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• Post #4382429

  What a stupid idea.... "Google Search testing forcing searchers to sign in to get more search results" I propose that each of us create several fantasy Google accounts (or resurrect accounts previously used by dead people) and then we quietly exchange the credentials. https://searchengineland.com/google-search-testing-forcing-searchers-to-sign-in-to-get-more-search-results-484223

• Post #4364167

  Uh, this is ambiguous - did Blanche also withdraw the part giving the trumps immunity from tax audits (and thus effectively from paying taxes)? That immunity is what El Cheato really cares about. "Holdout senators back Blanche for AG after he formally withdraws Trump fund plan" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3w05gx32d4o

• Post #4336614

  Saw an utterly wonderful production of MacBeth last night at Santa Cruz Shakespeare. I think they did the full text without major edits. The sets were minimalist - which is important these days when live theatre is struggling. Yes, it is Elizabethan-era English, but with the good acting and articulation, it's rather easy to understand. It runs through the end of August. (It's an outdoor venue and can get quite chilly.) There are several other plays going on in rep this summer - we...

• Post #4223245

  Another of the rules I'd put into place should I ever wake up to discover that I've become Emperor of the Universe... The Rule Against Digital Perpetuities: No Digital Rights Management (DRM) limitation or anti-copying mechanism may endure longer than the original copyright in the protected work. The Pledge: I pledge to neither specify nor standardize nor implement any system that does not conform to the Rule Against Digital Perpetuities. https://www.cavebear.com/old_cbblog/...

• Post #4217433

  And my final (perhaps) ex cathedra bull (based on the possibility that I did wake up as Emperor of the Universe this morning but failed to notice): The pledge: I pledge to vote for no Republican candidate for any office - whether local, state, or federal - in any election held before 2037.

• Post #4153598

  When I was designing office support systems and networks for a rather large bank we had a cardinal rule: Never break the user's train of thought! I am amazed at how bad, even with massive increases in computer and network horsepower, that that role is broken with an almost virulent violence.

• Post #4124296

  I agree. There are so many who read our Constitution's supremacy clause incorrectly. Federal law is supreme only in those areas in which the Federal government has authority. Yet the 9th, 10, and Preamble make it clear that the scope of that Federal authority is limited. And all of the rest falls to the states and the people. Thus Hawaii - and every other state - has the right and power to tell SCOTUS to take a flying leap at a rolling donut when the matter in question is subject to Sta...

• Post #4106413

  For those among us who aspire to revive "the good old days" this little book should be required reading... "The Good Old Days: They Were Terrible!" (And yes, it is that Otto Bettmann, of the archives.) https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81ZinsA41VL._SL1375_.jpg

• Post #4021550

  Saudi Arabia with nuclear material that could readily be made into a dirty bomb and with a bit more work made into a Hiroshima style bomb. What a concept. Not a concept that fits well with the fact that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, as was Osama bin Laden. Not a concept that fits well with a country built around a ultra-fundamentalist religious system. Trump is a coin-operated marionette; whoever inserts enough coin gets to pull Trump's strings. And the Saudi's have proba...

• Post #4017936

  Here's something that may be a rather in-demand job for the post Trump/MAGA era: Forensic accountant (Not to be confused with a forensic anthropologist.)

• Post #3997493

  Over the last 250 years Congress has been incredibly stupid by passing laws that do not self-destruct (i.e. require re-passage) after a period of time.) Those ancient laws have become land mines or weapons in the hands of a stupid vindictive president like trump. https://www.axios.com/2026/07/21/trump-smoot-hawley-tariffs-canada

• Post #3984609

  @tallship@public.mitra.social @tychotithonus@infosec.exchange Taking a bit of a detour - I remember when the ccTLDs were new. The folks who handled .TV set forth on an expedition to climb the tallest peak in Tuvalu. So they gathered their North Face and other mountaineering gear, down jackets, crampons, and ice axes and set forth to climb. And climb they did - to the peak of the highest point in Tuvalu - 15 feet above sea level.

• Post #3968102

  Regarding a requirement for voter id: Voter ID is not a stupid idea. The trouble comes not from the ID itself (unless that ID becomes a national identity card). Rather the trouble comes from the difficulty in obtaining that ID, especially for poor people, young people, people who have trouble in remote locations or who have limited abilities to go to DMV offices or the like, or minorities. My sense is that the D-party is taking the wrong tack on voter ID (although the SAVE act methods of vot...

• Post #3951272

  Well, now that JD Vance is moving to the northern Virginia suburbs (a gated area I presume) he won't be using his official government provided residence at the Naval Observatory in DC. So they ought to open that DC house - it's kinda nice - to homeless families.

