𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍

I mean, someday I’ll get a new TV, and I’d just been assuming I’d leave it disconnected… but I hadn’t thought about the nagware, and that would definitely be an issue.

I think you have four issues:

1. How to do it, with the security. Honestly, I think with Trump it’d be easier than with other presidents, because he’s a fucking moron who doesn’t listen to experts
2. How to get away. I think this may be the most difficult part, since you have to flee the country and make your way somewhere relatively safe
3. How to prove to Iran it was you
4. How to enjoy your gains, with what would be probably the largest manhunt on the planet likely through to your death

DB Cooper proved 2 and 4 are not impossible, although technology, forensics, and surveillance have drastically changed since Cooper, and I subscribe to the theory that he didn’t survive to spend the money - not only surviving the jump into dense forest, but then trekking out of deep wilderness to civilization were both challenging obstacles. Anyone who’s been through a parachuting course knows the last place you want to land is into a bunch of pine trees (Ok, water can be pretty bad too, but still).

I digress. Assuming you can pull off 1 and 2, and assuming Iran’s not just going to ghost you, 3 is sincerely a difficult problem. How do you contact the right people in Iran? How do you prove it was you, without the support of US intelligence? Maybe some GoPro footage, routed through a scope? Would that be enough?

But I’d be most worried about 4. I can’t imagine enjoying life constantly looking over my shoulder, and even then, there’s no defense from a sword missile once they’ve ID’d you. So you’re going to, what, hide in Iran for the rest of your life? Depending on your race, your options could be limited merely by how much you stick out - a rich white guy living like a king in Papua New Guinea. Maybe try to buy a new identity and continue living in the US, hoping the IRS doesn’t take an interest in you?

It might be accomplished by a terrorist group, planned and tracked hand-in-hand with Iran for verification, via a disposable fanatic and with funds going to the group upon completion. But I think if they could pull that off, they would have already. Terrorist groups tend to be a sledgehammer, rather than a scalpel: effective against unprotected soft targets, impotent against hardened ones.

I think of someone gets Trump, it won’t be for a bounty; it’ll be for ideological reasons, and they won’t expect to survive it. Heck, with the Patriot Act, I wouldn’t want to survive it, b/c they may just decide to torture you for the rest of your natural life and Americans signed away their rights to due process after 9/11. It’ll be another Thomas Crooks, only a better sniper, or some novel approach like some tech coming out of the innovations being developed during the invasion of Ukraine. If I were the Secret Service, that’s what I’d be terrified of. There are some intensely smart, innovative people in Ukraine figuring out fantastical ways of eliminating people, and I think we, the general public, are seeing only the most mundane, oldest examples of what they’re using.

Hmm. Just curious: did you try creating a tar pit subnet for it, which it could connect to but not escape from?

You duplicated Bluesky’s entry for Nostr. Could you address nostr’s weaknesses? Keeping in mind that as long as you don’t federate with the main Nostr nodes, you won’t be swamped with the CryptoBros - its biggest downside.

It’s been years since I’ve shopped for a TV, but… can’t you just not connect it to the internet? I have a little microPC running Linux connected to our TV; it’s smarter than any other TV I’ve seen, but the TV itself is stupid.

Why can’t someone just get a smart TV and just never let it get online?

I mean, sure, if I had my 'druthers, I wouldn’t be paying for features I don’t use, but if it’s literally impossible to buy dumb TVs, what’s the issue?

I guess? Protocol vs connector always throws me a little.

TBF, I will say I’ve never been born by HDCP. I’m not sure I’d recognize it. Then again, I don’t try to copy video from over a display cable; it just seems like adding an unnecessary middleman. But I oppose it in principle.

I was going to ask, but I just looked it up: it looks as if USB-4 has enough bandwidth to drive dual 4k monitors at 120Hz (and docks exist that support this).

That’s one I hadn’t encountered. At those distances I start contemplating wireless solutions.

Got myself a nice outdoor POE camera, a bunch of appropriate CAT and power adapter… and then realized that since the previous owners had put in a sheet-rock ceiling (not complaining; drop ceilings make me fell like I’m living in a warehouse), I had no easy way to run the ethernet all the way crosswise across the house from where the switch was to where I wanted the camera. I’d been thinking since the utility room wasn’t finished I’d figure a way to thread it with a flashlight and a “step 3: ???”. The moral is that running long wires is not my favorite thing.

Also, the DRM baked into the specification is such bullshit.

That’s the one thing they have absolutely no interest in getting rid of. They’ll change everything about the spec, including the connector, but that part’s staying in.

Is DVI completely out of the picture? I hate the connector, but I’ve had a lot of issues with DP, mainly around Linux support and multi-monitor setups.

I was kinda hoping USB-C/4/Thunderbolt would step into this space and normalize chaining and small connectors, but all of those monitors are stupidly expensive.

I mean, do whatever you want to your own body, but for gods sake don’t feed that utter shit to your kids!

There is a project to standardize (and document) the API, called OpenSubsonic. It includes extensions, but the main value is that it tries to consistently document expected behavior. It’s an uphill battle, because the Subsonic API is a schizophrenic mess, and no two servers interpret API responses the same way, but it’s still a decent project. I contribute to a client, and we try to adhere to the OpenSubsonic documentation.

