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Joined 16 years ago

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Dec 3

Scala/Python back-end hacker. Front-end dilettante. Your future CTO?

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Comment · 1 year ago

The Straight White American Jesus podcast did a deep-dive on Thiel's thinking recently. It wasn't what I was expecting but then I hadn't previously been paying attention to him. Apparently he's all about tech-utopinism with himself as the King and no regard for the fate of his fellow non-tech-utopian human, as in his mind such people are just holding back human progress.

I haven't watched any of his Antichrist talks but I take it that he's not thinking of this entity in the Christian sense. Instead the Antichrist is a person with some amount of power who is trying to find solutions to mankind's problems using the tools of the old order, rather than through technology and its kings.

https://www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/episodes/brad-unf...

Comment · 2 years ago

If the U.S. ever goes to war with a major adversary, one of the first waves of cyberattacks will likely target infrastructure that rarely comes up in discussions about digital threats: railroads.

Cyberthreats to railroads loom as industry and TSA grow an uneasy partnership therecord.media

2 brightsize 2 years ago 1 comments

Comment · 2 years ago

> I wrote TSR's that snatched cycles off the timer interrupt

We've all been there. How else could you get anything interesting done back in the day?

Comment · 2 years ago

Having grown up in New England in the era, I remember "acid rain" being a big concern too. The polluters fought to keep anything from being done about the problem, but decades later some steps were actually taken by the US government (and others) and apparently there's been a fair amount of success.

I agree, now that "corporations are people" in the US it's hard to imagine being able to successfully battle them and force large-scale, cross-industry environmental-health measures to be taken. That is, unless it so happens that such measures maximize short-term profits in some way.

Comment · 2 years ago

And more tape drives. But Space:1999's moon base still had a huge number of Blinkenlights and related gear that I have to believe was under an expensive IBM support contract. I wonder if the company found a way to get out of the contract? Some clause requiring the moon remain in its historic orbit maybe?

Comment · 2 years ago

Here you go. This is the second time in the past few years that cat was used to process bikers in the NW WA wilderness. The first time was fatal. I used to live about 15min from where this incident occurred. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/cougar-attacks-cyc...

Comment · 2 years ago

Not to suggest that the phenomena are necessarily related (though it wouldn't surprise me), there's also this:

>Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is a fatal complication of epilepsy. It is defined as the sudden and unexpected, non-traumatic and non-drowning death of a person with epilepsy, without a toxicological or anatomical cause of death detected during the post-mortem examination.