kerneloftruth

If Ukraine had kept its nukes it would have been destabilizing. It was a big concern at the fall of the Soviet union about all the "loose nukes" in the unstable, newly free former members. It was wisely deemed best to not have a bunch of new (unstable) nuclear states in the club.

We keep calling it a "democracy" to invoke sentiment and sympathy. The fact is that they're quite corrupt, and them having nukes would have been foolish for Europe and everyone.

Why erase history? It happened, and it's interesting.

Not every employee in role X is as good as every other employee in role X. The better ones deserve higher pay, which creates an incentive for the others to up their game so that they, too, can earn more.

Why try harder if it's run like romper room?

Being asked to motivate a team to meet a deadline is to sustain a "moral injury".

Give me a break. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was from a lifestyle magazine like The Atlantic; but, this is from Harvard Business Review!? They're just not serious people anymore.

Putin and Xi see the comprehensive weakness of the Biden administration (it's as though projecting an image of weakness and incompetence was the administration's goal), and in that they see historic opportunity. Afghanistan proved their perceptions true.

Yes, I think Taiwan will be back in China's hands by the end of the year.

I wanted to like GNUCash, but I just didn't. I had the same concerns re: other apps. I used the situation as a reason to play with developing a standalone app using Go, with sqlite3 as the database (basically a localhost web app). It was actually a fun side project, with the satisfaction of being free from Intuit. With it being go and embedded sqlite3, there are basically no dependencies to worry about.

The final straw for me was in 2019. My 3 year old version of QuickBooks Pro refused to import any more bank transactions until I upgraded to a newer version. Nothing had changed with data formats or anything -- it was simple extortion: upgrade or the software you own will cease working (fully).

Fuck them. I just wrote my own. I first tried some alternatives like GNUcash, but found it best to just write what I needed (account ledgers, reconcile bank statements, generate P&L and BS reports). I refused any other solution with any dependencies on "the cloud" or any entity.

QB is truly about the shittiest software on the planet, a reputation maintained and expanded over the decades. The simplest recourse, with minimal emotional toll, is to just not use their crap.

"We have billionaires and children who are homeless".

Is there some evidence of homeless billionaires on the streets with their kids? Did you mean to say that there exist homeless kids and also there are billionaires?

Ah, the World Narrow Web strikes again.

   A crotchety Chicago man who became notorious among commuters for riding the train with a cellphone jammer and a six-pack of beer now faces felony charges for using the signal-blocking device to get some peace on his way home.

   Dennis Nicholl, 63, faces felony charges of interfering with cellphone calls using a signal jamming device on the CTA Red Line in Chicago, Illinois.

   Dennis Nicholl was arrested Tuesday for using a cellphone jammer on the metro because "he was disturbed by people talking around him," his attorney, Charles Lauer, told the Chicago Tribune.

   The 63-year-old financial planner for the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System had become well-known among commuters on Chicago's Red Line railway who noticed their calls would drop around the bulky, antennaed device on Nicholl's lap.

   Some commuters also noticed a six-pack of Old Style beer at his feet, as seen in photos that circulated online for months.

   Nicholl was finally busted after undercover officers set up a sting operation and deployed a plainclothes cop to commute alongside him.

   The inconspicuous cop made a phone call and, when it dropped after Nicholl turned on his device, he handcuffed him at the next stop.

   Nicholl admitted to police that he "gets annoyed at people talking on their cellphones while riding on" Chicago's transit system, according to the police report.

   Cellphone jammers violate federal law and can disrupt all phone or radio signals in their immediate surroundings, causing calls to suddenly drop. People who use or sell them in the U.S. can face prison time and significant fines — up to $16,000 for each violation, according to the FCC.

   The judge on Nicholl's case dubbed the cantankerous commuter the "cellphone police" and set a hefty $10,000 bail.

   Nicholl's lawyer said the man was harmless and just trying to get some peace and quiet on his ride home.

   "He might have been selfish in thinking about himself, but he didn't have any malicious intent," Lauer said.

   Nicholl posted bond and left jail Wednesday.

This guy used a somewhat similar technique[1]. Yeah, it's wrong -- but I can't help but sympathize. And, he gets 20 points alone for the 6-pack of "Old Style" that he used to conceal the jammer.

1. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/chicago-man-arrest...

