congress passes a law like the Clean Water Act. But that law doesn't (and cannot feasibily) lay out every single individual rule necessary to ensure the clean water that it seeks to protect and provide.

For example, it contains a section that requires Water Quality Standards to be set by each state, for themselves. However, if a state does not create them, the act authorizes the EPA to create a standard for them.

That's not the EPA "creating laws", it's the EPA implementing the congressionally-passed CWA.

t3rmit3 OP ,

Congress is the one who passed the GCA, FOPA, and NFA. If you don't like the definition of a machine gun being a firearm that fires more than once with a single actuation of the trigger (and the parts that allow them to), blame them, not the ATF.

t3rmit3 OP ,

They didn't make owning shoes a felony. Rich of you too accuse ME of arguing in bad faith in the same breath you say that.

If you use a string to make a reciprocating charging handle pull the trigger as it returns to battery after firing, why is that less "legitimate" in converting the gun into automatic firing than using an auto-sear? In both cases, the gun fires multiple times with a single pull of the trigger by a person.

t3rmit3 OP ,

we have determined that the string itself is not a machinegun, whether or not there are loops tied on the ends. However, when the string is added to a semiautomatic firearm as you proposed in order to increase the cycling rate of that rifle, the result is a firearm that fires automatically and consequently would be classified as a machinegun.

So no, gun owners with shoes are not felons, unless they combine those 2 things to make a machinegun. Obviously.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

Hell yeah! Nothing good comes from their new model, nor the advertiser-friendly focus of SD3. They were good for pushing the open-source ecosystem forward, but clearly their Capitalist masters have come calling, and they're enshittifying.

t3rmit3 ,

Some are bought. Some are bigots. Some are both.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

This is literally 2016 repeating itself.

I really hate being right about the worst fucking stuff.

Biden should never have been put up again, and his performance is gonna enthuse absolutely zero non-political-junkie normies to vote for him.

With states being as voter-suppressed/gerrymandered (or however you prefer to describe the electoral college bullshit) as they are, Dems cannot afford to be slightly ahead. Hillary was slightly ahead. You have to be WAY ahead, and Biden's not.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

I think if you're in a Blue state, you'll be safe. It's the folks in Blue enclaves in Red states, like Austin, El Paso, Atlanta, that I'm really worried for.

t3rmit3 ,

With the very notable (and relevant) exception of... 2016.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

His model was previously based entirely on predicting the popular vote. Now he's switched it to just predict the winner based on EC delegates. I think we'll all be thrilled if Trump loses in November (or ideally, just plain dies), but a statistical model that doesn't factor in things like Republicans trying to pull fake or rogue elector hijinks doesn't fill me with confidence. And who knows what SCOTUS will do if it's thrown to them (Lichtman also predicted Al Gore's 'win').

Also, looking at the list, I'm pretty sure more than 6 are false:

  1. True
  2. If you inspire 650,000 to conduct write-in votes against you, is that a challenge? In any case, not counting this as False.
  3. True
  4. Mostly true (and RFK really pulls from Reps anyways, polls show)
  5. Debatable, so I won't count
  6. Debatable, so I won't count
  7. Debatable. He did push a lot of changes, but the number of rightward-changes that happened under his watch (like Roe being overturned, MQD being bolstered, etc) have overshadowed basically everything else)
  8. False. This entire year has been non-stop protests, and not just over Gaza (1)
  9. False. Whether it was a bullshit thing to prosecute or not (it was), Hunter's conviction is a major talking point on the Right to attack Biden (and specifically, to push independents towards viewing Biden and Trump as equally criminal). (2)
  10. False. Between the Afghanistan withdrawl and Gaza, he's got military and foreign policy failures in both flanks' eyes. (3)
  11. False. I think that if Republicans had not been paid by the Kremlin to sandbag aid to Ukraine, he might have had one, but as of now Ukraine is not a success, and I can't think of any others that are known to voters. (4)
  12. False. He was never considered charismatic like Obama, or a "National Hero". (5)
  13. False. Trump's charisma among his base is a trademark of his populist campaign. It's why Trump can dominate the Right and DeSantis falls flat. (6)
t3rmit3 ,

For Biden now. I've updated my comment above with the list and my assessments.

