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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • That would be the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates’ false claims that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are 1) illegal, 2) causing mass crime, and 3) eating the townsfolk’s pets. All of these have been debunked. That has not stopped bomb threats, school and business closings, and rantings by other right-wing nutjob clingers-on to the same effect, denigrating a full 20% of this Midwestern town.

    Several area Republicans have come out pleading for the rhetoric to stop, but because the hate is a feature, not a bug, the VP candidate came out and said: “if I have to make stories up to get the media’s attention I will and won’t feel bad”, and has doubled down on these lies.



  • In my experience, the “quickest” are more fuel efficient than the “fuel efficient” routes, which take me through residential areas (where every intersection is protected, meaning a stop sign in at least 1 direction) or stair-stepping on county roads where the speed-up/slow-down cycle negates the benefit of driving on slower roads.


  • I manage the IT for a SMB in the non-profit mental health space, and am connected through another role to our state’s cybersecurity fusion center. My small, insignificant network has scanning attempts run on it a few thousand times a day. Several hundred times a day we will log attacks from various vectors. Looking at the stats every month, going back a decade, the source of all of these is: #1) Russia, #2) China. Every. Time. We present a fat ransomware target, but have no IP to steal, so why the interest? A couple of reasons, courtesy of the fusion center and the local FBI office: first, supply chain attacks: we are partnered with larger medical groups, insurance companies, the state government, and research universities, and using trusted connections to get into those upstream entities is sometimes easier than attacking the front door. I have a small security budget comparatively. Second: botnets/zombies: taking over systems from within the US and making your traffic domestic, or even local to your target helps obfuscate the source of the attack, and ultimately why everyone should care. Not just about China, but about security in general - unpatched home PCs have been used to host and distribute malware, spam and even CP. I certainly wouldn’t want that on my home network. Even if someone didn’t care about that, Americans can be trusted to fall back on: “they’re taking something of yours” - they’re using your bandwidth and you’re paying for it. I believe the Chinese citizens just want the same things American, German, Bulgarian, and East Elbonian citizens want - to live life and be happy (in our parlance; “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”). But the Chinese government however, has a 100-year plan to be the sole economic power in the world, and the way they’re trying to get there isn’t playing nicely in the sandbox.










  • The big advantage of brrrp is simplicity. Pull trigger, things go asplodsy and/or turn into pink mist. Close air support, which the 'hog kicked ass at in the sandbox, needs to be reliable and simple. With the proliferation of GPS jamming technologies and other countermeasures, simple and cheap should carry the day.

    I don’t know if anything is as physically survivable as the A-10. Certainly not some modern composite that will be grounded for fractures after taking small arms fire. Also, the boots on the ground love the support provided by the A-10, as do the congress critters whose bases are in their districts.

    Just rambling thoughts from a village idiot, not looking to start a fight



  • Being genuinely curious - how do the folks who advocate for the elimination of all personal cars (as it seems by the conversation) see that working in modern society?

    The impression, as I perceive, is that the hardcore “fuck cars” devotees would “Thanos snap” and disappear the entirety of the car… society(?) Infrastructure, petrol, private transport ownership, roads… And I’d wager there’s a bit of crossover with the “fuck planes” and “ships” as well. I’m not saying that all of these don’t bring and have major problems that require big, expensive solutions/changes if we want to remain living. I’m asking: how would you propose dealing with global society that is accustomed to going 75 mph when they wake up one morning and they’re now going 2.5 mph?