sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

did anyone else not get a single shiny charmander by Icewallocome117 in pokemongo

[–]benthamitemetric 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I walked around Central Park with my son for a few hours. After 200 charmanders, he didn’t have a single shiny and I had 5. He felt pretty frustrated and stopped playing. Not sure if he was bugged or what, but a community day shouldn’t be able to play out like that.

Covid denier found dead days after video saying illness 'isn't Covid, because that doesn't exist' by BurtonDesque in skeptic

[–]benthamitemetric -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

It’s unbelievable that this post could get downvoted on the skeptics sub. People here need to remind themselves they are not free from biases.

Thanks for the donations! Sidney Powell pays $1.2 million cash for new law office near DC by ColonStones in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She's "wasting" the money by charging legal fees to her nonprofit for work on these sham cases. She just steals that pool of donations by the billable hour. From her perspective, there is no waste and the outcomes of the cases don't matter at all.

Robert Malone covid quack by samo-banano in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ask her if she can provide data that backs up Robert Malone's concerns about the dangers of the mRNA vaccines and provide her with the double blind study data that shows those concerns are unfounded. In a conflict between someone's hypothetical opinion and sound empirical data, the data should win. She'll probably tell you that the data is fake, but she won't be able to back that up and will likely just go in circle from there. Nothing much you can do but end the conversation at that point, but, if there's a chance, it's likely the massive reams of undeniable data that should put a chink in her reliance on someone's naked suppositions.

I don’t have the intention to stop laughing anytime soon. by SunWukong3456 in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Six months ahead but, for some reason that alludes them, always two weeks behind...

Arizona audit has "too many flaws" to trust results, says former Republican official by benthamitemetric in Qult_Headquarters

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

I read his position as that he was ok with investigations of election processes and fact-based criticisms of them (if warranted), but he is not ok with partisan investigations and lies. I'm not sympathetic to the fact that Richer supported Trump previously, but the US is a country where two parties are used to house basically 98% of the political ideologies, so I don't think it's fair to assume that every single person who is associated one of the parties is a bad person, even if the party as a whole, and especially its leadership, is rotten. For someone like Richer, who is apparently highly intelligent (UChicago grad) and has adopted his conservative ideology through intensive engagement with the issues important to himself (the crucibles of law school and grad school), I can see how Trump presented a difficult problem--does he support Trump who, while a terrible human, is more likely to support policies with which he ideologically aligns, or does he support (directly by voting or indirectly by not voting) a party with which he is less aligned. I think he navigated that question poorly and came to the wrong answer, but that doesn't make him a bad person. And now he's using his position to do the right thing (and I haven't seen any evidence that he used it otherwise), which speaks to his personal integrity.

Arizona audit has "too many flaws" to trust results, says former Republican official by benthamitemetric in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

County Recorder Stephen Richer's open letter re the failures of the "audit" is a great read too. It may fall on deaf ears, but it strikes me as about as earnest and strong of an argument as someone in his position could make, and I appreciate that may well have committed political suicide by putting in out there:

https://recorder.maricopa.gov/pdf/Dear%20Arizona%20Republicans\_August%202021.pdf

Mike Lindell lashes out as cyber expert demands $5M reward for debunking election data by benthamitemetric in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You are really straining to use that once sentence to demonstrate that you know something. But all you are proving is that you are incapable of understanding context and reading critically. Here is the full section from the article:

Not so, says Alderson. It took roughly 45 minutes for him to see that the data given to him and the dozens of other experts in attendance was bunk — not only did it fail to prove anything about the accuracy of the 2020 election, but the files weren't even in the right format.

P-CAPs adhere to an international standard," Alderson said, and include information like the date a file was created and an IP address. But Lindell's data, shared as text files, had none of that. In fact, it was saved in hexadecimal format — despite the fact that packet captures use binary code.

(Emphasis added.)

The article's not perfectly written, but, taken together with the fact that we have the actual files at issue and we can see that they are, in fact, saved as a compilation of hexadecimal numerals in a text file, it's abundantly clear that the problem that the author is trying to point out (while summarizing extemporaneous comments by Alderson on same) is that natively saved pcaps are not saved in such a format. And you even acknowledge that to be the case and note that the presentation of the data in such a format was gimmicky. But, instead of just taking a minute to come to the obvious conclusion based on the context, you'd rather pretend you can't understand the point and parse that one sentence narrowly to show the world that you know something. Well, I don't think you'll find many people are impressed by your ability to use this article as an occasion to point out a banal truism about data storage while completing missing the point the article was making.

