Daily Tech News 5 February 2024

Top Story

• 80% of all tech startup proposals now involve AI. (Tech Crunch)
  
  It's the new blockchain. 5% potential, 95% bullshit.
  
  Just waiting for the scams and inevitable looting.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (261) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread (2/4/23) Other Things Got In The Way Edition

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The Quotes of The Day

Quote I

“We hope viewers enjoy watching what they tuned in for—the game,” White House spokesperson Ben LaBolt

Translation=There are not enough medications to disguise his dementia for this interview.

Quote II

“These traitors chose to side with Nancy Pelosi, AOC and over 200 Democrats to undermine the institution, their fellow Republicans and a duly elected Speaker,” McCarthy ally Brian O. Walsh

Quote III

“Most of this money will go directly to the U.S. Military Industrial Complex (MIC), which, if you’re keeping up, prefers to be referred to as the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) now. Watch for those stocks to go up Monday.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)

Quote IV

“They didn’t tell me anything. I don’t understand why they’re doing this to me.” Fisherman Bobby Parkhurst

***

The Comments of The Week

Ace has the best community on the webz.

Tonight's first Comment of The Week was submitted to us by Jim New Sunk Dawn.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:00 PM | Comments (298) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Sunday After WW's Birthday Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving hell did it get to be the fist week in February? It seems like only last week it was Weasel Woman's Birthday! Guys and gals, I am slightly horrified by the status of the ol' Gun Thread Mailbox. I really do apologize for not getting back to so many of you in a timely fashion. I promise to address that soon, but in the meantime if there is anything time sensitive, please send me a (gentle) reminder. Thank you!

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (279) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: I Have Fried Food On The Brain...And I'm Okay With That!

Am I the only one who prefers chicken fried steak for breakfast rather than lunch or dinner? Because as American breakfasts go, it is an easy top-10 meal! Especially if it comes with good gravy and a biscuit soaked in butter.

Whenever I travel that is the first thing I look for on a breakfast menu, and I absolutely love going out for breakfast in America. Not communist NJ...but the real America. I think breakfast joints are the best way to get to know a town...whether it is a bump in the road or a large city...it still shows you who lives there. And if there is chicken fried steak on the menu the odds are that they are good folk.

I have some thin-sliced sirloin that is earmarked for CFS (that's what we aficionados call it), and my biscuit work has been exemplary lately, so all indications are good. Gravy is straightforward, so the only issue is the batter. Too thick and it will be a gloppy mess, and too thin will be another dish entirely.

Anyone make this at home? Inquiring minds want to know!

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (254) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First-World Problems...

That's a tall candle that is obviously part of the slide into mediocrity that American manufacturing suffers. Look how badly it burns! No symmetry!

And trimming it doesn't help.

There ought to be a law!

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (193) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The RNC: Meet The New Boss...Same As The Old Boss

The RNC is rapidly approaching insolvency, but they have been feckless, useless, and a slush fund for corporate Republicans for many years. The reality is that the RNC does not care about election fraud...does not care about promoting conservative principles...does not care about strengthening grassroots Republican efforts...and certainly doesn't care about winning in general.

What they are good at is promoting their own incestuous interests and selected candidates who support what can only be described as the globalist approach to governance.

By the way; I am not suggesting that Ronna McDaniel is having an incestuous relationship with her uncle, Mitt Romney, although I have no evidence that she isn't.

But I am suggesting that the RNC is irreparably broken and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. That means from the smallest units of Republicans...the folks who are in the trenches trying to claw back some semblance of the rule of law in our elections. They are the ones who are not being funded, because their work is meaningless to the inside-the-beltway Republican elite.

GOP members criticize RNC's Ronna McDaniel for spending, weak grassroots work for 2024

After the failure of a "red wave" to materialize in the 2022 midterm elections and as the GOP looks to take back the White House, Republican Party members have criticized the lack of aid that both the 2020 alternate electors and grassroots have received as the RNC is experiencing financial trouble. Some are pointing to a lack of leadership from RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

2018, 2020, 2022 -- All massive failures on the part of the RNC, and Ronna McDaniel, as head of the RNC, is responsible. Why anyone would continue to support her is beyond me...except it isn't. It is obvious, and the reason is that the people who keep her in power think she is doing a good job, which seems to be subsuming the Republican party in a sea of Democrat party initiatives and allowing the creation of true one-party rule in America, instead of just de facto.

