SnotFlickerman

SnotFlickerman , 1 day ago (edited 1 day ago)

Finding sources about Bush and Cheney fuckery from 2000-2008 is getting increasingly difficult. Their crimes are getting memory-holed.

EDIT: Specifically, does anyone else remember the specific act that Bush wanted to hit Quakers with terrorism charges over? I remember it being a bunch of Quakers in kayaks doing a blockade of a naval ship, preventing it from leaving port to go to Iraq. I can't find a fucking word on it anymore, and I can barely even find sources on Bush wanting to hit Quakers with terrorism charges other than some broken links at the ACLU. Quakers, as a reminder, are the only religious group in the USA that are default conscientious objectors because violence is 100% antithetical to their religion. These are the kind of people they wanted to use "terrorism" charges against.

SnotFlickerman , 1 day ago

Probably a good bit. I have a backup from my personal website from 2006 to about 2013. Along with a lot of media going back to my teen years. I'm really lucky I've been a good digital steward of my own data and haven't lost almost any of my personal digital history.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/9c50e741-64cc-49cc-bb94-6618e532d9e5.png

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

To be fair to China, our top EV maker's (Tesla) CEO Musk claimed that COVID wasn't real and didn't want to shut down operations and Musk claimed he liked China more because of their propensity to lock the workers in the factory due to COVID restrictions.

The people who run US companies will absolutely used forced labor if they can get away with it.

I'm not trying to paint China as some glowing bastion of freedom (it's far from it, obviously) but it's weird to present this as though it's a "China" problem and not a "capitalism" problem. Companies like Nestle won't commit to removing forced labor from their chains of operation, hiding behind "it's too hard to find it all!"

https://www.reuters.com/business/hershey-nestle-cargill-win-dismissal-us-child-slavery-lawsuit-2022-06-28/

The lawsuit being dismissed is evidence the US government also doesn't care about forced labor. So China isn't alone in not giving a shit.

Every major world power is some kind of dogshit, essentially.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

But the status quo is more important than *checks notes... climate change! Won't someone think of the economy! /s

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

But you trust "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments" and "COINTELPRO" and "PRISM" US government?

I'm with Douglas Adams, if you want power you should explicitly be denied power. The only ones who deserve any power are those who don't want it because they understand the implications and care deeply about making mistakes that could hurt people.

People who desire power only ever want to Rule and Control.

There isn't a single world government that isn't currently filled with idiots who are only in it for power and power alone.

Bring back fucking sortition, we've shown we're not capable of handling a democratic system without it.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

Because bombing the future into burning rubble is preferable to burning it into rubble or something I guess.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

Thanks for the well considered reply. I agree that the US's political system is part of what has held it back from going rogue, but the problems I referenced were all growing cancers that may very well lead to an autocratic Trump empire.

Just the Trump cases alone are absolutely destroying any credibility the legal system had left, and when people in a nation start to lose trust in their "justice" system... well, things tend to get pretty bad when people stop trusting authority and turn to Mob Justice.

Even without Trump as President, that's where we're headed because he has firmly shafted regular people's trust that the legal system is in any way fair or just. We all know for fucksure now that the only thing that matters in the US is having money and connections.

When Trump was elected, it was because he was seen as the outsider to shake things up. People are still waiting on things to be shaken up in favor of regular ass people instead of corporations. That includes conservatives even if they're too stupid to understand that's what they are actually mad about. Don't expect Trump's wiping his ass with the legal system to not have long-term impacts.

That's not going to end well, Trump as President or not.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

Too right.

🤝

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

Yeah, the EU is where I hold out my hopes, too.

Good luck out there, it is indeed scary.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

No shit they need to stop it. Do you or I have a choice in making that happen?

Short of a nationwide labor strike in every industry in both nations, no one citizen exactly has the power to make this stop, and all the legal avenues to make it stop are denied by both governments.

I love it when people complain shit needs to get done when there is no legal avenue to getting it done. Cool, what's your plan chucklefuck? We're supposed to just magic this better world into being by willing it so like The Secret or some other dumb shit?

They both suck because they fucking do. Part of the reason they do is that there is no recourse for regular citizens to stop this kind of thing from happening except boycotts and labor strikes. Boycotts do fuck-all because they're busy selling the fruits of their forced labor to the rest of the planet, meaning they won't lose enough money from the boycott to impact them. Meaning only labor strikes have meaningful impact.

Let me know when you've got all the laborers from both countries ready to go on strike. I'll wait.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

Brilliant rebuttal.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

Because the best way to handle stupidity is to coddle it like Trump, right? That's been working out just gangbusters, right?

Sometimes people say something fucking stupid and need to be told why it's stupid.

Even if it's just so other people don't have to suffer these fools.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

404media has done some of the best in-depth tech journalism there is lately, but I guess paying them for that is a bridge too far for most (or even making a free account...).