I do think Lichtman’s right about debates not changing outcomes, tho

What confuses me is how debates don't play into whether a candidate is considered charismatic (questions 12/13).

t3rmit3 ,

I think what he means by “charismatic” is someone like Reagan who appeals to the other side of the aisle (Reagan Democrats in this case); Trump is only charismatic to his own followers.

I don't think working "across the aisle" is really what this is about; I think this is purely about voters' perceptions of them as people. But in either case, Biden sure isn't winning anyone over with his personality who wasn't already firmly center-right Neoliberal.

I consider the Afghanistan withdrawal to be, overall, a highly positive thing; yes, it was handled badly, but it’s the easiest thing in the world to keep a forever war going, and at least there Biden put a stop to it, so I give him high marks for that at least.

Gaza and Afghanistan are polar opposite reactions, depending on what flank of the Democratic party you're on:

  • Gaza is an unmitigated disaster to the anti-war/anti-genocide/anti-SetCol Left flank, and a moderate success to the pro-Israel/ pro-war Neoliberal Right flank.
  • Afghanistan is an unmitigated disaster to the pro-war Neoliberal Right flank, and a moderate success to the anti-war Left flank.

Not trying to blindly defend Lichtman or anything, just trying to cling to whatever shred of hope remains.

Understood. I guess for me my anger is more important right now, because this was so avoidable, and Trump feels like he's close to coming back because of the DNC's endless hubris (again). And I've already seen people trying to somehow blame the anti-genocide/ pro-Palestinian protesters for this over on Reddit, since they reflexively scapegoat any and all centrist Dem failures, and they don't have a Bernie or Nader to scapegoat this time.

t3rmit3 ,

Whales

t3rmit3 ,

If my brother were still there, I'd say, "yes, please".

t3rmit3 ,

Republican Adam Kinzinger Endorses Biden For President

Wow, that's surprising!

former congressman

Ah, that explains it.

t3rmit3 ,

Cleantech is a very dynamic sector, even if its triumphs are largely unheralded. There's a quiet revolution underway in generation, storage and transmission of renewable power, and a complimentary revolution in power-consumption in vehicles and homes...

But cleantech is too important to leave to the incumbents, who are addicted to enshittification and planned obsolescence. These giant, financialized firms lack the discipline and culture to make products that have the features – and cost savings – to make them appealing to the very wide range of buyers who must transition as soon as possible, for the sake of the very planet.

The author focuses on the danger of startups dying out and therefore bricking your devices, but another major problem with startups is that they are VC-backed, and those VC investors are expecting the exact same unsustainable growth that the incumbent "market leaders" are chasing in their enshittification journeys. When the startups don't die, they will also 'have' to enshittify, to satisfy investors.

It's not enough for our policymakers to focus on financing and infrastructure barriers to cleantech adoption. We also need a policy-level response to enshittification.

Sadly, this is the impossible part. Policymakers (at least in the US) will never prioritize consumers over companies.

Honestly, the best we can ever hope for is a law mandating that it's no longer illegal to modify your tech if the company who operates it dies, or shuts down the backend server infra, but this will be opposed by basically every company out there (including if not especially video game companies, who won't want to potentially have to allow people to develop and operate private servers for defunct MMOs).

t3rmit3 ,

Yeah, this isn't going to get any easier. Right now KSA is mostly blaming "unauthorized" pilgrims, saying that they did not have any air conditioned hotel rooms to escape the heat in, but I think given the very wide range of reported countries affected, they are just minimizing anger.

