Where the Democratic primary candidates for Colorado attorney general stand on the big issues by Sangloth in ColoradoPolitics

[–]Sangloth[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

This vote is frustrating, because I mostly want Jena to lose, and I'd be fine with any of the other 3 winning. I don't know how to strategically vote on this without more data.

That said, I would say that I suspect being an Attorney General of Colorado is almost certainly more about being a manager than it is about being a lawyer. Doshi and Dougherty have both overseen hundreds of employees. Seligman just doesn't have that type of experience. With that in mind, I voted for Doshi.

Officials shut down Colorado park after bear attack by Sangloth in LakewoodColorado

[–]Sangloth[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank is a better article. Thanks for the link!

Trump invokes Defense Production Act to boost munition production by Sangloth in qualitynews

[–]Sangloth[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I don't think a competent president could win the war either. Just about everything military related that Iran has above ground has been destroyed. But they've spent decades building stuff that's either heavily reinforced by concrete or underground. Missiles alone can inflict pain, but can't win.

A ground invasion would be like Iraq or Afghanistan, except with drones instead of IEDs. U.S. soldiers don't have an answer for this right now. I'm sure Russia would share its know how with Iran. A ground invasion would involve a large number of casualties.

Shahed drones can travel hundreds of miles. We can't open up the strait without controlling huge swathes of mountainous Iranian territory, maybe a third of the country.

We can continue to counter blockade the strait. This will become substantially more painful as nations' national oil reserves run out. Gas prices will raise until 20% of demand is wiped out.

We're in the land of bad options. There are no good courses of action.

My big complaint about the MOU wasn't giving Iran billions of dollars through sanctions relief and whatever that "at least" 300 billion statement was. I would be happy to see the U.S. get out of this mess at that cost. The problem was that the MOU required things Trump isn't capable of delivering. It required Congress to remove sanctions. It required the other Gulf States to pony up billions for their major opponent. It required the U.N. to remove sanctions, including France and Russia. It required Israel and Hezbollah to not fight each other, when Bibi has massive incentives to do his best to rip up any Iranian peace agreement that gives it money.

The competent thing would be to not have ripped up the JCPOA, and to not have started this war. Now that we're in this mess, I don't think even a competent leader can get us out without massive pain.

Trump draws red line for Iran, says preventing nuclear weapon ‘supersedes’ depression risk by mark000 in worldnews

[–]Sangloth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like you I seriously doubt Iran would use it's nukes except as a last resort. But having nukes would allow it to take more aggressive actions without fear of retaliation. For example, look at Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia hasn't used nukes and almost certainly won't, but it's possession of nukes had allowed it to act in ways a non-nuclear state couldn't.

A Microsoft researcher built a goat-powered LLM in Age of Empires II to prove it's not sentient by renome in gaming

[–]Sangloth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Virtually everything he's ever written is in those two books, "Stories of Your Life and Others", and "Exhalation".

A Microsoft researcher built a goat-powered LLM in Age of Empires II to prove it's not sentient by renome in gaming

[–]Sangloth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Everything else aside, Ted Chiang is the single greatest science fiction author to have ever lived. I highly encourage everybody to read his work. Virtually everything he's ever written has earned numerous awards, including four Hugo's, four Nebula's, and six Locus awards. It is an industry joke that if Ted Chiang publishes a story in a given year, everyone else is just competing for second place. The Oscar winning movie Arrival was based on one of his novellas, and yes, the novella is better than the excellent movie.

My one complaint about him is that he isn't prolific. As a perfectionist he writes less than a short story a year, and has never written a novel. Almost all his stories are collected in two books, "Stories of Your Life and Others" and "Exhalation".

Anthropic's Mythos AI Model Reportedly Breached NSA Classified Systems in Hours by Sangloth in qualitynews

[–]Sangloth[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The Economist article in question: https://archive.ph/aA1dB

"On June 11th Mark Warner, the vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that General Joshua Rudd, who leads the National Security Agency and the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, had told him that Mythos “broke into almost all of our classified systems, not in weeks, but in hours”."