It's literally a worker owned cooperative and your first response is to block them at the DNS level? Great research there, boyo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/404_Media

The publication covers topics such as hacking, sex work, niche online communities, and the right to repair movement. The publication is worker-owned.

404 Media was founded in 2023 by former staff of Vice Media's Motherboard after it filed for bankruptcy.

During the Taylor Swift deepfake pornography controversy, a 404 Media investigation discovered that the images originated from 4chan and were being distributed on Telegram before making it onto social media platforms.

In an article about 2024 media industry layoffs, the Financial Times highlighted 404 Media as a successful new media venture amid an "existential crisis" in the industry. The article stated that the publication has been noted for "publishing an eye-catching range of stories about the tech sector", and noted that "Not only is it producing good stories but its founders say it is breaking even".

Sorry they're trying to actually get paid for real journalism. I guess you'd prefer clickbait from corporate owned bullshit company that pays their writers squat and uses AI to write articles?

Finally, this is arguably a really important subject to be having journalists look at, but I guess clickbait is more appealing.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

Also: "That was just an AI hallucination, it's not admissible in court" when it was absolutely not an AI hallucination when the cop shot someone for mouthing off.

SnotFlickerman , 2 days ago

But that would require research, reading, and most importantly, actually giving a shit.

Far easier to just swallow AI generated swill, apparently.

SnotFlickerman , 4 days ago

This would be possible in the US also if the government was willing to put money into bullet trains but like whatever I guess.

SnotFlickerman , 5 days ago (edited 5 days ago)

The C-Suite at this news: "This was a triumph! I'm making a note here: "Huge success!" It's hard to overstate my satisfaction!"

---

This is exactly what they wanted to happen. Stealth layoff without having to give your most senior employees things like severance or unemployment. Senior employees cost more, and any way to get them all to flee without having to pay out for it is viewed as a big win.

They knew their best would fly the coop. They didn't fucking care, that was the plan. Honestly, this shit should have been class action lawsuits under "Constructive Dismissal."

SnotFlickerman , 5 days ago

It was the whole getting rid of senior employees without having to pay severance or unemployment thing.

It was never about "returning to office." It was always about making the most well paid and senior employees walk so they could save money.

SnotFlickerman , 5 days ago

The cake is a lie.

https://i.giphy.com/YHGbhLyWk3ckg.gif

Milton knows.

SnotFlickerman , 5 days ago

What's worse is they'll make young upstarts feel like "heroes" for figuring out a problem that wasn't a problem until they lost all that senior staff.

Never realizing it wouldn't have been a problem to solve if they company hadn't purposefully shitcanned all that institutional knowledge and that they're being way underpaid for solving the issue.

Then this same cycle will happen to them too, when they're too old to change careers easily.

SnotFlickerman , 5 days ago

...and you don't usually get into senior positions without stuff like severance being in the employment offer or contract.

The latter makes the company look bad to both the general population and its shareholders.

Tesla is a car company that is valued way more than any other car company despite the fact that it makes a fraction of the number of cars and has horrendous build quality.

You think the market is fucking rational, here? I've got news for you, guy, regular people's view of this means fuck-all to these people and the only thing that matters to them is the stock price.

The market absolutely props up "irrational decisions" and cutting employees to cut costs has been a bellwether for increasing stock price for forty fucking years now.

SnotFlickerman , 5 days ago (edited 5 days ago)

I don't disagree that the C-suite often makes boneheaded decisions not based in rationality or evidence, but...

Constructive dismissal and finding new, unique, and legally convoluted ways to get rid of people without having to pay as much to get rid of them has been something these companies have spent literally billions on studying over 60 years. I'm old enough to remember when they re-named it "Downsizing."

There's a reason they all turn to McKinsey. This is literally one of the few things where they follow the data.

I would be more receptive to this idea if getting rid of senior staff to cut costs hadn't been the name of the game for six decades or more by now. I feel like this is one issue you can bank on with major companies, they love it when senior employees leave of their own volition.

SnotFlickerman , 7 days ago

I remember this dogshit Charlie Sheen flick!

SnotFlickerman , 9 days ago

https://i.imgur.com/eV8fzKQ.jpg

SnotFlickerman OP , 9 days ago

There is seemingly no threads on this on hackernews and this isn't getting much traction here. Spreading the word will help, if you can!

SnotFlickerman , 10 days ago (edited 10 days ago)

https://64.media.tumblr.com/04486c8832c1cc2c777629885ac50b3c/b817e742a8d8990c-bd/s500x750/39dd4849c2c420e1974aeaf74b472937f38e67d4.gif

SnotFlickerman , 11 days ago

Or, if possible, order directly from the manufacturer.

SnotFlickerman , 13 days ago

I remember when Intel tried to do this with their chips and people absolutely lost their shit.

Tesla's popularity is on such a downtown, people won't lose their shit but instead just go: "Ah, Musk is doing dumb shit again."

