ShittyBeatlesFCPres

For real. I’m not religious but about the only to make people dislike waking up early on Sunday to go to church more is associating with Congress.

One time, Walgreens had a charity thing where they sold clown noses and I got one, got a boost from a friend, and put the clown nose on Jefferson Davis.

Everyone who tours Cap. Hill should try it with all the horrible statues in that room.

I think it’s nuanced. The internet did democratize information and even societies. It allowed communication. Twitter was a key part of the Arab Spring but Facebook was used to spread misinformation during multiple genocides.

Really, when the web was young — “Web 1.0” — it was all decentralized and required some knowledge to use. Then, social media companies created closed networks and governments were able to fight back (or co-opt them). That was “Web 2.0” (which isn’t a technical term). I think it was a huge mistake. “Web 3.0” won’t ever involve the blockchain, which is useless except for naive people. But the concept of decentralized communication platforms is a good idea.

Basically, we need a better version of “Web 1.0” without the VCs, Monopoly money, and NFT horseshit. Give users control of who they follow, break up monopolies, and let censorious governments play whack-a-mole while still being able block harassers and bots.

In fairness, it’s also fucking hard to draw maps in Louisiana. I work with GIS software to create maps sometimes and you basically need at least a gaming desktop to apply high res water layers to maps without your computer getting so hot for so long, it could be used as a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator on a mission to the outer solar system.

As someone who lives in Louisiana’s 2nd district, the main problem (some) Republicans have with the map wasn’t that a 2nd black district was drawn. It’s that it was drawn so Speaker Johnson and Rep Scalise got even safer seats and they had to screw one Republican Congressman and they chose one to screw.

This isn’t really a fight over civil rights anymore. The Voting Rights Act requires 2 majority black districts in a state with 6 seats and a 33% black population. It’d be easy enough to make two without it being so weirdly drawn but that would have required two members of the Congressional Republican leadership to make their districts competitive and that wasn’t happening.

In fairness to Apple, if you play the video backwards, it’s an amazing commercial. Maybe it was like all those classic rock records where parents thought you could play it backwards to learn about Satan or whatever.

Relax. I’m sure they’ll be vetted and probably most won’t even be Chinese citizens. China is just as complicated a place as America^1. I’m an American software developer and I’d rather eat a bowl of hair than go work for my own government, much less any other. There’s lots of Chinese tech workers who just want to write software and not get involved.

^1 I’ll admit, Chinese food is more complicated. Like Louisiana vs Szechuan is a fair fight. I’ll take the Pepsi challenge with Memphis BBQ vs their best smoked pork. But after that, we’re gonna need to pretend Mexican and Italian food are American to be competitive.

I know that’s true of large enterprises but I spent about a decade in an around start ups and few used Microsoft stuff (except Excel for finance people). If you’re starting from scratch and have a bunch of young employees, there’s really no reason to stick with the legacy Microsoft stuff.

Not saying “Google’s office suite is better than Microsoft’s.” Microsoft’s cloud offerings are basically the same now and there’s some advantages and disadvantages. I just mean there’s a generation of people that know Google Workspace better than MS Office.

US Attorney Damian Williams said the scheme was so sophisticated that it "calls the very integrity of the blockchain into question."

If that’s actually true, they should be given a sentence of time served and a job writing useful software.

I’m not a geologist by any means but isn’t South Florida uniquely screwed by rising sea levels? I’ve read articles about it basically being a geology problem. There’s a layer of porous limestone on top of the bedrock there. So, the types of flood protection you see in the Netherlands, Southeast Louisiana, etc. (levees, sea walls, pumps, etc.) aren’t possible.

I’m pretty sure there are no rules this year. The Commission on Presidential Debates isn’t involved.

I don’t think there’s rules this year. The Commission on Presidential Debates isn’t organizing these debates.