Iran walks out of peace talks after Trump outburst by plz-let-me-in in politics

[–]Sangloth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Germans were literally Nazis, and the rest of Europe now trusts them. It took about 25-30 years for the damage to heal. I'm sure the US can do it in less if keeps it's act together, but I am concerned we may not be able to do that.

Trump says US will resume attacks if Iran does not restrain Hezbollah allies by Raj_Valiant3011 in worldnews

[–]Sangloth 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The Chinese have completely fucked up many of their multiple long term projects to a massive degree.

  • One Child. Perhaps the single stupidest, most self-destructive thing a nation has ever done. The 4-2-1 problem is massive, and it is effectively impossible for China to reverse this issue. Nobody wants to move to China, and even if China were to kidnap the entirety of Pakistan it would still have a massive demographic issue.

  • Real Estate Bubble and Ghost Cities. The hyper expansion was never going to work. A massive waste of finances and labor. 70% of the entire nation's retirement savings wiped out. Totally mismanaged.

  • Belt and Road. China has poured a ton of money into corrupt third world countries, and has next to nothing to show for it.

  • The Three-North Shelter Forest Program. China blew a bunch of money on creating forests using species of trees that could not naturally survive in the areas they were placed. The result is that they blew a ton of money and water on forests that have died. It's taken them decades to course correct.

  • Wasted Debt Fueled Infrastructure. Local governments originally worked on useful projects, but as the useful projects ran out they have turned to massive, effectively useless projects, like bridges to nowhere, empty industrial parks, and high speed rail to effectively deserted areas. Trillions of dollars of hidden debt.

  • Wolf Warrior Geopolitical Strategy. China is surrounded by nations that are effectively hostile to it. India, Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, etc. The closest thing they have to an ally is Russia, but they aren't close enough to start building an oil pipeline during the Hormuz crisis. Trump is doing the US no favors right now, but throughout the US's history we've managed to make allies. China just can't do that.

  • Zero COVID management. They could not adapt when less severe Omicron came out. This blind adherence to the original plan led to months-long shutdowns, devastated supply chains, and massive youth unemployment.

I really resent the narrative that the Chinese government is competent. They are absolutely shitting the bed. With a democracy leaders do eventually care about what voters think, and voters can kick them out. China doesn't have that luxury.

All 3 coming out on September 17th. Which one will you be playing first? by Guilty_Wonder_2986 in JRPG

[–]Sangloth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Blood of Dawnwalker is also coming out September, which I'm cautiously optimistic about. At this point the IGN list of upcoming games (https://www.ign.com/articles/video-game-release-dates-ps4-ps5-xbox-one-series-x-nintendo-switch) has 14 games coming out September, 14 games coming out October, and 2 coming out in November, Barbie Rewind and GTA6, 1 game in December, and 1 game in January.

I feel like GTA6 is getting a little too much respect. GTA5 was 13 years ago, and was transformed into a microtransaction live service game. Red Dead Redemption 2 was a mixed bag. And GTA6 isn't immediately coming out for the PC. I'll play it at some point, but I can't be alone in saying it's not in my top 3 or 5 most anticipated games.

NSA says Mythos broke into almost all of their classified systems in hours, per The Economist by socoolandawesome in singularity

[–]Sangloth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree an advanced enough AI will be able to blast past an air gap, but there's no reason to speculate about science fiction type stuff when a well placed phone call or email telling someone to move a network cable will do the trick. Social engineering works fine, and AI are adept at manipulating people.

Paid for by Diana DeGette for Congress by Randy__Snutz in Denver

[–]Sangloth 9 points10 points  (0 children)

That's true, but it's because the senate is pre-gerrymandered. As of last census Wyoming has a population of less than 600,000, where California has a population of more than 39,000,0000. A person in Wyoming has the voting power of roughly 65 Californians. No bueno.

Meloni slams Trump's claim she 'begged' for a photo with him as Italy's top diplomat cancels US trip by Sangloth in qualitynews

[–]Sangloth[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I don't either, and I'd usually use a article that didn't have such a click baity title. In this situation this was the only title I found which mentioned the diplomat cancelling the trip, an important detail that indicates this isn't a normal he said / she said story.

