So I'm playing with this antique iMac because whee shit and I'm trying to download the 1GB developer tools DMG and Apple sure makes it a gigantic pain in the arsehole, don't they? You can't just download the URL with wget without rigamarole which I haven't gone through yet. I can't actually load the site in Safari at all because of some kind of https error. And my download just failed somehow in the last seconds, which means I get to download it all over again. And then it may fail again. Other downloads are working fine, it's just Apple that's incompetent here somehow.

This is the kind of thing that convinces me that anyone who gives Apple money is either a moron or a masochist. Luckily, I got this machine for free, so all I'm wasting is time.

Let me be clear. I was a Canadian Army Sergeant with a high security classification during the Cold War. During Reagan. I saw what Russia did and what we did, some of which is still classified.

The Russia today may be different, but if you're backing Russia taking over our elections in the US (yes, I was born here, my dad and grandpa are USAF vets) you're insane.

And very very very deluded.

This is NOT ok.

I realized that I had not topped up my /. subscription in some time and went to do so. Saw this:

"Please Note: Buying or gifting of a new subscription is not available
at the moment. We apologize for the inconvenience. This downtime though
does not effect your current active subscription in any way. We will
keep you posted on the latest"

Any idea what's going on? Are they sticking to a pure ad model (all blocked anyhow, but I did like to subscribe as I like the ol' barn.)

That may not be a good way to describe it but... I have a C64 I never use and I think I shall desolder its SID before consigning it to recycling since they are now officially hard to come by. What can I put it on that will let me use it efficiently?

The above quote rendered one of my comments unpostable...

If I say Charter of Rights and Freedoms, nobody in America has a clue what I'm talking about.

If I say Bill of Rights, everyone on both sides of the border (and in other countries) knows what I'm talking about.

Capiche?

Now get off my freaking case, civvies.

The idea "Hey, what if I line up powers of 20, multiply them by sort of coefficients, and add them...?" - is a huge intellectual leap. So far as I can determine, it only happened twice. It never happened in Europe.

http://fredoneverything.org/the-maya-who-woulda-thunk-it/

Trump's attack lines on this are spot on:

and

Those are valid statements. I find it hard to to argue with these.

http://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20160711&t=2&i=1145024204&w=976&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&sq=&r=2016-07-11T232013Z_2799_S1AETORGYTAA_RTRMADP_0_USA-POLICE-PROTESTS

Well, after doing all these non-squishy 1st and 2nd year pre-reqs for engineering, I'm starting to wonder if my PhD might do better in a more squishy role, since I'm better at taking tech concepts and translating them into human speak. The major question is, since both squishy and non-squishy are Doctor of Philosophy, should I resist the inevitable drift to the squishy side? Ecology, environment, energy policy are things I grok, and both the long term implications and short term changes that are most effective, a set of unique skills that few possess, and how to translate that into rural speak too.

So, what do you think? Fill up my 3rd and 4th year slots with squishy stuff and push on through? Will this lead me to (gasp) having to work in cities, or can I find a way to work in villages and towns and skype in for research meetings when there's 20 meters of snow in the pass and it ain't going to be cleared for 10 days, so relax, eh?

Where on EARTH is the /. UI for starting a journal entry? LOL!

I don't know how it's done, if you don't just know to navigate http://slashdot.org/journal.pl?op=edit

After a year, active as a wag and shameless flirt on Twitter, it looks exactly the same in hindsight.

Object lesson. When working in a professional job, don't take two hard courses at the same time. In getting ready for a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering (already have a post-grad DRM), have been taking engineering core courses, and this semester I took Environmental Science 160 and Physics 222. Got a 3.8 in ENVS and a 1.0 in PHYS. Sigh.

Have heard a lot of people have problems with this class, so am just going to retake it, NOT take the 2 3.5 hour classes a week that exhaust me and leave me no time to do homework before it's due, NOT do it without a new laptop, and take the version that is 4-5 classes a week during the day, so that I'm not exhausted.

Wish me luck.

Surely someone around here knows where's the best slightly-reputable site to buy some knockoffs of the Oakley M2 XLs. I want to try them out for a while and see how they feel on my head. The sites I've found so far are registered straight outta China. Oakley has successfully driven the fakes off eBay and Amazon... the problem is, I'm not going to drop two hundred bucks on some glasses that might give me a headache, like most glasses do.

Apple is now actively, willingly, and deliberately aiding in online harassment and identity theft against me. They refuse to destroy an Apple ID which has been created with my email address, to which I do not have the answers to the "secret questions". They will not permit me to proceed any further without having an attorney.

What do I do now? Who do I call for relief? I can't afford a legal battle with Apple. I don't have an attorney on retainer.ï