redlion

tl;dw He wrote an auction sniper for car auctions, probably made a few million dollars for his client.

He calls them botnets, but really his programs are not dissimilar to what we use here. Fairly interesting, and this particular presentation isn't that technical. I've been watching a few of these defcon hacker talks, and this guy stood out.

What's new guys?

Good. That's exactly what we intend.

This one is the best though.

Hey guys, instead of making a new thread every time Donald Trump does something ridiculous, or conversely if he manages to do something good, I figured it would keep things neater if I just had one thread.

Here's a list of Trump's cabinet appointments. Nominations rather. Most have to be confirmed by the Senate.
Gen. "Mad Dog" Mattis for Secretary of Defense
Gen. John Kelly for Homeland Security
Gen. Michael Flynn for National Security Advisor
Scott Pruitt (an oil and gas lawyer/lobbyist) for Environmental Protection Agency
Ben Carson for Housing
Betsy DeVos (family owner of Amway, a MLM scheme) for Secretary of Education
Andrew Pudzer (CEO of a fast food chain) for Secretary of Labor
Wilbur Ross (investment banker, Rothschild Investments, vulture capitalist) for Secretary of Commerce
Tom Price for Secretary of Health (he wants to privatize medicare/medicaid)
Steven Mnuchin (investment banker, Goldman Sachs) for Secretary of the Treasury
Elaine Chao (Mitch McConnell's wife) for Secretary of Transportation
Nikki Haley as Ambassador to the UN

More to come. Notably Sec. State is still open, and veterans affairs. He put Sarah Palin forward for veterans, but the vets got kinda angry at that. Seems they're no fools.

What do you guys think of his picks? See any outsiders in there? I left out the most hilarious one, because it gives me a chance for giftastic gifs:

Guess who's got a cabinet level spot? This bitch:


Not the young one. That's her daughter.

Still reading Gulliver, per my post in the closed thread.

Book 13 of A Series Of Unfortunate Events: The End.
 
I decided to reread the series. After this book I have no idea what I'll read next. Suggestions are welcomed! I'll read anything.

I had the first couple of those books, but I never really got into them. Never reread any of them I mean. I liked the meta aspects of his 'unauthorized' biography, but not really my thing otherwise.

Try Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials. These were profoundly influential on me, more so than Harry Potter. Or, if those look a little long or intimidating, check out the Abhorsen books by Garth Nix. The first three are classic YA fiction.

Good: I found a health insurance plan that only costs me around 40 bucks a month. No deductible. Big network of doctors and hospitals.
Bad: This is probably one of the last years I'll be able to afford health insurance, barring a change in career. Trump is promising to repeal the ACA and replace it with vouchers, which will mean costs go up and coverage declines.

I'm going to have my moms look over the plan tomorrow and see if she can find how they're hiding the cost. She works in healthcare economics, so if anyone can find what they're not telling me, she can.

Or, do something with your life that will bring you on a trip to London.

I think that really it's an award for earning Dave's adoration. And for knowing if he's truly called Dave

You've already got the badger, did he need another one?
 

I'm a bit surprised by your answer. Not because you said world peace but because you clarified the ancillary problems. 

Last question: what do you think of the Fermi paradox, if you're aware of it (I'm assuming you are because you're incredibly well-read from my perspective)?

Well, in formal logic it doesn't exist as a paradox. Basically, Fermi was talking casually and people have tried to formalize the point he made (namely, "Where is everybody?") into a logical argument for the existence of ET or for a government coverup, which isn't the same thing.

My basic view is this. It's likely that intelligent life exists, has existed or will exist somewhere and at some time in our galaxy, but it's unlikely that they'd go to any lengths to visit a species that still wars with itself and can't get off their home planet.

That's assuming they know about us, have any interest in meeting other species, can travel to us, and would within the relatively short period (~5000 years) that humans have had civilization.

For all we know, they could have found out about us the first moment we made fire, and still not have visited because they live on the other side of the galaxy. Maybe two space faring species in a galaxy is a lot. Maybe two thousand is a lot. That still leaves... what, 2 billion unpopulated stars in the galaxy? Long odds of crossing paths indeed.
 
Edit: I can't stop thinking about this question now. I read a really great short story on the subject. Aaand now that I've pulled the collection it's in, I'm not at all surprised by the title, which I couldn't remember. It's called The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model by Charlie Jane Anders (read it here). The author makes the point that intelligent life destroys itself rather more commonly than our experience has led us to believe.
 

In all honesty, I would have judged you either way. There was no right answer to that question.
 
Would you rather have dirty sex with Hilary once a week for five years, or dirty sex with Trump once?

Eww. What is it with you and really unappealing sex?

I have foreseen this coming to pass.

Pay for your music please.

I do. At concerts.

Believe me, I support artists more by going to concerts and paying for merch than I possibly could buying albums. Artists get a fraction of the sale price of an album.

This is a debate for another topic really.

You guys can always come to Argentina, a third world country with a first world free healthcare for everyone  Hell, even cancer treatments are for free.