My only criticism about the API is that it’s focused on streaming, which means we can’t consolidate server control (e.g. mpd) and streaming, which would make writing versatile clients easier, but still.

Tempo is a fantastic client, BTW, and has largely replaced my local offline client use.

Honestly, the push-back on getting a high-speed rail line between Seattle and SF (or, even better, LA) is baffling. It’s all right there, in a straight line; everything in all three states hugs the coast (or the Valley, in OR). Seattle and Portland even have halfway decent metro systems once you arrive, and SF’s isn’t totally awful. LA’s is useless, but still; rent a car.

Why can’t they get a high speed rail line done?

I flew Philly to Singapore via Dubai, and while it was horrible, the Pacific is enormous and much of the Asian destinations are so far south you can’t use the “over the pole” cheat effectively. In the end, there’s not a huge time difference. NYC to Singapore is 19 hours. San Franscisco to Singapore is 17.5.

The difference to Europe is far greater; traveling from the West coast vs the East coast can easily double your travel time.

I guess you could also ask what’s the reason for working at a suicide hotline? Seems similar enough in many cases.

They aren’t similar, though, are they? OP’s hypothetical is that someone came for help, got some advice about care, and said “no.” In the hotline case, someone’s actively reaching out for help. They start the same, but in the case of your hotline, the caller can hang up at any time and pull the trigger; you can’t trap them on the phone.

Timezone-wise? Only downsides. Most of our business partners become more difficult to time-coordinate with, since there are fewer business hour overlaps.

Travel to Europe takes a lot longer.

Culturally, the West Coast is far more chill. Business on the East cost is very much still dominated by banking-style office politics: business casual is suits, or at least slacks and button-down shirts, there’s a lot of process, everything is serious. West coast is more laid back. I’m speaking in generalities, of course; corporate culture is driven by the corporation, but in general, the West coast has healthier work environments.

There’s less cultural interesting stuff on the West coast, but far more natural attractions (parks, activities, skiing, hiking, camping, etc etc). Everything is crammed together on the East coast - from Philadelphia you can visit NYC, Washington DC, Gettysburg, Williamsburg, all within 3 hours or less. You can get to Niagara within 6. From Portland, OR, it takes 4 hrs to get to Seattle, and a full 8-hour day to get anywhere interesting in California.

If you want a more relaxed life with access to vast amounts of incredible nature activities, West coast 100%. If you want to vacation in Europe and visit a huge number of amazing historical sites, East coast.

The running joke in between me and my wife (who was raised Catholic) is that I rail against papists and she laments the rise of the heretics. The last time either of us set foot in a church was a couple of years ago showing visitors the local cathedral.

When I was growing up, in the mid 20th century, I don’t remember “fundamentalists” being a thing. Bible study was pretty common in every church we attended; we moved around a lot between my 8th and 18th birthdays. It was just bog standard Protestant Christianity. But we did attend church a fair amount. For the few years after the divorce, dad had us in church twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday evenings. And I know we switched cities and churches three times in that period.

I think there are people who wear their religion as a justification for lamentable personal opinions but who know little about what it’s really about. Then there are people like my father who’ve made religion their personality and are deeply read, and who still somehow have focused on the most horrible take-aways. And then there are folks who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, and this is probably the majority.

Yes. Some do. I was raised by a fundamentalist; they read the Bible constantly. Like, book clubs, a couple, three times a week, reading and discussing different parts of the Bible.

By the time I left that home (went to live with mom at 14), I’d read the thing myself four times all the way through, and various sections of it far more often. When dad visits, I hear audio book versions of it playing in the night as they’re getting ready for bed. Self-indoctrination.

IME, they’re not all that unusual in their church.

This is “no stupid questions,” but asking rational questions about religion is a waste of time. In most religions, the answer ultimately “you are too stupid to understand the great plan of god.”

You can debate interpretation of religious texts, or how best to follow the laws religions set down; but questioning articles of faith is fruitless.

Christianity is especially full of self-contradictions and paradoxes: can God create a rock so big he can’t lift it? You can spend a lifetime poking holes in The Bible, and you will never get a rational, satisfactory answer that isn’t based on a version of “you are too stupid/not meant to know.”

Many religions are less paradoxical, but the monotheistic ones are mostly just an unbelievable shit-show, unless you’re especially susceptible to self-delusion.

No apologies to Christians: your religion is a fucking mess. You have to be particularly dumb to read the old and new testaments and come away thinking those are the same God. That the loving, caring one who sacrificed his son for people is the same one who allowed Satan to torture his most faithful worshipper on a bet.

Buddhism and most pagan religions make more sense. Buddhism in particular lacks most of the dependency on mysticism and unprovable articles of faith, and is almost more a philosophy than a religion. Buddhists, I can respect. But Christianity is all sorts of dumb.

Actually, taken by itself, the new testament is mostly OK; if you follow only Christ’s teachings, and ignore the peyote trips of post-crucifixion books, like, Revelations, it’s a solid basis for a society of decent people. But Christ was a liberal socialist, which is why most organized Christianity leans so heavily on the old testament and ignores Christ’s teachings of acceptance, communism, and forgiveness.