Sure they are. It's just that notifications are evil too.
katja
joined 1 year ago
So that's were the inspiration for Ford Prefect came from.
Streak is to run naked publically Egg is to throw eggs at something Moon is to show your butt publically And toilet paper is to throw toilet paper around someone's house usually. If that happens to you and you have concrete tiles on the roof, get it off before it rains. Just saying.
Connections
Puzzle #438
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Meh.
Pure skill, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Wordle 1 159 4/6
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Bit lucky on that last guess, but I was thinking about exactly that just before, so my mind went there automagically. Skill? ESP? Coincidence? Dumb luck? YOU be the judge. My personal guess is divine guidance. I am the golden toad, chosen by a god to spread the good word. To find out the good word, solve the puzzle.
Connections
Puzzle #434
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Not my best work to be sure, but at least I got it in the end.
As others has commented as well, this is just ripples. Trump is so thoroughly corrupt and bought this doesn't even register. If you're a strong man dictator, you don't even have to buy him, he's free to play. I think what the money is starting to realize is that he won't reliably stay bought and is unpredictable because of it. Even Putin had to brake the spy manual rules and very visibly have the handlers meet him much more frequently and openly for such a high visibility asset. But as this is Trump, the rules do not apply.
As for the money, they aren't really used to this way of operating and since it is literally impossible to keep Trump on script they get very nervous about what he'll say if they get on his bad side or even by accident through his less than coherent ramblings. It is not easy dealing with a petulant, half senile old crook with the demeanor and attention span of a coked up five year old that always gets his way. Everyone with half a brain that have spent time with him knows this. The look on that reporters' face when he was handed that crayon painting tells the whole story. I guess the people that voted for him get that look all the time and believe it is something positive? They mistake a tired "sure, buddy, whatever you say" as actual agreement?
What is positive is that the money seem to have gotten the message by now and they are slowly edging away from Trump. Without being too obvious, of course, bets needs to be hedged. The number of news pieces without unabashedly obvious Trump/Republican spin has slowly increased lately. This has nothing to do with any reporters suddenly growing a brain of course, it is all mandated from above. The money got the message that Trump is bad for business and they are acting on it.
That's my take and I'm not known for having a positive outlook on current events. Still very much not a fan of what the atrocity helpers of the dems are doing. It is arguably even worse when you consider that they aren't halfwits like Trump and presumably actually know what they are doing and still aid an actual fucking genocide that wouldn't even be possible without US help. Despicable.
Connections
Puzzle #433
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This is a sure sign that the NSA have been reading everything encrypted with standard cryptos for quite some time but they see that the opposition (China in this case) is showing signs of catching up. Can't have that, even if it means losing capability for themselves. They have other ways in so the drop in capability is not as big as one would think.
I personally wouldn't trust anything but one time cryptos to be safe and I don't trust any algorithm from that source to be safe. It certainly should be and it is very much in their and our interest to make sure that it is, but the possibility that they are trying to eat the cake and pull a fast one is frighteningly far from zero. It would be monumentally stupid to try because shit like that always gets out and that would jeopardize every system in the world. Stupid isn't exactly in short supply these days.
Connections
Puzzle #430
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TL;DR: Capitalism sucks.
So that was a bit of a depressive read. Can't say I'm really surprised as I grew up in the 70's and was around to see how Ruhr in Germany spew out enough sulfur to poison the lakes even in the Nordics.
The ruthless effectiveness of the suppression of any opposition is what gets me about all this and that is the major difference about how the debate was back then. I'm not saying that the perpetrators were any better back then, it's that they get away with methods and arguments that simply wouldn't fly in the 70's. The press would have had a field day taking down someone trying to lie or suppress to the extent they get away with today. More often anyway, not saying it was perfect in any way shape or form, but the press had more freedom and was actually feared because they could make a difference and was much freer to do so. The reliance on ad money instead of subscribers is a large part of what killed the free press. You don't bite the hand that feeds you. Media owners do and did obviously play a large part on what stories and spin they allow, but if the spin was too blatant, competing media would be oh so happy to point that out and shame them for it. This does not happen today because all media that counts is owned by a small click of people with the same interests and goals.
Any left leaning media have had a much tougher time switching to a mainly ad based revenue streams because the ones buying ads have an interest in keeping the status quo and why would they buy ads in media that works against their interests? There are basically no left leaning mainstream media outlets left, even in the paradise on earth that is the EU, and for a smaller outfit it is basically impossible to get a dissenting view heard.
*This comes from a European perspective, where the difference is more pronounced between then and now, but the difference is there for US media too, albeit to a lesser degree. There were still large outlets with a bit of a backbone willing to run a story that was embarrassing to or was contrary to the wishes of powerful people back then. Not so today but for slightly different reasons in the US.
*By left in this post I mean European left, not the hard right Democrats that the US define as left.