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Comment Re:Confused? (Score 1) 79

Mexicans (and many other Latin Americans) have historically tended to vote conservative because so many of them are Catholic.

I'm going to have to think about that for some time, but off the cuff, I'd say most are Catholic because that's how they were raised, not due to any specific ideology other than Religion. Recall the quote from Proverbs "Train a boy in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not swerve from it." At what point does early inculcation and canalization preclude any other thought pattern - and can I do that myself, since I was also subjected to it? An Ouroboros contemplation there.

Comment Re:why not (Score 2) 79

Why not just get the data from a satellite broker?

Used to work for a State government that used satellite brokers to get pictures of areas that were hours old. This was done for infrastructure planning and expansion and did not have "side look" capabilities like drones do. EG: a satellite can't look into your window, but a drone can. Also, Satellites have "iris control" so that the NSA or NRO can stop US based satellites from photographing areas they don't want photographed. Drones have restrictions but not the same. Drones are cheap and quick, satalite can require weeks to months for a specific mission window to be available and are NOT, repeat NOT cheap. A typical photo mission at 1 m is multiple thousands of dollars. Not sure of today's rates, my time was more than a decade ago.
Bottom line, Sat is good when you have a known time window and a need for "big picture". Drones are good for "Right Now, Right There" missions. Different tools for different needs.

Comment Re:Confused? (Score 1) 79

There is no indication that anyone's "privacy" was violated beyond their desire to keep their code violations hidden from regulators.

The 4th Amendment states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So are you advocating for the repeal of all the bill off rights, or just this one?

Comment Re:Confused? (Score 3, Insightful) 79

They put pride stickers and BLM stickers on the boot so that people like you will lick it extra clean.

People that are homosexual and those that object to being killed due to their skin color tend to be liberal progressives, not the type of people that support or desire right wing authoritarianism and surveillance states. Fascism is a right wing ideology that is xenophobic, homophobic and racist. Don't take my word for it, use a dictionary.

Comment Ouch. (Score 3) 40

entire GitHub repo & AWS data wiped.

I've my github residing in many places because it's used in many places. Just push it to a git repo. May lose anything newer than your copies..... Surely no one is more than a few days behind that's a dev? I know git has restored deleted repo's, usually one's they've deleted though.

The storage is a bit more problematic Object stores may have retained undeleted but tombstoned objects due to several factors, the real world not being perfect, but I wouldn't count on anything being recoverable, or coherent. Object stores only keep copies when you DON'T tell them to delete them (Or LEO comes by with an NSA letter. That can get aggravating because it keeps billing the customer when they've issued a delete. So you have to... well, be careful!)

Comment Fer cryin' out loud (Score 4, Insightful) 91

Just get winget working reliably and not have to do stupid stuff to kick start it on the first installation. Gee whillickers, it's not as if MS doesn't own freakin' GIT HUB!
Been working for two years with a pro bono team to get a simple code base share for windows to work without needed the user to do more than just breathe.
Because - users. It works sometimes. Most of the time there's something going with the winget server side and it breaks horribly. Bleeding bits splattered all over the bus. Oh, the humanity!

Comment Re:It has uses (Score 1) 5

Lasers are far more realistic

If the objective is to obliterate, yes. However, the true objective is enough to stop the enemies mission. In the case of a drone, that can be as simple as a net made with fine fishing line to foul the propulsion system.
A Drone is an effective weapon system - if it's in the right place.
So is a caltrop - if it's in the right place.
Turns out one doesn't need to blow stuff up to wreck the enemy's plans. Sometimes a bit of monofilament or a couple of pieces of bent rod does the job effectively, but Raytheon and Boeing won't get rich selling that.

Comment Re:Take the nickel with it (Score 1) 245

Does your TDS no even realize it's way more expensive to do both FFS you lot are stupid.

I'll simply point out that the 747 in question does not have air-frame and fuselage modification to withstand a "near" nuclear blast nor is it TEMPEST complaint. Boeing, not expecting to need to build any new 747 air-frames, dismantled and recycled the jigs used to make them - also used to modify them. They will either need to rehire the retired old school machinists, or rehire them to make the jigs for a one off job.

The TEMPEST modifications - hm. Not my job to teach you that. Look it up. I watched a building being converted from standard commercial building practices to NSA complaint standards. They basically removed the building and started over. It wasn't less expensive, it took less time, justifying the expense.

In the case of the gift, it is neither less expensive nor faster to convert it for PotUS use. What it is, will you admit it or not, is ego massage for Trump. He's already the President. How much more does his ego need to be fed? Truly a wendigo.

Comment Re:Take the nickel with it (Score 1) 245

This aside, removing the lowest denomination of currency is just a sign that the US has become an expensive nation

I'll show my source of fact first:
Historic gold prices
Gold Fix
Mental book mark that, we'll return to it.

The thing is, a coin is not a single use item. It will be in circulation for years, if not decades so it will be used many times for it's face value, meaning the cost of production does not need to be less than the face value.