SnotFlickerman , 13 days ago

A lot of these are non-profit or literally extensions of a public library. My public library has a "Library of Things" that costs as much as it does to check out a book. Free, with late fees if you return it late. It doesn't go as far as expensive power tools, but it has some basic stuff folks might need from time to time, like a basic toolkit.

Yes, private, profit-oriented ones will increase prices to increase profits, but thankfully not all of these are rooted in that.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

Pretty sure companies like that get bought by companies like Disney...

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

Niantic was already killing interest in the game long before COVID wrecked it up a good bit, and they haven't let up on pissing off the Pokemon Go gaming community since.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

Still cool to have been contacted by their recruiters at all for such a neat job! It's one of the few areas of Disney that actually seems like it would be a blast to work in.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

This AI shithow butchered it. He actually said:

don’t depend on corporations to grant you rights. defend them yourself using freedom technology. (you’re on one)

He's back to praising Musk. He is literally referring to Shitter as "freedom technology." This guy can go die in a fucking ditch.

Pretty sure he left Bluesky because he was mad about them having a block feature. Basically when Musk turned a block into a mute, he turned tail from people actually trying to build a not-dogshit-product and ran back to his former dogshit product.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

Title: Authentication, Authorization, Accounting?

Body: Auditing?

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

a lot of these successful people are riding on luck rather than intelligence it seems

All of them, you mean. The people who build quality products are always kicked to the curb by money men who could give a shit.

See: GE, Boeing, Cisco, etc.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

It's clear that Kendrick really fucking hates Drake, but...

It really rubs me the wrong way that if he had the fucking "receipts" for all of this, he sat on it all until he could make a diss track.

Like, if Drake is a pedo who is grooming young women (that was clear before this anyway), isn't that a little bit more important than your ability to make a fuckin music track about it? Why would you sit on those receipts for so long instead of putting the motherfucker on blast when it happened? Why did you have to wait until Drake did a diss track first? It all feels so fucking petty and stupid.

We really do live in the worst fucking timeline. People would rather sit on criminal wrongdoing they know about to be able to use it to pump themselves and their record sales up, instead of actually, you know, helping fucking victims.

Kendrick didn't come out of it looking much better than Drake, in my opinion. They are both petty, selfish fucking twats who care more about their records sales than, I don't know, real people's real fucking lives.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

Beyond sitting on a crime instead of reporting it to police because he would rather put it in a song...

1. Using Drake's victims and their trauma essentially as props in his songs.

2. Going all-in on weird racist shit where part of his critique of Drake is that Drake is... half-white. Like what. the. fuck. Bringing back the worst of the Colorist shit that I remember from the 90's. Don't act like this isn't fucked up, it's massively racist of Kendrick and feeds into fucked up racist shit in the black community between "light skins" and "dark skins." This hurts the black community as a whole and has effectively said to any and all half-black-half-white kids out there that the black community does not accept them. I bet they love being not accepted by both whites and blacks! What the flying fuck man. Drake being half-white has fuck-all to do with whether or not he's a good rapper, and Kendrick is old enough to god damned know better.

---

But yeah let's boost some dumb racist shit because it makes us feel good about our chosen side.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

You also have better found a way to pay for the burner in cash or with a pre-paid debit card. A lot of places in the US won't let you buy a "burner phone" without a credit/debit card that has your name attached to it.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

All Androids since 9 at least have been encrypted by default as long as you have a lock screen enabled. Doesn't matter if its cheap, it is there.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

This will never stop being relevant about the Kagi CEO:

https://hackers.town/@lori/112255132348604770

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

If they are allowed to change the privacy rules for profit: Eventually, they will.

SnotFlickerman , 14 days ago

The author was aware. They made a post regarding it getting posted to hackernews stating "I specifically requested for this not to happen."

so the CEO probably felt the need to contact the author to “correct” their post.

This still makes the CEO seem like an unhinged fucking freak who does not respect personal boundaries, it literally makes him look no better, no matter how he came across it.

SnotFlickerman , 15 days ago

This Just In: Most photos uploaded to the internet are not stripped of their metadata, and one of the common things kept in metadata is... (drumroll please)... your GPS coordinates.

This is a lot less interesting than it seems to be at first glance, imho.

SnotFlickerman , 15 days ago

They have so much quality audio equipment, it's understandable why people would stump for this because of the Teenage Engineering (TE) involvement alone.

Funnily enough, despite being a TE enthusiast, this is my first time hearing that they had anything to do with this joke of a product.

...which kind of does make me sort look at TE like... wtf were you thinking? ...and sort of definitely makes me question future endeavors from TE. Because this thing is a fucking joke.

SnotFlickerman , 15 days ago

I got into TE because of the Pocket Operators, which are built incredibly solidly and are reasonably priced for all they can do, in my opinion.

...or they were anyway. Prior to COVID they were about $60 a pop.

Now they're pushing $100, which is a lot less in line with the price point I originally bought some at.

SnotFlickerman , 15 days ago

I mean, to have a YouTube channel at all, you gotta be some kind of exhibitionist.

So I'd say it tracks.