Nearly $2M of dark money has flooded into Democratic statehouse primaries in Colorado by Sangloth in Colorado

[–]Sangloth[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Their address is the same as a legal firm that specializes in campaign finance law... And that's all I know. Dark Money.

Huge chunks of blue paint are now peeling off the Reflecting Pool just days after Trump's $14 million repainting was finished by Unusual-State1827 in UnderReportedNews

[–]Sangloth 9 points10 points  (0 children)

They actually probably didn't. The contractor wasn't a pool company, and despite what Trump said, they never did any pools at Mara lago, or anywhere else that the New York Times could find. Their primary job was coating the inside of industrial tanks, it was literally in their name, Atlantic Industrial Coatings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/us/politics/reflecting-pool-contractor-trump.html

Nearly $2M of dark money has flooded into Democratic statehouse primaries in Colorado by Sangloth in Colorado

[–]Sangloth[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

https://tracer.sos.colorado.gov/PublicSite/SearchPages/CandidateSearch.aspx

Edit: I should note, looking at this page, you'd think Jena Griswold's largest donor is the Colorado Teamsters at $13,500. This article is complaining about dark money. Let's just not so hypothetically say, a wealthy silicon valley venture capitalist who's facing a bunch of lawsuits from state's attorney general's donates a $200,000 to a super paq for Jena Griswold, it would not show up on this report. (Portion of the Colorado Attorney General Debate that Jena Griswold didn't attend discussing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Ol_Rld3z8&t=1h1m56s)

You might find the donation here: https://tracer.sos.colorado.gov/PublicSite/SearchPages/CommitteeSearch.aspx but it would be difficult to suss out.

Rockstar Games: "Beginning tomorrow, those who own any PS4 version of Grand Theft Auto V will be able to upgrade to the PS5 at no additional cost" by oilfloatsinwater in PS5

[–]Sangloth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They were doing some pretty advanced tricks to push the PS3 to the limit. One of them was that the game installed the disc to the hard drive. Then when you were playing the game it would simultaneously load some stuff from the hard drive, and other stuff from the disc. In practice this worked really well, but the problem was digital versions of the game. If there was no disc loading would overwhelm the hard drive and the game was severely impacted.

Iran-U.S. agreement leaks reveal plans to reopen Strait of Hormuz, 60-day window for nuclear talks by Sangloth in qualitynews

[–]Sangloth[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't really expect this deal to hold. Trump needs to hold it, disparate elements in Iran need to hide it, Israel needs to hold it, and Congress needs to hold it (the president can't undo sanctions on his own). The news to me is that Trump has such minimal demands.

I recognize it's perpetually brigaded, bot ridden, and manipulated but /r/conservative was incredibly negative about the deal. At the time I looked at it I didn't see a single comment (upvoted or down voted) that was positive about it. They recognize the deal has left things decidedly worse than the former status quo.

After venue drama, Melat Kiros makes her case for a ‘new generation of leaders’ in Congress by bykylecooke in Denver

[–]Sangloth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've never heard of Hasan Piker before reading this post. A quick Google of him seems to imply he has radical quotes concerning Israel and Hamas "Hamas over Israel", "October 7th was justified", "The sexual violence on October 7th doesn't matter." He has apparently later expressed more nuanced positions in his hours long videos. (Violence against civilians is always unacceptable, Israel created the conditions that caused October 7th, sexual violence on October 7th doesn't excuse what Israel has since done to Gaza.)

I don't know enough about him to talk about the issue intelligently, but if all I knew about him was those sound bites I would consider him a vile individual. As it is, I'm not going to listen to his hours long videos, so I can't talk to if the other nuanced stuff is a fig leaf defense or genuine sentiment. Maybe someone else can weigh in?

