jimt1234

What's the BFD? I have nothing to hide! (I hear that shit all the time. So annoying.)

In my lifetime I've witnessed America accept new revenue sources by relaxing the moral code. First, it was allowing businesses to be open on Sunday. Then it was allowing liquor sales on Sunday. Then it was liquor ads on television. Then it was very controlled, state-run gambling (the lottery). Then it was casino gambling. Now it's online gambling and 'prediction markets'. Then it was recreational marijuana use. And so on. My point of reference is Missouri, where I grew up, but I think most states have followed a pretty similar path, all in search of new sources of revenue. I predict this trend will continue all the way to prostitution. Yes, that sounds crazy, but if you would've told me in the early-80s that Missouri would have casinos and legal weed, I would've considered that crazy.

Wrong. Dear Leader says gas prices will come down just after the election, when the US wins the war with Iran...for the 30th time.

I grew up with a kid whose dad worked in security for the St. Louis Rams NFL team. I was shocked when he told me how many attempts there are to blackmail or otherwise extort money from players.

Heads, I win. Tails, they cheated.

In my life I have known dozens (maybe hundreds?) of so-called illegal aliens. They all tell the same story: they came to the US to earn money to support their families. I have NEVER heard someone tell me they came to the US to vote, or they intend to vote, or they even know what voting is. So, this idea that millions of illegals are voting just doesn't align with my reality, and honestly, I don't think it aligns with any reality.

The only case I've heard of a so-called illegal alien voting was, I believe, from the 2020 election, some girl from Texas, who was brought over from Mexico when she was a baby. I believe she was in her early-30s or late-20s, spent her entire life in the US, educated and worked as a nurse. However, her US citizenship was never finalized, and she didn't realize it. She just assumed she was a citizen since she spent her entire life in the US. So, if this is what we're spending countless tax dollars to detect and prevent, well, that's just ridiculous. That money should be spent identifying people like her, and fast-tracking their citizenship.

Spending problem? What spending problem?

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/california-high-speed-r...

Suck it, Jin-Yang.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gPRyq0Vu0Tk

Back in the 90s, when I wore a younger man's clothes, I got a 'disturbing the peace' citation from the Modesto Police Department, the world's finest law enforcement agency (major sarcasm; they're horrible). Two cop cars were parked side-by-side, drivers chatting, blocking the only exit from a parking lot. I gave a little toot of the horn in my '87 Honda Prelude (I loved that car!). The cops didn't move. I gave another little toot. No movement, but they both turned their heads and looked right at me, irritated. I was in a hurry to get home and watch the VHS I had just rented, so I laid on the horn, really loud, just held it down. One cop got out, walked over to my car, told me he could arrest me and hold me in jail all night, just if he felt like it. Then he gave me the 'disturbing the peace' ticket.

I actually went to court to fight it, but the cop didn't show up. Case dismissed.

If you're currently living in Modesto, here's a song for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spsiGPa4aaY

The Ruling Class in the US has long been effective at influencing public opinion and behavior with boogeymen: communism, socialism, woke-ism, and so on. Mention publicly funded healthcare to 1000 random Americans, and the response from 950 of them is gonna be "Socialized medicine is bad!", and nothing else.

In the US, we hate socialism for everyone else, but love it for ourselves. I've talked to many pro-Trump, MAGA folks who ranted about 'welfare queens', yet they're collecting SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance - aka, money from the government). "That's different!"

I'm sure it could be done, but it would cost a fortune. My understanding is the canals were built to distribute water to farmers, and conservation/evaporation wasn't really much of a consideration because California had plenty of water back then.

BTW, I used to swim in those same canals around Modesto and Turlock as a kid. So gross.

Jobs has long been vocal about protecting the user experience. Not 100% sure if it's true, but I heard Jobs was originally opposed to custom apps running on the iPhone (the App Store), because he 'didn't want to turn iPhone in Windows'.