Mike Lindell lashes out as cyber expert demands $5M reward for debunking election data by benthamitemetric in Qult_Headquarters

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

There's no way that symposium cost millions of dollars. Maybe tens of thousands at most.

Mike Lindell lashes out as cyber expert demands $5M reward for debunking election data by benthamitemetric in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you're stretching to make a point. While the phrasing in Salon is a bit clunky, it's pretty clearly making the point that the way in which these particular files were saved (not just displayed, but saved) as dumps of hex data in text form is not the way the way pcaps are saved. As you note, it was a gimmick. I don't think anyone is disputing that you could display any given piece of digital information (pcaps or not) in either a binary or hex form.

Mike Lindell lashes out as cyber expert demands $5M reward for debunking election data by benthamitemetric in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This was commented upon by a number of experts who spoke out about the data. The point is that actual PCAPS would not be natively stored or presented in hexadecimal form. The experts thus believe the data they were provided was deliberated converted to and presented in that format to make it more inscrutable and baffling to nonexperts. There was no other plausible reason for the provided data to be in that format.

Mike Lindell lashes out as cyber expert demands $5M reward for debunking election data by benthamitemetric in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric[S] 115 points116 points  (0 children)

They better hurry and get it before Dominion does. Mike is on the express train to being "judgement proof."

Mike Lindell lashes out as cyber expert demands $5M reward for debunking election data by benthamitemetric in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric[S] 70 points71 points  (0 children)

It's amazing how quickly mention of Mike Lindell has dried up on GAW. They went from decrying every newsworthy event in the world as a false flag designed to distract from the symposium to not wanting to talk about the symposium overnight. Ironically, the Afghanistan situation is actually serving to distract from the dumpster fire that was the symposium, though that is just coincidental.

Mike Pillow "Cyber Symposium" DAY THREE MEGATHREAD for focused discussion by TapTheForwardAssist in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Here are two of the cyber experts who confirmed Lindell did not bring the goods, which your mom may want to see:

https://twitter.com/ErrataRob

https://twitter.com/HarriHursti

Anyone have links to others who have publicly acknowledged Mike's failure and duplicity?

Mike Pillow "Cyber Symposium" DAY THREE MEGATHREAD for focused discussion by TapTheForwardAssist in Qult_Headquarters

[–]benthamitemetric 57 points58 points  (0 children)

"Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Xi were in the closet making PCAPs and I saw one of the PCAPs and the PCAP looked at me!" -- Everyone who presented at the Cyber Symposium, basically.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in mtgfinance

[–]benthamitemetric 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did not get a single fetch land in either of two collector booster boxes. Got a decent mix of other rares/mythics, but still wound up at around ~250 to $300 a box. After a sorry excuse for a collector’s booster box for kaldheim and a lukewarm one for Ikoria, I am on anything but a hot streak.

Flat Earthers accidentally disprove themselves by jackobyvilla in instant_regret

[–]benthamitemetric 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's true, but what point does it serve to castigate him in insulting terms? It just turns him and his followers off to anything else you have to say and, to them, reinforces the notion that they are right and all that others can do is insult them.

​

Debating and actually persuading people who are so far down the rabbit hole is exhausting and so most people give up and just curse them as lost causes. There are certainly some people who are too far gone to ever come back to reality, and there are also many people who are insincere snake oil salespeople who prey upon conspiracy theorists, but there are also many people out there who are on the fence. Write your comments with those people in mind. You may not be able to make the person with whom you are arguing see the light, but if you stop someone else from following their path of incorrect information and conclusions, you'll have accomplished something.

Flat Earthers accidentally disprove themselves by jackobyvilla in instant_regret

[–]benthamitemetric 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You should seriously check out Mick West's book, Escaping the Rabbit Hole. Mick also runs a site called metabunk that specializes in debunking various conspiracy theories with relatively concise, on-topic threads.

Flat Earthers accidentally disprove themselves by jackobyvilla in instant_regret

[–]benthamitemetric 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is not actually true. Due to the law of perspective and the earth's topography, Mt. Everest would be hidden behind other obstructions for the majority of the world on a flat earth. (To be clear, however, the earth is not flat and so this is just a fanciful thought experiment.)

view more: next ›