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Comment Re: Very fuzzy. (Score 1) 37

Demeanor...yes. Policy? Mixed bag at best. Some things obviously good like telling NASA to go full private sector for launch services. Some things obviously awful like incentivising mass illegal migration by de-facto legalizing a large swathe of illegals through very tenuous legal authority and/or prosecutorial discretion.

If congressional Republicans hadn't had their heads firmly up their asses at the time (but I repeat myself) they should have impeached and convicted Obama for exceeding his authority on daca.

But again: people lose elections for being meanies, and they win elections by giving away free stuff, so there we are.

Comment Re:Isn't Robert X. Cringely a pseudonym? (Score 1) 24

The original guy got to keep using it. There was someone else hired for a brief time.

I remember the author's name but he really doesn't want to use it, so that's OK to respect. He's given me a lot to think about over the years. I remember when he wrote on his PBS site about unicast becoming cheaper than radio broadcast for TV, predicting that it would overtake by 2012 (IIRC). Youtube became huge around then. We were smart folks around the water cooler in the late 90's who could follow the math but had nagging skepticism. He wss right.

I think I have one of his science writing books under his real name about atomic energy somewhere. You can find it if necessary.

Nice to see Bob back on the Dot.

Comment Re:Oops! [What could possibly go wrong?] (Score 1) 28

It deserves informative.

The outer constraint system is human coded and fragile, trying and failing to make sure the system fails safe whenever the AI finds a new corner case to fuck up in. Predictably failing especially hard on freeways where you can't be too conservative. Pulling over and phoning home for remote control is no longer an acceptable fail safe.

Comment Re: Very fuzzy. (Score 1) 37

The hardball/no hardball train left the station a while ago.

The "I'm going to save democracy by blowing up a portion of it" line of messaging and action the Dems have taken up in the last decade is the thing that's both new and considerably more unpalatable than the regular back and forth.

Here's another example of how "fuck the republicunts" works in action. In my home state of Massachusetts, one may request a mail-in ballot by filling out an online form and then typing in an arbitrary mailing address. To authenticate oneself to the form, all that is necessary is your name, the town where you are registered to vote, the address at which you are registered, and the registered voter's date of birth.

There is no evidence that any ballot fraud has occurred under this system. And as far as I can tell there could never be evidence of such fraud. But considering I have to click through five captchas and give over my credit card just to be able to buy cheap shit on amazon, this quintessentially blue state prioritization of access over authentication is at best incongruous.

And here's the thing: if they made you show six forms of id to vote by dropping a stone into a jar in person, Massachusetts election results would probably look much like they do now. But it's the fucking hypocrisy of saying a transparently unsecured system is secure that leads me to conclude the dems have shit for brains or at least think the public does.

Comment Re: Very fuzzy. (Score 1) 37

Idunno dude. Maybe got lost somewhere in between the race-bating nutjob...I mean wise latina...Obama appointed at his first chance.

Not saying it wasn't hardball (and one hell of a gamble) but you gotta get out of your own head and understand when it is you're spooking your adversary into thinking he's got little to lose.

Comment Re: Very fuzzy. (Score 1) 37

Of course. What better way to restore the people's faith in OurDemocracyTM than by openly planning to manipulate the machinery if government for narrow partisan gain?

Look guy, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, at least not this morning, and when I came up in the 90s and early 2000s the Dems at could at least claim with a straight face that they were some kind of adults in the room about stewardship of national institutions and traditions. But that eroded with Obama playacting as revolutionary and it almost completely disappeared during Trump 1.0 and the summer of 2020.

Trump 2.0 is in many ways a similar disappointment to Trump 1.0, but given the proferred alternative in '24, and given the likely proferred alternatives in the pipeline, I wouldn't change my vote, and I'll vote for JD Vance's head grafted onto Ken Paxton's crotch before I vote for a democrat ever again. Last time being 20 years ago when I voted to reelect Ed Rendell in Pennsylvania.

Comment Re:Cool Cool (Score 4, Insightful) 53

> The lender can't repossess a college degree to make themselves whole.

No but if the borrower can't get a good job there should be cause of action for Warranty Act claims against the college.

Extremely few people go to college with the expectation of borrowing to be unemployable.

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