The Middle East is going to get more and more dangerously hot, and I'm worried this is going to start being more normal during Hajj.

t3rmit3 ,

Certain British accents (like a London accent) have an 'aw' in particular sound like 'or'. Not sure about Australian.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

Dang, this is really serious. You don't call in leadership from Boeing and NASA unless there are some serious issues to hammer out, that go beyond engineering.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

You don't get fewer war machines by rewarding aggressors for their invasions. You shut them down swiftly, and make it clear that war isn't an acceptable means to resolve conflicts.

"If you invade us, we'll try to sue for peace as quickly and obsequiously as possible to end the war so there are fewer wars" just encourages imperialist aggression.

t3rmit3 ,

Fire is not sentient. It doesn't strategize. It can't use your feelings about wanting to minimize it's damage against you. Humans can, and do.

t3rmit3 ,

Yes, obviously the US is a massive Imperialist power. I don't want it to have those bases, or nuclear weapons, or even a military or government at all, but I sure as hell don't want it to be replaced by an openly autocratic imperialist power that also has all those things anyways, which is what Russia is aspiring to be under Putin.

But that is a completely orthogonal discussion as to whether Force is required to stop malicious actors from imposing their will on others through violent Force themselves. That is, as an anarchist, a basic requirement of human interaction; self defense and defense of others.

What hypocrisy do you think is taking place here?

t3rmit3 , (edited )

Whoa, colonialism is absolutely alive and well. Colonialist projects, Israel included, still exist today, and of course many countries that began as settler-colonialism (which is distinct from plain 'colonialism') still exist everywhere, and still keep their native populations marginalized and under attack.

Israel is quite practically the most textbook definition of a Settler-Colonialist state that there is, especially given that they themselves still even use the term "settlements" to describe their continued displacement of Palestinians.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

Are you seriously calling a populist uprising a "US backed coup", implying the US had a hand in it, simply because the US ideologically supported their goals?

NATO expansion is not a justification for invading another country, especially a non-NATO one. Ukraine has the right to self-determination and freedom to associate with whomever they want, and Russia doesn't get to tell them who they can or can't be friends with.

I can only assume based on this that you philosophically support the Bay of Pigs operation, as the US saw Soviet expansion near them as a threat.

Putin didnt make his move on Crimea because he was trying to defend Russia, he did it because he knew that his plans to reassimilate Ukraine were threatened by the new Ukranian government. And the 2022 expansion of the invasion just proves that.

t3rmit3 ,

Bruh, no one in modern day Israel or Gaza is fighting because of 5000 year old feuds. They're fighting because one group displaced and started mass-murdering the other in order to establish an ethnostate.

t3rmit3 ,

You think that family members (and let's be honest, "ancestral genetic brothers" are not actually family members on any psychological level) only have ever killed each other over religion? Not money? Not land? Only religion and 'culture'? Please.

Coke—and Dozens of Others—Pledged to Quit Russia. They’re Still There. ( www.bloomberg.com )

After Vladimir Putin’s troops surged over the Ukrainian border in February 2022, the Coca-Cola Co. was among the first multinationals to pledge it would quit Russia in protest. Aiming to avoid the inevitable headaches of complying with expected Western sanctions on the Kremlin, Coke asked its partners there to pull its cans...

t3rmit3 ,

Businesses are not moral entities, and the sooner people stop expecting them to be, the sooner people can start pushing for regulations that control and limit them, instead of trying to "work with" them.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

We know by now that the economy doing well won't translate into helping us. And any minor benefits we do see will then be hoovered up by landlords, businesses that gatekeep essential goods, and legally-required expenditures like insurance, before we even have any chance to decide for ourselves how to allocate it.

"Hey, SF raised minimum wages by 2.50? Great! That means I can bump the rent on my non rent-controlled properties by a couple hundred bucks next lease! Thanks, SF!"

t3rmit3 ,

Yep, people sadly are bad at extrapolating how restrictions on something they dislike can be cross-applied to limit things they don't dislike, by others.

t3rmit3 ,

I like "Bees" best. Simple and easy.

t3rmit3 ,

People often decry accelerationism, but the reality is that the slow-boiled frog is the one that sits and dies. Chipping away at freedoms, consumer protections, product benefits, etc is all less likely to spark backlash than when they drop sharply in a short time.

