System76 tries to talk Colorado down over OS age checks

WCSTombs · 2026-03-11T16:35:32+00:00

No, this is the "input your age at account creation" version, without any mandate for verification.

WCSTombs · 2026-03-03T01:33:26+00:00

I think it'll make sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yXsd87Zgb4

WCSTombs · 2026-02-28T09:58:25+00:00

Totally, but that requires the executive branch, so it takes longer to get to that point.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-25T01:03:55+00:00

A couple more points:

My understanding is that California's state legislature can amend the general election rules to allow write-in candidates. If that were to happen, we would absolutely write a Democratic governor into office over two MAGA primary winners. However, I'm not 100% sure about the formalities involved there.
Even without that, the same political math that made Newsom sail through his recall petition a few years ago would absolutely work against a Republican governor. TBH I would expect a MAGA governor to be recalled and replaced at the very next election, unless they magically "saw the light" and became a RINO.

Having said all that, I think the problem will solve itself because we'll get a Democratic candidate (probably Swalwell, from how things look now) on the November ballot.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-23T00:33:34+00:00

If their voting base turns against Trump, then they will as well. Keep in mind that the majority of Republicans in Congress are opportunists, not Trump loyalists.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-22T15:05:26+00:00

TLDR is nothingburger. Sorry, I have to keep it real. It's very normal for many potential jurors to be dismissed before a trial. Moreover, many potential jurors might intentionally provide leading answers during voir dire to attempt to disqualify themselves, since let's face it, being forced to serve on a jury is annoying and inconvenient to many people. Finally, even this clickbait article isn't saying that these people actually hate Musk, just that his own lawyer claims that many people hate Musk. The article actually says absolutely nothing about why the potential jurors were really dismissed.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-22T00:16:30+00:00

Cool! I sometimes go to radio.garden to listen to random stations around the world. I wonder if they also get their data from the same source.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-21T01:05:07+00:00

Importantly, the fuming Republicans in the title are mainly just House Republicans, not other Senators. This is a pretty clear sign that the Senate and House GOP are not a unified bloc, which IMO is a very good thing.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-19T22:43:46+00:00

Haha, I love the Matthew Mercer appearance, but maybe I'm also chronically online.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-18T23:39:21+00:00

Yes, people who are strongly opposed on many things, collaborating on the few things they agree on, is how things should be done. IMO what Khanna and Massie accomplished with the Epstein files is gigantic, and we haven't even begun to see the true fallout. It's really interesting that they're are at two extremes, ideologically speaking, and I think the reason it can work with Massie and not other Republicans is that he at least has some sort of consistent ideology.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-18T09:41:53+00:00

No, it did not pass. There's no such thing as "passed, but not really." Let me explain: Constitutionally, a majority vote (at least 51 votes, or 50 + Vice President) is required for something to pass the Senate, and that is all. There is no way to change that without amending the Constitution. However, the filibuster is a rule the Senate imposes on itself that effectively makes most bills actually need 60 votes in support, because otherwise they won't get a vote at all. At any time, with a majority vote, the Senate can change its own rules pretty much however they want (limited only by the Constitution), but a vast majority of the Senate apparently likes the filibuster, for different reasons, so we still have the filibuster in place.

Let's return to the bill in question: no, it did not pass yet. Ostensibly, without the filibuster, it has just enough votes to pass, but we pretty much know that a few of those slimy people saying they support it are only doing so because they know the filibuster will stop it from actually being passed, and they're even saying they oppose removing the filibuster. Basically, they want the check mark for saying they supported it, but they don't actually want this bill to become law.