While not as extreme, this reminds me of the whole Bluetooth-re-enabled-after-updates thing I've been bitching about for years. I hate Bluetooth, never use it, always turn it off. Yet, every time I update macOS/iOS, Bluetooth is magically re-enabled, because Apple said so.

Like I said, not as annoying as unwillingly being sucked into the AI-iverse, and seizing 28-GB of storage space, but it's the principle. I want control over my devices - you know, the things I paid $$$ for.

I've worked on backup/failure systems since the mid-90s, and I've found there's one universal truth: If you don't fully test your backup/failure system, you don't have a backup/failure system.

There's generally two wrong responses: (1) We spent a lot of money on 'blah blah blah', a lot of other companies use it, so yeah, we've got a backup/failure system. And, (2) inadequate testing - either, we tested 1 of 50 services, and it worked, so the whole system can be restored; or, we gracefully tested, and it worked, so it will obviously work during not-graceful incidents.

And the root cause of this is generally that no one gets promoted for implementing an adequate backup/failure system, or it's extremely rare.

I needed to add a bunch of capacity running Sun/Solaris back in the late-90s. Same thing: pointless meetings with sales reps without clarity in pricing. Finally, I found the gear we were looking for on eBay, bought it, drove over and picked it up in my Ford Explorer, and had it up-and-running in one day. To my surprise, people in my company were PO'ed. But I had air cover because the CEO found out and loved it.

> All my life I have had faith in the governments reports and statistics ...

My Boomer mother tells me about this all the time. She said, growing up, people had absolute faith in everything the US government did or said; it was like religion. Then Vietnam happened. Specifically, the reporting around Vietnam and the number of casualties. My mother said that everyone knew someone who lost a family member in Vietnam, but the government was like, "Everything's fine."

I heard a good quote once: People don't vote to say thank you. People vote to say fuck you.

> ...and for what?

To keep the grift going, of course.

And all this time we've been worried about Skynet using some highly intelligent scheme to destroy humanity. LOL

You're right. My bad. Shit.

Melvin from Office Space: I was told that gas prices would fall below $2/gallon.

I feel like athletic shoes have mostly become what they were always meant to be: athletic shoes - you know, for doing something athletic, not just for going to Costco or McDonalds or whatever else. Back in the 90s, athletic shoes, like Nike, were for everything; they were the default shoe style. Now people wear Crocs or flip-flops or something else, not necessarily athletic shoes. So now the market is smaller for Nike - they can make the best athletic shoes in the world, but most people aren't athletes, they just wanna slip something on their feet and go to the grocery store.

A few months ago, my Roku TV started displaying these weird popups, saying something like, "Looks like you're watching college basketball. Did you know Roku-TV also has college basketball?" - something like that. Well, for the Roku device, yes, there was a setting I could disable, but (1) Roku pushed this 'feature' and made it default without my knowledge/consent, and (2) the config setting says the popups will stop, but it doesn't mention the data collection; my assumption is they're still collecting that data for their own data analytics purposes.

Trump is the undisputed champion of creating/influencing the narrative. The mainstream news these days (left and right-leaning) is really nothing more than an amplifier for his various social media accounts. There's so much scandal to this administration - from being named-checked throughout the Epstein files to the billions he and his family have made during this term, yet nothing happens. The media only talks about his latest, dumb-ass Tweets. Trump has tuned 'flood the zone' so well that he can literally do anything he wants without consequence.

Can you access this: https://www.jalopnik.com/2253119/police-issue-insurance-tick... ? ... It's basically the same story.

Not available in US: https://consumer.huawei.com/my/phones/mate-xt-ultimate-desig...

That makes me wonder: If someone's ACR-enabled TV shows a lot of CSAM, are the cops gonna come kick down their door?

I just recently learned about ACR. My first thought was to set up an LG TV in the basement and stream non-stop p0rn for 3 months or so. Then see what ads start showing up for me. Like, I wonder if there's a target group called "Creeps addicted to p0rn."

I'm increasingly finding businesses that simply don't accept cash. Want a beer at the Clippers game? Can't pay with cash. Even a local bar near my house stopped accepting cash about a year ago - a bar!