Jan 09

Not On First

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By the way, under the First Amendment, incitement to violence is not protected speech. Not that Twitter et al. banning anyone has anything to do with the First Amendment, really, though there is an argument (that I myself have made) that these are the new public commons, and should be treated as such.

That’s a totally different discussion, however.

Trump and his Nazi cosplay nincompoops incited violence and nowhere in the US or under the First Amendment is that protected speech. That is well-established in law and custom and is not even controversial.

Well, except with dipshits. But fuck them.

Jan 09

Linked State

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I wonder how much of the “liberal” fear of and simultaneous obsession with sex leads to their weakness in other areas?

I bet a lot.

Jan 09

Till You Do

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Indeed.

The thing about emergency and backup plans is you don’t need ’em…till you do. A lot of people in my field learn this the hard way, though it really applies to any field.

But I learn the easy way: by watching others fail, and not doing that.

Why can’t more people?

Jan 09

It’d Take

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I mostly agree with this. The press and tech companies coddled this behavior, Trump, and the far right for four years because it made them all scads of money.

The Disphit Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Coup was the result.

Don’t like the truth, get off my fucking blog and fuck you.

Jan 08

Stillcuff

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The Impractical but Indisputable Rise of Retrocomputing. Prices for vintage PCs in need of repairs and hard-to-find parts have shot up on resale sites.

Not surprising. PCs then didn’t restrict you from doing what you wanted to do and were just a lot more fun.

Now, computers and related are just consumption lumps. Then, you could truly use them as a “bicycle for the mind.” I miss those days even if many things are better now. These days, we wear the handcuffs and though they are golden and soft, they are still handcuffs.

Jan 08

Effect This

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Ayup.

If 500 million people get a 95% effective vaccine, then (even ignoring the complexities of what “effective” means here) that indicates that 25 million fucking people will still get symptomatically sick.

Just simple math, dipshits.

Jan 08

Dehum

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There’s a reason the humanities have been devalued and called “worthless” and we’re really seeing the results of that now.

There have been many things that occurred during the Trump administration called “unprecedented” that have happened frequently in the last 50 years, and many more labeled as such that have occurred in some form quite often in American history.

Tired of the STEM triumphalism even apart from its effects, though it is admittedly extremely entertaining to watch STEM people have a go at doing philosophy or epistemology. It’s like watching elephant seals attempt the hokey pokey.

Jan 08

Squad

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I was a military guy, and a squad (9-10 people) of the unit I was in could’ve easily got past that “security” and slaughtered 90% of everyone there within 8-10 minutes.

Those people who invaded the capitol, luckily, were utter incompetents and losers.

Most people have just no idea how devastating and effective a fully-equipped and well-trained infantry squad from a decent unit can be.

So let’s talk about infantry squads and how they work in US doctrine. Typically, they’ll be composed of two fire teams and a squad leader. The fire teams are organized such that one can provide a base of fire (suppressive fire) while the other team can conduct movement.

Each fire team will be equipped with two M-4 carbines, an M249, and an M203. The squad will also have one of its members as the designated marksman who carries an M-4 (most often) with optical sights — think sniper for this role, but integrated into the squad. Also, recall, there are two fire teams per squad so there is just a huge amount of firepower available to even a light infantry squad.

These people train together, usually socialize together, and drill constantly. They are shockingly fast and organized when given a clear objective, even against severe resistance.

And the M249 SAW is just a devastating weapon. Regular police-style bulletproof vests will not stop rounds from those, and when you have two firing at once they will chew up everything in their way in very, very short order. Their rounds will pass through even very thick walls, too. The SAWs fire around 800 rounds per minute and will make utter mincemeat of anything in front of them. Combine those with the two M203s (grenade launchers) and the other weapons availble to the squad and it’d be a very short fight.

Anyway, using standard infantry tactics against such poor security and opposition as demonstrated by the capitol police, a light infantry squad would’ve been in that building within a minute or two and murdering everything in sight.

I am sure that has not gone unnoticed by some.

Jan 08

No Coup

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Platforms Must Pay for Their Role in the Insurrection. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have spent years fomenting and enabling yesterday’s violence at the Capitol. Policymakers need to do something about it.

Agreed. Peddling all manner of nonsense and promoting it algorithmically is how these platforms make most of their $$ — particularly Facebook. We nuke PornHub, but allow Facebook to live. That makes lots of sense. Facebook is at least 50% responsible for this insurrection.

I don’t see PornHub kicking off any coups, do you?