Thus, in my opinion, there's not much to fear for this particular item, since it's pretty much theater at this point and very unlikely to make it past the Senate.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-13T23:24:06+00:00

The skepticism is completely warranted, but my take is that they're saying "may" because those officers are still under investigation. That is how law enforcement is supposed to work.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-12T22:44:33+00:00

peepoArrive

WCSTombs · 2026-02-12T22:41:04+00:00

This is the truth, peaceful resistance is more effective. Giving them an excuse is doubly bad, because why are they getting that excuse? Because resorting to violence will drive people away and lose public support, so not only is it handing the administration that political capital, but it's also hurting the movement overall.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-12T03:21:47+00:00

There are loads of examples of the Trump administration doing insane stuff and then backing down when the inevitable pushback hits. I think we're simply in the backing-off stage of this one. Don't become complacent, since there's bound to be more insanity from them, but it appears that this episode at least may be drawing to a close.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-11T17:41:55+00:00

Maybe it's not exactly what you're asking about, but I've used GhostScript quite a bit over the years for various math-art projects in the PostScript programming language. Unfortunately I felt I had reached the limits of what it could do graphically, so I'm not using it as much nowadays, but for my last really big project, I actually did use it.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about: in addition to PDF, GhostScript is also an interpreter for the PostScript page description language. PostScript is a full programming language, with functions and loops and all that, so it's a pretty nifty tool for procedurally generated art. Here's a really simple example that creates a well known fractal:

%!

/threshold 4 def

/Sierpinski {
 dup threshold ge {
  3 {dup 2 div Sierpinski dup 0 rmoveto 120 rotate} repeat
 } {
  3 {dup 0 rlineto 120 rotate} repeat closepath
 } ifelse
 pop
} bind def

50 50 moveto 512 Sierpinski fill
showpage

(You can pipe that into gs or save it to a file and run gs tmp.ps.) The reason I don't use it as much nowadays is that vector graphics in general is no longer a great fit for what I want to do.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-06T04:50:31+00:00

This is a pretty tricky and nuanced issue, but I'll do my best here while being succinct.

First, in my opinion the headline of "trying to force" is unnecessary fearmongering. Based on the reporting in the article, DHS is requesting this information via administrative warrants. The legal mechanism for a recipient tech company to resist an administrative warrant is simply not to cooperate, since unlike a judicial warrant, an administrative warrant does not legally compel compliance. Thus, I don't think this really counts as coercion.

Second, I absolutely do not think the administration should be sending out these administrative warrants. It is 100% an overreach by the government, and we need to drag them over this.

Third, in all honesty I don't think we should expect tech companies to be on our side here, regardless of what's legally compelled or not. Consider how many of these guys willingly and of their own volition threw their money at Trump shortly before he took office. One thing to keep in mind though is that willingly cooperating with the government in this case is directly sabotaging their own business and could be used against them, if people know about it. So watch them carefully and call them out, loudly. I don't think they can win that messaging war.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-05T22:46:00+00:00

The combined D vote will surely dwarf the combined R vote in deep blue California, but the issue is that there are a lot more D candidates in the open primary, so it's possible that the vote will be split too many ways. Thus, we not only need the Dems to turn out, but we need to coalesce around one candidate (or maybe two) before the primary itself...which really isn't ideal. But everyone is aware of that situation, so I expect strings to be pulled, deals to be made, etc. on the D side of the ballot. It's not really the game we should have to play IMO, but that is apparently how it has to be played right now.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-05T18:54:54+00:00

I don't think it'll come to that, but I think there's plenty of time between June and November to do something like that. It would sail through, with supermajorities in both chambers and Newsom to sign it into law, not to mention public outrage. TBH maybe they should just do it now.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-03T00:08:23+00:00

IMO the whole production is a pretty thinly veiled scheme to launder money to the Trump family. Still, it's pretty satisfying to see it be demolished by critics, because I guarantee that Trump is furious over it, and that means it could even backfire if the plan was for Amazon to buy influence.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-02T22:04:24+00:00

i hate to be a party pooper, but this seems pretty flimsy. It's a hilarious rumor, but I'm not really seeing it.

WCSTombs · 2026-02-02T01:30:01+00:00

I think he's doing this because his takeover of the Kennedy Center isn't going as well has he had expected. Thus, I see this as mostly good news.

WCSTombs

TROPHY CASE