Because how the hell do you justify this massive boondoggle and surrender to the budget-busting, welfare-loving Democrat platform?

The House passes a bill to give parents a boosted child tax credit and businesses tax relief

On Wednesday night, the House passed the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 by a vote 357-70, which aims to boost the child tax credit, implement low-income housing credits and disaster relief, and give businesses an R&D tax break, among other things.

The bill won bipartisan support, with an endorsement from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who said in a Wednesday statement that it's "important bipartisan legislation to revive conservative pro-growth tax reform."

Sure...a multi-billion dollar expansion of the welfare state, but a few corporate Republican donors get some tax breaks! That is not a win-win for the American people...that is a huge loss. Print more money to pay for things we don't need and that are actually bad for society! That's the ticket!

And that word...that filthy word..."bipartisan." If you see it in the description of the legislative process you can know with almost 100% accuracy that you are about to get f*cked. Most of us vote AGAINST Democrat party policies, so why would we want to support a blend of those policies and the policies of the corporatists who currently hold a tenuous sway over the Republican party?

When the RNC figures that out, maybe they will be closer to understanding why their fundraising has cratered and there is a growing clamor for McDaniel's head on a platter. But rest assured, she will be around to oversee another catastrophic election in November of this year. Since she is actively working against the obvious Republican candidate and trying to undermine his grassroots support by starving them of funds, there is an excellent chance of a repeat of 2022.

And that is perfectly okay with the Republican party elites, whose idea of a successful election is a 20% increase in their defense industry stocks and enough cheap labor to keep those hedges manicured! Never mind that the typical American is being taxed into financial oblivion, pushed farther away from retirement because of government-caused inflation, and marginalized in favor of the most insane social engineering our country has ever faced. All tacitly or actively supported by the RNC!

I am no fan of Donald Trump, but I will enthusiastically support him and vote for him if he even hints at burning down the RNC...with McDaniel inside!

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (328) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 02-04-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(HT: sharon (willow's apprentice))

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, make yourself a bologna sammich, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

NOTE: I won't be around in the comments this morning as I will be assisting the tech team at church. Saturday Morning Coffee Thread comment rules now apply. Have a great day!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (349) | Trackbacks (Suck)

EMT Feb 4 2024

Happy Sunday.

Posted by: krakatoa at 06:01 AM | Comments (214) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 4 February 2024

Top Story

• Important update from the Everything Game: Somebody created Pipkin Pippa. (Twitter)
  
  That rabbit's dynamite.
  
  
  
• Quora raised $75 million to grow its AI chatbot, Poe. (Tech Crunch)
  
  A Poe - as in Poe's law - is an online personality who posts things so off kilter that you can't tell whether they're trolling or mentally ill.
  
  
  
• How Quora died. (Slate)
  
  It Poed itself.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (87) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Overnight Open Thread (2/3/24)

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The Saturday Night Joke. Or Is It?

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:47 PM | Comments (475) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Thread: Miracle Mile [moviegique]

I posted my last thread (Poor Things) from my daughter's wedding reception, after which I immediately got on a plane to Florida to finish book three without distractions (almost done!) And I haven't seen a movie in three weeks!

The last movie I saw was "The Iron Claw" which is a fine drama. Some of you pointed out that it isn't very on-the-mark, to which I can only say, that's probably =why= it's a fine family film.

Before that was "Anselm", Win Wenders 3D documentary-thing which is quite good. It plays a lot with the whole concept of narratives. At 90 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome and is refreshing and nice to look at.

But I got to thinking about a bit I used to do on my blog before I split movies from random thoughts called "Manic Monday Apocalypso". Every so often I would look at a movie or TV show or current event in the light of The Apocalypse. It was kind of fun and/or horrifying because you realized people today DO live in post-apocalyptical scenarios, we just don't think of them that way.

A review from 2009: "Miracle Mile:

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (282) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Weekend Hobby, Craft and General Bodging Thread

Greetings all. Hope your Saturday has been restful. Time once again to head to the basement, garage, shop, studio or wherever it is you can lose yourself for a while getting creative, having fun and making a mess.

NOTE: This is NOT an open thread. Please keep all comments relevant to the subject at hand.

What's everyone working on, planning, dreaming about?