I think you've missed the point of my initial observation - it's vital that the specie in circulation be worth less as a tangible item than it's intangible (face) value as long as the specie is a "Fiat money" . Else-wise people will mine your money, convert it to a commodity, then re-sell the commodity for the true tangible value. The government would actually be giving away wealth with each tangible specie. Put at a very basic level, if I can burn a 1 dollar bill and get the same BTU energy as a barrel of oil, then the value of a barrel of oil is $1 dollar. But I can't get the same BTU out of burning a dollar.

In 1910, a model T Ford cost USD $950.00, in any color you'd like as long as it was black. $950 would get you 52.19 troy ounces of gold in 1910.
Today, 52.19 Troy ounces of .9999 gold would be about USD $175,000. But today, you can get that vehicle in chartreuse paisley if you'd like. (I don't judge.)

The US hasn't gotten more expensive - arguably, with increases in production efficiency and automation, it's actually less expensive. What's happened over time is that the specie has been devalued, sometimes by inflation, sometimes by government policy. Again, I'm not arguing that point - only that it is very, very dangerous for a fiat currency like the Dollar to have a tangible value greater than it's face value. President Trump's observation on the penny (Excuse me, one cent piece!), if it is an accurate quote HINT: it is, shows he does not grasp this point. A graduate of Wharton School of Business, twice president of the United States of America, appears to not understand the basic underpinning of the world economy.

Comment Re:Energy (Score 1) 245

There would *be* no union without this compromise.

At the moment, I really don't see a "union".
I see less populous states with political agendas that the majority do not want forcing their policy on the majority.
I see lower earning states extracting tax money from higher earning states to support their lack of fiscal and civic social duties.
I see a state with more GDP than Texas and Florida combined contribute more to the economic and social success than a multiplicity of states.

actually, it makes no sense for California to have any votes, on anything

I suspected such. It would seems you'd prefer to impose the tyranny of the super minority over the tyranny of the minority. Sir, land and cattle do not vote. You should try looking at a map using a population density projection rather than a Mercator projection.

For "extra" insight, try looking at other countries - say, India and China, versus the United States or the Russian Federation.

Comment Re:Energy (Score 1) 245

I'm interested in your tagline

Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY!

Personally, I'd be in favor of ending the Senate's representation of each state, two senators. It makes no sense for Wyoming, with half a million people, to have two votes, while California, with forty million people, has two votes.

Comment Re:Take the nickel with it (Score 3, Interesting) 245

From the Fine Article:

President Donald Trump stated that production of pennies are wasteful, as the coins cost more to produce than their one-cent value.

If it costs thirty five cents to make a one cent piece, but the cost of the metal is a fraction of one cent, then no one gets one cent pieces to melt down into base metal.

If a dollar coin has five dollars worth of metal in it, only the very stupid wouldn't go get all the dollar coins they could and melt them down for the base metal.

The cost of the base metal should be less than the face value of the coin. The cost to produce the coin is largely irrelevant. The cost to make a bill of any denomination is the same for each bill (leaving out the minor variations for printing millions of them) but only last a limited time compared to a coin. For a dollar bill about 18 months, a bit longer as the denomination goes up. But every coin wears for 20 to 30 years. Arguably if saving money is the imperative we should stop printing paper money.

Your words:

Save us the trouble of repeating this entire drama in another few decades and kill off the Nickel alongside the Penny.

If the standard is that the coin is too low in value to bother with, I agree. The issue is that the one cent coin's value is too low for people to care if they lose one, or even a 100. Same with nickles, dimes, but quarters... now people pay a tiny bit of attention. But not for much longer, really, and the purchase power of a quarter drops ever lower. This is why we see more and more credit card vending machines. Inflation proof, and when we get to the point of needing a wheelbarrow to haul cash around the credit card makes it a simple transaction.

Back in the Day I had a job where we had to settle with the state tax authority each and every day we operated. The joke was as the tax percentage was not an integer, (EG: a fractional number) so we kept a one cent piece we'd cut in half. We'd trade it back and forth with the state guy depending on the balance due. It was always funny when we got a substitute state guy in during illness or vacation.

Comment Re:Such corporate bullshit (Score 4, Insightful) 55

just rate them as they deserve

I've seen where 11 folks who earned "Exceeds expectations" get those evaluations, because without their damned fine performance the place would have gone kaput - right up until it goes in to HR, when the manager is told they get 1 "exceeds", all but 5 "meets", and the last 5 "does not meet". It's not a rating, it's a roulette wheel.

This feels like a corporate CYA move to avoid wrongful termination suits by lying about staff performance.

You're much too smart to be that cynically correct. Out loud, anyway. Yes, you're 100% correct. This is exactly what it is.

I wonder if leaks like this could be used for a lawsuit instead...

When management throws around a phrase like "non-regrettable attrition" you can bet they have their lawyers primed to that sort of eventuality.

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