Blog/January 2020/Jan 31st

January 31st

The usual, this week: work, eat, sleep; repeat. Nothing too exciting on that front, although I did make the first “beta release” of “Nuklear-powered 8th” to a select group of my users. Exciting for me, anyway! One of my users threw together this clock using the new build.

As usual, I’ve spent some of my “down time” predating upon the weak-minded of the Internet. This week my special love was directed towards Sanders supporters. The most interesting of the lot was when Sanders (well, his media managers, I assume) tweeted this:

 I have a message for the top 1% and the large profitable corporations in this country:
 Enjoy the massive tax breaks and loopholes you have right now.
 Under a Bernie Sanders administration, we're going to end them and invest in working people.

Right off the bat we can object that Bernie is himself in “the top 1%”, based on his income, his ownership of three homes, and his net-worth. It’s a bit rich (so to speak) for him to rail against the “1%”, not to mention more than a bit hypocritical. But he is a successful grifter, I’ll give him that.

His supporters claim he’s not advocating for “Socialism”, but for a “Scandinavian socialism”. That’s a load of bollocks: he’s a Marxist, and he’s long advocated for Socialism along the lines of the not-lamented USSR et. al.. Besides which, the so-called “Nordic model” economies are not Socialist, they’re capitalist with large social-welfare systems. Not the same thing.

Many of Bernie’s useful idiots seem to think that “social-welfare” is the same as “socialism”. They do both begin with “social”, so there’s that. They also think that Communism isn’t a form of Socialism. They should read a bit more from, say, Marx, as opposed to 200-character tweets from the ill-informed. They might also like to find out what life’s been like in every Socialist paradise thus far. Perhaps talk to some escapees from the FSU or Cuba or the PRC, you know?

The good, the bad, and the insane:

A police officer “identifies as Black”.
Harvard says Asians have “bad personalities”, and a judge agrees!
Why the Martian real-estate market is deadly.
Just what we’ve been waiting for: a “Frankenstein” material which can self-heal and reproduce.
Modern mass-surveillance: Identify, Correlate, Discriminate.
An ad-blocking VPN proxy server using a Raspberry Pi.
The “PinePhone” Linux Smartphone is shipping. I only mention it because I’m in contact with one of their founders.

I would talk about the much discussed “Deal of the Century”, but enough politics for one blog post. Maybe next week, or maybe never, God willing.

Apple has refused an FBI request to hack their iPhones. That’s a good thing, for which Apple should be commended. But then, I’m a strong privacy advocate.

The weather has been typical for the season, perhaps a bit colder than average. It’s raining as I write this, and supposedly we’ll have a bit more rain through the day. It should clear up by Sunday.

We’ve got a guest this shabbat! We’ll feed him and us:
homemade ḥalla, chicken soup, baked chicken, baked potatoes, roasted veggies, various salatim, and cookies.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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Blog/January 2020/Jan 31st

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