Argentina is dope, but I couldn't live anywhere outside of Buenos Aires as I don't speak Spanish fluently. I love Jorge Luis Borges though; I've read his Collected Fictions in translation.

I still don't think people will lose rights, for multiple reasons. 1. The president has checks and balances, and currently the supreme court is liberal leaning (As redlion said Kennedy was appointed by raegan but was always somewhat moderate, and is actually more consistently liberal socially now). 2. I think all of the fearmongering and hate that trump was spreading were not actually his real ideals, just a way to incite fear in a population vulnerable to manipulation--and it worked. I predict we will all be surprised at how liberal trump actually still is (since he was adamantly liberal in the 90s, loved the clintons then etc).  
 
The same things were said about Obama 8 and 4 years ago. But here we are, Earth still in orbit. No one moved to Canada then, no one will now (not for purely presidential reasons anyway)

 
3.3 muslims? Dang, what does that 1/3 of a muslim look like? Poor kid...

If I lose my healthcare I would consider moving to Canada or Ireland. Higher standard of living, less assholes.

If he starts legislating immigration on a religious or ethnic litmus test there will be constitutional challenges, and his tax plan is unrealistic even to other Republicans.

What I worry about most is how he's going to 'fix inner cities'. He's friends with Giuliani who's a believer in the debunked broken windows theory of crime reduction. Usually the words 'law and order' are bandied about and mandatory minimums go up, street stops go up, programs like stop and frisk continue.

He's already incited a good deal of the minority population to tears - when he starts coming into their neighbor hoods to gentrify them all, he's going to have race riots on his hands.

Why does everyone think the supreme court will be right leaning? It was 4-4-1 before scalia (easily the most conservative of the 9) died (leaving it 4-3-1 left leaning), so even if he is replaced by a scalia junior, the court will function the same as before. People were assuming Hillary would appoint 4 justices because the liberal block would retire while they knew they would be able to be replaced by a younger liberal. Right? Or are we assuming that lots of people are going to die in the next 4 years? I honestly loved the 4-4-1 setup, even though it did give an absurd amount of power to 1 man (the swing vote). I don't want it to lean either way. I just want balance restored.

First, Kennedy is generally the swing vote because he has moderated with age, much like Chief Justice Roberts on the ACA. But Kennedy is and has been a conservative voice.

4-3-1 is really 4-4 on any substantial issue. For social issues, perhaps not, but for economics it's pretty much dead split. Kennedy was appointed by Reagan right at the end of the cold war. He's a capitalist through and through.

Scalia will be replaced, and Ginsberg and Breyer are the two oldest and most liberal justices on the bench. They'll both be over 80 by the end of Trump's term. It's not that people think they'll die, it's that after 20-25 years on the bench and declining health, justices sometimes retire to enjoy their remaining health, as you say. I don't think all four of the liberal arm would retire in the same term, but one or two of the older ones might.

Bush Jr. stuffed the bench with some really young guys during his term. Alito is an idiot, Roberts is alright but quite young for the job. Until he showed he had a conscious with the ACA ruling, I thought it was insane to replace Rehnquist with some teeny bopper Roberts, but he's turned out more moderate than his bush-appointed colleague.

That would be easy if people weren't literally afraid of losing their rights.

And my doctor/prescription coverage.

And my house cleaner. Definitely not legal immigrants.

Also, I think my investments are now worth a total of two dog shits and a red herring.

Lehmans terms please.

It's hard to generalize because parties vary from country to country. But I'll try.

The attributes common to most populist parties (imo) are:
- immigration with a nativist twist (a la Brexit)
- isolationist or realignment of foreign allies
- anger at the perceived 'elites' (which usually means people with college educations)
- claim to represent the people more than other elected parties

While neocons, the other prevalent brand of right-wing party usually share these:
- emphasis on market deregulation and free trade
- corporate welfare for favored firms, agriculture usually benefits a lot
- evangelical view of life (question morality of abortion, doctor assisted suicide, drugs, etc)
- view the active spread of democracy by soft and hard power a legitimate goal

So the paradigm shift comes from the kinds of people that align with these two strains of ideology.

People with a college degree usually shy away from populists, while that's not the case for conservatives. Likewise people of color and blue collar workers usually shy away from neocons because they perceive free trade to harm working class jobs.

So the voter base shifts. The alternative to the neocons came from within the GOP this time instead of the democrats.

I'm so scared. For the first time in my life, I'm physically scared for my safety as a disabled human being. Trump presidency denies my humanity, and the humanity of minorities. How the fuck did we get here?

Tell me about it. I'm going to lose my healthcare.

Just become a farmer and come to Canada.

I just might. I think that's better than being on the left in a Trump America. They'll be rounding us up for internment camps, or passing laws that criminalize eating any meat but Trump steaks. Putin's best friend is becoming President of the United States - what a frightening world power scenario.

Well hello there

Figured I'd come chat to my international friends because my country is looking less and less habitable.