Russia Tries To Deliver The Killing Blow To VPN Use.

Eventually, the same will happen in the West. VPNs are a method of existing outside of state and corporate control, and won’t be tolerated for long.

It’s not 4K, but if you want what appears to be a pretty decent monitor for a good price, check this one out.

It’s still ~123 PPI and an IPS panel. Great for $170.

I remember when a monitor like this was $3,000+.

It is shocking when you think about it how much is done societally solely to benefit rich people.

If most people realized how much better lives rich people live than the average person, there’d be an immediate revolt.

Starting to use Google Chrome more and more as Firefox is slated to destroy any reason for using it as version 57 approaches.

Unsurprisingly, most extensions (and many of the most common and useful ones) are not compatible and never will be.

I understand the reasons Mozilla made most of the decisions it has made, but I think they are stupid reasons that have only harmed the organization and its goals.

That said, the organization is really terrible (as most are) at gathering data and interpreting it. Their data approach is “use the data to find what we already believe is true” rather than attempting to discover the truth.

Mozilla will be dead and gone in 3-5 years.

Taking away control from the user has absolutely nothing to do with security, by the way (these are not mutually exclusive; that is a false dichotomy). It’s just a convenient cover story. Mozilla is just following the spirit of its times, just as most people and organizations do.

And that spirit is paternalistic authoritarianism.

I plan to stop using Firefox by the end of this year. I’ve already stopped one small company from using Firefox and switched them to Chrome, and will do so for any others where I have an advisory role.

I’ve watched the first six episodes of 13 Reasons Why and I know why so many who fashion themselves adults despise it, and it has nothing to do with its likelihood of increasing suicide attempts.

No, it’s because it depicts teens as wantonly cruel and adults as willfully oblivious. In other words, it depicts reality.

It puts a spotlight on the barbarism and sadism that adults either ignore in their own kids or actually promote.

People don’t like the show because it’s too like life, too ready to focus on very real failures.

It’s not superheroes shooting lasers out of their eyes or virtuous teens uniting to defeat an evil empire. No, it’s a girl like millions of other abandoned by everyone around her, thrown to the wolves, and then told it’s her own fault or that she just wanted attention.

Only a show that touches on something real could cause such an outcry.

That’s the reason for the ban attempts and why people are attempting to derail a second season. The work is a real and unflinching indictment of them, our society, and its failures.

The thing that liberals seem not to understand about re-negotiating NAFTA or similar is that any transition to a new state will result in some pain. That something might hurt is not a reason not to do it.

For instance: going to the dentist hurts but is better than letting all your teeth rot.

I am not actually advocating for or against re-negotiating NAFTA here. What I am arguing against is the contention that if something causes any discomfort or even a period of re-organization, that it is therefore not worth attempting.

Curiously, (pseudo) liberals had no problem excusing or even declaiming the merits of all the difficult re-adjustments that occurred and are still occurring due to treaties and other agreements such as NAFTA.

Funny that, huh?

Ha, yes, I’ve noticed this too.

I do think that’s a real generational difference. More Millennials than any other generation either have a retail/service job that they know they’ll likely never leave, or have friends with those jobs.

It creates a lot more empathy than a Boomer who had such a job for six months one summer and then headed off on a real career track. Also see this.

There are other causes and differences, of course, but good observation.

I had a longer post in mind — about how the neoliberal project has been masterful in winning, and then in denying its own existence — but that is too long to unpack with the energy and time I have available.

So instead I’ll mention how whenever renewable energy is mentioned you hear about the “massive subsidies” it has received.

Yet when fossil fuels are discussed, unless you are hearing it from a very, very left-oriented source, you hear nothing about the absolutely staggering subsidies fossil fuels have received over the past hundred years — and continue to receive.

What’s strange about the “I have a boyfriend” thing that many women do – and yes, yes, I understand why they do it — is that it is not very effective against the very guys they are attempting to target with it.

Sure, it’s effective against some guys, most of whom would be fine with a simple “I’m just interested in being friends,” but against the guys who don’t take no for an answer, it’s probably actually an incitement and not any form of dissuasion at all.

I’m not a woman and I don’t intend to tell anyone how to behave (as obviously many women believe their strategy to be effective), but I am a guy and I’ve known (many, many) misogynist creepy guys, and I can tell you from experience with them that “I have a boyfriend” means absolutely nothing to them. Nothing at all.

I think it is just one of those things that humans do that is self-effective rather than being that effective in the world (like taking antibiotics for viral infections). It doesn’t help, but it feels like it helps, and that is enough.

Lately (and it doesn’t happen as often as it used to) when a woman says that to me, I just as quickly say, “Cool! I do too!”

It just confuses the hell out of them which is fine with me. Historically, most girls who think I am flirting with them I want absolutely nothing to do with….

Reading Tanya Huff’s Valor’s Choice actually made me miss being in the military. It successfully captures both much of the gallows humor that is ever-present in a combat unit (and that many people with no experience insist doesn’t happen) and the camaraderie that exists there.

Like Battlestar Galactica, it strikes the right tone and I could tell without even looking up her bio that Huff had served herself at some point.

Not that non-military folks can’t write good mil-fic. Some can and do. But it is exceedingly rare.

Huff gets exactly right how military people actually talk with one another and that is something seldom found anywhere in mass media fiction.