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 04:30 PM | Comments (129) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, February 3

Courtesy Misanthropic Humanitarian

* * *

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Thanks for stopping by. Kick back and enjoy the world of animals.

Would you like a treat?

Let's relax a little with the animals and leave the world of politics and current events outside today.

Posted by: K.T. at 03:31 PM | Comments (52) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Feb. 3

Bouquet, Switzerland
Remember that Valentines Day is not far away

Our local Atmospheric River did not result in the forecast rainfall for our area, but we have more coming, they say.

Rain has not been coming like a river. There has been a mixture of ominous clouds, rain, a little hail and some sun. How is your weather?

The rosemary is starting to bloom, and the bees were able to visit. This is the only plant we have that doesn't smell like pine. The bees had mostly left for the day by the time I got around to taking these photos. There will be more blossoms later:

We planted Rosemary when we first moved in because gophers don't eat it, and we had GOPHERS.

Posted by: K.T. at 01:33 PM | Comments (87) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saying Goodbye to our Elite Universities

The Thinker, Singer Museum, Laren, The Netherlands

How did our universities become our enemy?

Mike Nayna is the Australian videographer who worked on the series of videos about the removal of Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying from Evergreen State College by radical leftists.

He also worked with the Grievance Studies folks, including Peter Boghossian, commenting here on a piece from September:

An utterly hypnotic read here from @mikenayna about the attempt to replace our "marketplace of ideas" with an "administered economy of ideas"

World III War

I imagine that you could call this an invitation to think. Lots of illustrations. It's kind of a geeky exploration of possibilities for the future as technology advances. If you would like to take an interesting journey of the mind, check it out.

*

Back to the here and now, Nayna wrote The Canonical Succession of Higher Ed

How Harvard Abandoned the Liberal Arts

Posted by: K.T. at 11:11 AM | No Comments | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Thread & Prayer Revival

d
(Rodent Photo H/T KT. Music? Guess. )

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:27 AM | Comments (420) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 3 February 2024

Top Story

• Looks like we can't count Mark Zuckerberg out just yet: Facebook's market cap grew by $200 billion. (Yahoo Finance)
  
  In one day.
  
  I don't use Facebook - not anymore. But there's no denying that an awful lot of people do use it.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (233) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Tongue Nor Heart Cannot Conceive Nor Name ONT

Hello, and welcome to the Groundhog Day ONT! I know a lot of you swear by Punxsutawney Phil, but I prefer to watch the ceremony from France. This morning Parisian Pierre emerged from his home, turned around and saw his own Château. In any event, pull up a chair, and make yourself at home. Anyone want a drink?

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (384) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Fri-Yay Cafe

"Tokyo backstreets and Yokocho alleys"
by Japan_City_Blues on IG

Making people wait for the ATM by standing a manikin in front of it.

Haunted mall.

How to discipline your child without resorting to physical punishment. Looks good, but how many times can this trick work?

Am I too old to join the Red Bull stunt team? I need to shake up my career.

High profile is low profile.

Cats have opinions.

Cats say "No homo, bruh, leave me alone."

Cats say, "I will not be controlled."

Rocketman.

A very happy reindeer in Finland.

More morning wolves.

With the fishes.

Circus dog.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (306) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Secrets of the Libs of TikTok, Part 2

The article blames "right-wing demagogues" for "inflaming the debate," but that's something the NYT says every single day.

The Admission Against Interest here is that trans demagogues are pushing their own "extremist" agenda.

As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do.

Feb. 2, 2024

By Pamela Paul

Opinion Columnist

Growing up in a relatively conservative community in Grand Rapids, Mich., Powell, like many teenagers, didn't feel comfortable in her own skin. She was unpopular and frequently bullied. Puberty made everything worse. She suffered from depression and was in and out of therapy.

"I felt so detached from my body, and the way it was developing felt hostile to me," Powell told me. It was classic gender dysphoria, a feeling of discomfort with your sex.

Reading about transgender people online, Powell believed that the reason she didn't feel comfortable in her body was that she was in the wrong body. Transitioning seemed like the obvious solution. The narrative she had heard and absorbed was that if you don't transition, you'll kill yourself.

At 17, desperate to begin hormone therapy, Powell broke the news to her parents. They sent her to a gender specialist to make sure she was serious. In the fall of her senior year of high school, she started cross-sex hormones. She had a double mastectomy the summer before college, then went off as a transgender man named Grayson to Sarah Lawrence College, where she was paired with a male roommate on a men's floor. At 5-foot-3, she felt she came across as a very effeminate gay man.