• Post #3918007

  I think we can pretty much conclude that it is the policy of the government of Israel to commit ethnic cleansing. I make a strong distinction between the people of Israel and the government of Israel. The people of Israel deserve to have their sovereign country, peaceful and secure My point about ethnic cleansing applies to the government of Israel not to its people (although some clearly support that goal.) I also believe that the Palestinians deserve their own country, peaceful and secure....

• Post #3896981

  OK, if el trump wants to put tariffs on Canadian smoke then the rest of the world can impose tariffs and taxes on Starlinks' sky pollution and also that now approved system of big solar reflecting satellites. "Trump threatens to tariff Canada over wildfire smoke choking northern US cities" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyq93j34lgo

• Post #3851557

  Ah Thunderbird (for email, mine is the Mac OS version) ... Mozilla foundation - do you ever test anything? Since the last update pretty much every sending of email ends up with a "filter complete" pop up that indicates that it is still trying to write the copy into my sent folders. (This happens with both Rackspace and Fastmail as mail providers.)

• Post #3839886

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@jeffjarvis/116925266896337349 I agree with this - There is no reason to broadcast trump's rantings live, in real time. They can be captured and posted on places like youtube for later viewing. But why elevate what we know in advance will be lying propaganda? By-the-way, can the media stop posting billions of photos of trump - we all know what he looks like. Perhaps use a single image - using the old "hedcut" formats that were used by the Wall St. Jo...

• Post #3815462

  Oh the judges on SCOTUS are concerned about security, even though they each have several full time bodyguards. They want more protection - from us. I would consider their concerns to have a lower priority than guaranteeing the security of people from our roving, masked death squads that we call ICE/CBP. Perhaps SCOTUS could open the bargaining by eliminating "Qualified Immunity" of police? "US Supreme Court seeks major boost in security funding over threat increase" http...

• Post #3797554

  Lauren W. has noted that trump is spending tends of thousands on taxpayer dollars on huge banners bearing his face that are hung from public buildings in DC. (Those banners do smack of the huge banners that were hung by Fascists, Nazis, and other dictators over the span of the 20th century.) The image on those banners is similar to his mug-shot. As a copyright lawyer that raised a question in my mind - Is trump (or the government) violating the copyrights of whoever took the original mug shot...

• Post #3764180

  Who owns that 747 Bribe-plane? If it is owned by the US Federal government then trump doesn't get it when he leaves office, nor does his library, except perhaps as a loan. If it is owned by trump or his library there is a matter of things like income and property taxes. And why would the US spend $400,000,000 "upgrading" private property? And why is private property being used to ferry the US President hither and yon? And who is paying for fuel and maintenance and parking for...

• Post #3709975

  A Firefox, the browser that is trying to commit suicide by becoming increasing incompatible and failing some rather basic functions. So what did I hit today? Printing. I have a website (using Grav as the foundation) that has some long-ish pages. Firefox prints only the first page. Chrome and Safari print the whole thing. This is apparently a known problem with Firefox.

• Post #3562912

  This article made me uncomfortable. It painted a very undesirable picture of some of the candidates winning under th DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) banner. It appears that along with the many great and wonderful ideas that the right likes to paint with a word they think is pejorative - "socialist" - that some of these candidates are stuck in the obsolete 1910 rhetoric of 1910 Marxist (not then yet Leninist) communism. To my mind that is an error and will lead to lost electi...

• Post #3464269

  RE: https://apobangpo.space/@bich/116830773027187529 Pretty soon no person educated in Texas, Florida, or other confederate states will have the skills and knowledge to obtain any but a menial job.

• Post #3460658

  This is scary ... no matter whether I look this as a networking, web person, or a privacy/computer security person this is scary. The damage to citizens and companies from this kind of exposure is beyond measure. Trust in government is hard to establish. This will erase it. This turns maga fantasies about dark government into real concerns. "‘It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust’: redesign of US government websites stokes surveillance fears" https://www.theguardian.com/us...

• Post #3362589

  How come, all within the same week, many websites now have a popup to "sign in with Google"? Was this something the website owners put in or did google bugger one of the javascript libraries that it publishes?

• Post #3069072

  Best I've heard in response to a judge in Delaware allowing corporations to vote: Require them to show photo id.

• Post #3069071

  Time to mention my "First Law of the Internet" again... # The First Law of the Internet Every person shall be free to use the Internet in any way that is privately beneficial without being publicly detrimental. * The burden of demonstrating public detriment shall be on those who wish to prevent the private use. * Such a demonstration shall require clear and convincing evidence of public detriment. * The public detriment must be of such degree and extent as to justify t...

• Post #3021174

  I am wondering if and which ICE/CBP "detention" facility is going to become the American Bastille?

• Post #3021173

  trump heard about this CIA guy grabbing $40,000,000 in gold bars. And trump said "that's small time; I get that much in an hour". "Former senior CIA official accused of stealing $40m in gold bars from agency" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/29/cia-official-gold-theft-trial