Yes, many people are selectively deaf to the phrase "combined with a sensible diet" when it comes to weight loss, or other health advice. I'd venture that it's subconscious desires to keep the food intake that invoke mental filters to just not hear that part; or, to rationalize that your food intake is ok.

There's even an old Dragnet episode with a locked room 'murder' mystery plot:

- Man with gun enters home to confront his mother-in-law, and shoots the Bible she's reading

- The mother-in-law shoots the man, but the wound is not immediately fatal.

- Man stumbles into an adjacent study and locks the door behind him, then dies.

- Initially suicide is assumed, but the ballistics don't match the gun in his hand.

- The bullet he fired is stuck in the Bible he shot, undetected by anyone.

Kind of lame and contrived by comparison to Poe and others, but for a 1967 TV show...

I trust the one I wrote for myself. I would have a hard time trusting a 3rd party tool without a lot of insight and feedback as to its design and implementation, and credible assessments of its trustworthiness.

Just the kind of people who would embrace absurd cultspeak like "Metamate". They deserve each other.

When you don't want them to remain strangers.

Yup, we can credit politicians bending to appease BLM for these disastrous policies. The guy who stabbed the woman 40x in NY this past week had been arrested and released without bail numerous times. Woo-hoo... equity!

It's a massive run they've had, to all our detriment. Fortunately, I think it's all backfiring.

Tl;dr: pseudo-intellectual analysis and hand-wavy psychobabble that tries to dismiss any concern about shoplifting. Somewhere between "don't believe your lying eyes" and "ok, believe them, but what you're seeing is nothing new, and of no real concern".

The only thing sadder than the authoritarian measures adopted in Canada and Australia is the glee with which so many of their citizens embrace it.

Trudeau is calling the whole protest illegal. Last week they arrested an old man for merely honking his horn to show support. So, anyone attending a protest is joining an illegal activity...and can have their accounts frozen.

There's no guarantee of due process in Canada's constitution?

   "We received multiple CoC violation reports about a DEF CON Village leader, Chris Hadnagy of the SE Village," organizers said in a post on the conference's transparency report, referring to Code of Conduct violations. "After conversations with the reporting parties and Chris, we are confident the severity of the transgressions merits a ban from DEF CON."

The "transparency report" fails to disclose what the alleged incident was, or what evidence was found. They embarrass themselves.

Yes. I've seen no evidence of stores being looted, businesses burned, or anybody throwing rocks at police -- all of which were common in 2020 BLM protests.

Own it, and capitalize on it! You've already written the first sentence of your sales pitch: "I was involved in a high-profile computer hacking case in 2015 which received international interest."

Continue with "therefore I know about system security...". Write a book, charge a huge rate as a consultant. I'm serious. If you act like a beaten-down person, you'll be treated as one.

It's classic making lemonade from lemons, but it can really work. If not, you've lost nothing.

   "Tech Executive-1 tasked these researchers to mine Internet data to establish 'an inference' and 'narrative' tying then-candidate Trump to Russia," Durham states. "In doing so, Tech Executive-1 indicated that he was seeking to please certain 'VIPs,' referring to individuals at Law Firm-1 and the Clinton campaign."

I will be very curious to know who "Tech Executive 1" is.

Yes. Condos are like a hybrid of apartments and SFHs, with mostly the downsides of both. In terms of affordability, they are often are the first opportunity for those wanting a SFH. But like you say, their risk/reward scenario is skewed heavily towards the risk.

Actually, I think you understand it all really well. That's a good characterization. TFA is unintended self-parody.

I use TVs as though they're aquariums... on for background ambience, and an audio-visual "optional distraction". I mostly keep it on Turner classic movies as they have no ads. I'm more likely to be interested, or at least pleased, by whatever I happen to engage with.

That's what "promo codes" are all about, too. Direct feedback as to which ads worked.

Impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one. Trump was impeached twice, yet no legal charge was ever filed. All that is required is a willing house of representatives.

"Key Senators", but none are named in a list. If the call to action is to contact them to persuade them, and the title speaks of "Key Senators".... then name them! Better yet, include contact info.

..and don't forget Office Space. He has savant-like abilities to observe and reflect personalities and society. True genius, and much under-appreciated.

I, too, grew up in Texas (in the 'metroplex') and really love his portrayal of it all. His insights and satire aren't hateful or spiteful; but rather more playful. KOTH made me more proud and happy to be a Texan, in fact.