That doesn't mean you should help to make things worse, but it does mean that you may want to reconsider constantly mitigating every bad thing that others are doing, rather than letting them shoot themselves in the foot. When people are being hurt, help them. When people are being inconvenienced, let them get angry.

t3rmit3 ,

The EFF's response is right on the money, as usual:

Communications platforms are not comparable to unsafe food, unsafe cars, or cigarettes, all of which are physical products—rather than communications platforms—that can cause physical injury. Government warnings on speech implicate our fundamental rights to speak, to receive information, and to think.

There is no scientific consensus that social media is harmful to children's mental health. Social science shows that social media can help children overcome feelings of isolation and anxiety. This is particularly true for LBGTQ+ teens.

We agree that social media is not perfect, and can have negative impacts on some users, regardless of age. But if Congress is serious about protecting children online, it should enact policies that promote choice in the marketplace and digital literacy. Most importantly, we need comprehensive privacy laws that protect all internet users from predatory data gathering and sales that target us for advertising and abuse.

This warning label announcement just feeds into the right-wing "tech platforms bad, full of librul thought, must protect the kids by surveilling everyone and blocking the harmful (minority-focused) content" agenda.

Keep in mind that this is not happening in a vacuum; many states have already put in place age-verification for sites they deem 'harmful' (and California is considering one as well, so it's not just braindead red states getting in on the surveillance action), and this directly makes the argument that social media spaces (and the speech on them) are harmful, and should be subject to government approval.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

I'm confused. Are Feiglin, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich not Israeli?

Him quoting Hitler isn't even the main issue in this case (to me), it's really what he's using the quote to justify, which is the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine/ Gaza, which is, as the article demonstrates, a much more broadly-held viewpoint among Israelis, including ones who unarguably do have a lot of political power.

Lastly, if there are not a lot of public quotes condemning this coming out of Israel, for them to quote, isn't that itself kind of a problem?

t3rmit3 ,

Your [judicial bias] is a heartbreaker!

t3rmit3 ,

Sadly, an uninformed populace is a controlled populace, so this aligns with monied interests very well.

t3rmit3 , (edited )

This is an extreme acceleration of what is happening in the US as well. Any time employment or compensation is based on research outcomes, it is by definition a monetary incentive to doctor your outcomes.

In China this was down to their ranking system and grant eligibility. In the US this usually happens inside companies (see literally the entire history of DuPont and the research they did, or all the research that is funded by Nestle or Petrochemical companies), or in order to secure or keep tenured positions, or retain grants.

Good research needs to be publicly-funded, and devoid (as much as possible , from a methodological standpoint) of desired outcomes.

t3rmit3 ,

Just because something is built out of love does not make it safe, and attestation is about safety. You wouldn't trust an un-attested surgical device, just because there's a really positive community around its design.

Signal is a life-or-death app for some people.

Israel added to UN ‘List of Shame’ for abuses against children in war, joining Palestinian Armed Groups, Russia, Sudanese Forces ( www.hrw.org )

For the first time, the United Nations secretary-general added the Israeli armed forces to the “list of shame” of warring parties committing grave violations against children in armed conflict. Although long overdue, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ action was fully justified....

t3rmit3 ,

If nothing else, it's useful to see the double-standard laid so bare.

8,700 child casualties in a 7-year period when there is ostensibly no war going on, but that's not enough to condemn them.

Noticably, that works out to a little more than 1,200 casualties a year, just of children, meaning adult women and men were not even counted.

But of course that specific number is only shocking, and only justifies defensive action, when Hamas does it.

t3rmit3 ,

It was always just a distraction to divert news from asking who was stopping aid getting in, by giving them a narrative about "need to build this pier first". Sleight of hand for propagandists to exploit.

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