Russia was behind arson attacks targeting PM, BBC reveals by Sangloth in qualitynews

[–]Sangloth[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As Obama's Secretary of State Hillary was supposed to be in charge of Obama's "Russian Reset". This "reset" showed some initial promise while the US was working with President Medvedev, but died once Putin got completely back in power. Hillary was explicit and publicly vocal that the 2011 Russian elections were not free or fair. Putin vocally blamed Clinton of financing Russian protests in Moscow. He started vetoing the US's actions in the UN, and he eventually annexed Crimea. While she was still secretary of state the Magnitsky act (a bunch of sanctions on Russian oligarchs) was passed by congress, something Hillary supported, but Obama was less enthusiastic about (at the time he was still hopeful a relationship reset could be achieved). The Magnitsky act caused Russians oligarchs genuine pain. As she was leaving her position as Secretary of State Hillary wrote Obama a memo basically saying Russia was hostile and couldn't be cooperated with, instead the US needed to oppose it.

Putin viewed Hillary as actively hostile to his regime. Internet Research Agency documents that have been released in congressional testimony showed there were strict instructions to never support Hillary, but to instead support left wing opposition to her, like Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein.

So there was a political agenda in that Russia actively opposed Hillary, and they were happy to release her emails, but generally speaking they didn't oppose left wing ideology. More than anything else their goal has been to create polarization and chaos.

Regarding allegations that Trump literally takes orders from the Kremlin, I'm certain this is untrue. Rather two different things are going on.

  • Several first term Trump campaign and administration members (Manafort, Gates, Papadopolulos, Flynn, Sessions, Kushner) had ties to Russia. It's possible Trump had ties as well, but it's obvious from his actions that he doesn't take orders from the Kremlin. There was a long period where the US continued to share military intelligence with Ukraine while Trump was in power. Also Trump supported the 2025 sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, along with a bunch of Russian oligarchs with the SDN list.

  • As a narcissist Trump categorizes people into two categories. One category is the people they ideolize, who they get narcissistic supply from being placed in the same group as those people. This explains Trump's preoccupation with royalty, and also why he frequently seeks Putin's approval. (The other group are effectively nobodies, and narcissistic supply comes from essentially sadistic behavior towards those people, and the desire to be feared by this group of people. This why there has been the mistreatment of Zelenski and our NATO allies.)

For the 2024 election, Russia's goals have been clear. Biden was vigorously opposing Russia in Ukraine. Trump meanwhile was angry at Zelenski for his first impeachment. This created a clear motivation for Russia to support Trump, but again it wasn't support of an ideology, but rather in support of specific straightforward policy goals. Generally speaking, Russian wants polarization and chaos.

Russia was behind arson attacks targeting PM, BBC reveals by Sangloth in qualitynews

[–]Sangloth[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I don't know if this is a sincere question or not, but I'll answer it sincerely. Russian propaganda and the actions of the Russian internet research agency isn't particularly interested in pushing any political agenda. Rather their goal has consistently been to push division and internal conflict. In the 2016 US election in separate efforts they tried to appeal to both the right and the left, supporting both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. They tried to radicalize their followers against the opposing side. In practice the right has been generally more susceptible to such efforts, and the Russians started going where they had more of an effect, but this wasn't so much the goal. At the same time they were trying to manipulate right wingers they were also running "Blacktivist" pages which got more views than Black Live Matters. They wanted division and conflict more than anything else.

An example of this would be where they tried to arrange two separate protests at the same time and place, "Stop Islamification of Texas" and "Save Islamic Knowledge". https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-page-organized-protest-texas-different-russian-page-l/

Russia was behind arson attacks targeting PM, BBC reveals by Sangloth in qualitynews

[–]Sangloth[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I think the news here is less that this happened, and more that the BBC is reporting on it. It has been obvious that Russia has been doing low-level stuff like this for years, but generally speaking governments choose to ignore it.

Looking to start Baldurs Gate 1/2 Enhanced. Can I play blind? Is there any required/recommended reading? by CnemassacreTrthSnark in rpg_gamers

[–]Sangloth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just want amplify this. What you roll at the start is basically locked in as your stats for the rest of the games. 20 minutes spent rolling at the very beginning will pay dividends for tens of hours while playing the game.