At no point during her medical or surgical transition, Powell says, did anyone ask her about the reasons behind her gender dysphoria or her depression. At no point was she asked about her sexual orientation. And at no point was she asked about any previous trauma, and so neither the therapists nor the doctors ever learned that she'd been sexually abused as a child.

"I wish there had been more open conversations," Powell, now 23 and detransitioned, told me. "But I was told there is one cure and one thing to do if this is your problem, and this will help you."

Progressives often portray the heated debate over childhood transgender care as a clash between those who are trying to help growing numbers of children express what they believe their genders to be and conservative politicians who won't let kids be themselves.

But right-wing demagogues are not the only ones who have inflamed this debate. Transgender activists have pushed their own ideological extremism, especially by pressing for a treatment orthodoxy that has faced increased scrutiny in recent years. Under that model of care, clinicians are expected to affirm a young person's assertion of gender identity and even provide medical treatment before, or even without, exploring other possible sources of distress.

Many who think there needs to be a more cautious approach -- including well-meaning liberal parents, doctors and people who have undergone gender transition and subsequently regretted their procedures -- have been attacked as anti-trans and intimidated into silencing their concerns.

..

Powell's story shows how easy it is for young people to get caught up by the pull of ideology in this atmosphere.

"What should be a medical and psychological issue has been morphed into a political one," Powell lamented during our conversation. "It's a mess."

Per this next passage, you'd almost think that transgenderism was now a social contagion or something:

Laura Edwards-Leeper, the founding psychologist of the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States, said that when she started her practice in 2007, most of her patients had longstanding and deep-seated gender dysphoria. Transitioning clearly made sense for almost all of them, and any mental health issues they had were generally resolved through gender transition.

"But that is just not the case anymore," she told me recently.

...

Most of her patients now, she said, have no history of childhood gender dysphoria. Others refer to this phenomenon, with some controversy, as rapid onset gender dysphoria, in which adolescents, particularly tween and teenage girls, express gender dysphoria despite never having done so when they were younger. Frequently, they have mental health issues unrelated to gender. While professional associations say there is a lack of quality research on rapid onset gender dysphoria, several researchers have documented the phenomenon, and many health care providers have seen evidence of it in their practices.

"The population has changed drastically," said Edwards-Leeper, a former head of the Child and Adolescent Committee for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the organization responsible for setting gender transition guidelines for medical professionals.

I see this stated all the time by real doctors: That there is a thing called "gender dysphoria," but it shows itself very early and it's persistent. That is, a kid makes this claim early in life and hardly ever wavers.

This new social-contagion form of transgenderism seems to strike teenagers right at the point when most teenagers are anxious and confused. And it's very sudden, with no prior indications.

Almost like these kids got swept up into an online cult which recruited them by telling them that all of their anxieties, inadequacies, depressions and pains could be cured just by changing genders.

The rest of the article is here.

Colorado is plotting to allow trans people with felony sexual criminal histories to escape their pasts by legally changing their names.

Note that felons are usually not permitted to legally change their names, for the very reason that we don't want criminals to be able to slip off their identity and pass as law-abiding citizens.

But we must break all the rules to Affirm Trannies!

Lorena Garcia
@RepLorenaGarcia

Jan 28

I am proud and honored to sponsor HB24-1071 making sure that a right that already exists is truly accessible to everyone. Trans ppl with felonies should be able to access the right to change their name to match their gender. Before you go all hater, learn more about the process.

Sarah Fields
@SarahisCensored

The man this bill was named after has had his name changed and made it very difficult for ANYONE to find his criminal past. More steps had to be taken. That's not okay.

You're not going to believe this, but trans people, who are totally not under the influence of a social contagion, are 109% more likely to claim they have the largely-social-contagion "disease" "long covid."

I'm not saying it doesn't exist.

I'm just saying that every hypochondriac claims to have it.

I know you'll have trouble believing this, but a study shows that 80%+ of trannies have personality disorders.

This study is out of Iran. Which may give one pause, but: In what country, except a homophobic Muslim country, would any doctors or psychiatrists feel safe in reporting anything negative about transgenders? It literally gets people fired and their articles de-published in the Queer West.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:45 PM | Comments (175) | Trackbacks (Suck)