@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

wrog

@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net

genuine Internet Old Fart (if you're under 40, I have email that's older than you are).
sometime Democratic activist/party-hack & professional clueless, middle-aged white guy. He/him.
Math/computer-science degrees + physics courses. Music theorist by marriage.
Seattle area resident; orig. from New Jersey. Former Microsoft.
#LambdaMOO #perl #scheme #AlgebraicTopology #concurrency #Princeton #Cambridge #Stanford #autism #AbsolutePitch #RomanHistory #BoardGames #atheist #piano #microtonal

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feoh, to random

I wonder if American society would de-polarize and actually get better if all the people addicted to the outrage machine that our media has become just... Stopped.

Stopped buying newspapers. Watching CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Effectively pulled the plug?

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@TruthSandwich @feoh

I like how wanting stricter banking regulations and actual public healthcare (like the rest of the civilized world) has somehow become "radical left" --

never mind the only actual leftist I know who holds elective office, Kshama Sawant, sits on the Seattle City Council on the wrong end of a whole lot of 8-1 votes, and is not in danger of having a state-wide, let alone a national career anytime soon. (She also has zero use for the Democratic Party).

MSNBC is not and has never been a leftwing version of Fox. The owners are still conservative (they kept Joe Scarborough long after his sell-date); they're just smarter ones who understand the profit in keeping Rachel Maddow on the air.

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@TruthSandwich @feoh

Proof of what? And where did you post it?

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@TruthSandwich @feoh

I did read it. Let's go through it:

(1) Chris Hayes: "It was always apparent who the [DNC folks] favored"

Where is he saying the primaries were rigged?

(It is in fact, quite hard to rig a primary. There are, however, any number of ways to fuck up a CAUCUS. I know this because I have personally run caucuses.)

And there's no question the DNC folks favored Hillary and pulled out every stop they could to help her. The leaked emails were real emails.

But also you can see this in the front-loading of the 2016 primary schedule and the scheduling of the debates (that there were so few of them). There were also any number of issues involving access to VoteBuilder (the DNC's voter-outreach database).

1/n

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@TruthSandwich @feoh

But administration of primaries and caucuses is up to the individual state parties; DNC only sets the national rules.

In WA state, I can state for a fact that the vast majority of party officers at the state and local levels favored Hillary, but they were scrupulous about following the rules (there were enough Sanders supporters, they had to).

But WA was one of the few places that Sanders won (overwhelmingly); it's not hard to imagine other caucus states screwing things up, given the chance; (e.g., there were any number of hair-raising stories coming out of Nevada, a state with far less caucus experience, re dirty tricks by the Clinton campaign and local party officials in collusion with them).

2/n

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@TruthSandwich @feoh

(2a) Chris Hayes: "libertarians and the left"

Chris Hayes evidently does not understand Libertarianism (the origins of the LP and where their support actually comes from), but that's not a radical left position, that's a media-ignorance position.

(2b) "make the US more like Denmark"

Denmark is a capitalist society with full private property rights, pretty much like the US except they have higher marginal income tax rates, VAT instead of sales tax, stronger unions, public healthcare, and more regulation of firearms.

What exactly is radical about this?

3/n

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@TruthSandwich @feoh

(3)
"Trump is going to be to the left of Hillary on a bunch of issues" is NOT the same as "Trump is to Clinton’s left".

Trump was spouting all sorts of random noise. Given that Clinton was a conservative Democrat (the most conservative of the Democrats running), it was inevitable that he'd say stuff that was to her left (whether or not he actually meant it). Exhibit A would be his grand plans to resurrect Big Auto via government programs.

And it's pretty well documented that he won in Michigan and Pennsylvania because enough people believed him on the economic populist stuff and Clinton didn't do anything to counter him.

4/n (n=4 for now)

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@TruthSandwich @feoh

Just to provide some perspective here, Sawant has stated on any number of occasions that she wants to expropriate Boeing -- just fucking nationalize it; seize the plants and the properties and place them under worker/union control.

That is what an actual Socialist / extreme-leftist looks like.

(Sawant's council district is Rainier Valley and the Central District, arguably the economically worst-off parts of the city, the folks who have the least to lose. Surprise.)

5/n

juddlegum, to random
@juddlegum@journa.host avatar

The audience for the CNN townhall w/Trump will be 400 Republicans & GOP-leaning independents

Allowing Trump to appear in front of an audience exclusively comprised of people who are likely sympathetic to Trump -- and then turn over the questions to that group -- is irresponsible

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@juddlegum
@spocko

So... do we know who's bought the ad time?

ColinTheMathmo, to random
@ColinTheMathmo@mathstodon.xyz avatar

If something is not 'unanimous', does that mean that it is 'animous'?

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@ColinTheMathmo

'unanimous' is animous only once

(as opposed to 'bianimous' or 'trianimous')

rbreich, to random
@rbreich@masto.ai avatar

RT @rbreich
My advice to Joe Biden on the debt ceiling: Ignore McCarthy and the Republican radicals.

Mr. President, your oath to uphold the Constitution takes precedence. As the supreme law of the land, the Constitution has greater weight than the debt ceiling.

video/mp4

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@rbreich

Just mint the platinum coin already.

jimcarroll, to random
@jimcarroll@futurist.info avatar

I've got my image for my Daily Inspiration tomorrow morning.

My wife was none too amused when I told her that we need to walk in the rain to the spot where I saw the graffiti which started the thought in my mind.

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@jimcarroll

what is this wall surrounding (evidently some place that somebody wants people to keep out of, but what)?

wrog, to random
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

looking over an rant I started writing n months ago (before ChatGPT hit the fan) that I stupidly shelved (and so missed out on having something timely),

seeing myself pointing out that AI is actually the second biggest crank magnet/lightningrod in Computer Science,

the 1st being (drumroll)

Nanotechnology

(i.e, for the AGI people, substitute Eric Drexler and all the folks worried about the "gray goo" singularity)

... and now I'm all wondering when the second shoe is going to drop.

mcnees, to random
@mcnees@mastodon.social avatar

A neat bit of physics history.

Lord Kelvin delivered the lecture "Nineteenth-Century Clouds over the Dynamical Theory of Heat and Light” to the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1900. He spelled out two major problems that 19th century physics seemed unable to address.

Fixing these problems required radical new ideas, and eventually lead to the pillars of 20th century physics: special relativity and quantum mechanics.

You can read the lecture here: https://archive.org/details/londonedinburgh621901lond/page/n4/mode/2up

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@mcnees

I believe Kelvin is also the person people like to quote as saying (~1900) that heavier-than-air flight will always be impossible, when what he actually said was that steam power would never be able to do it (since one could never get the power/mass ratio high enough), an observation that remains true to this day (*)

(*) I suppose it's possible we'll develop some kind of magic lightweight ceramic that finally makes the featherweight steam engine possible, but it still hasn't happened yet (most likely since nobody's actually been working on it and there isn't a whole lot of reason to).

feoh, to random

@arclight Totally love the "ehabilitator of unloved FORTRAN" in your profile! I honestly kinda hate how much I hate FORTRAN :) I know it has almost nothing to do with the language, as I know there's a TON of useful code out there in it. It's about the fact that the man who taught the class in college was BORED and had notes that were so old the pages were literally disintegrating they were so yellowed :) Also the fixed column requirements kinda rubbed me the wrong way :)

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@scruss @feoh @arclight

that and much of the other stupid shit in Fortran went away in Fortran 77.

Taweret, to random

everyone is more at ease knowing everyone around them is watching them like hawks waiting to judge them if they open their napkins incorrectly

https://youtu.be/8UUbYse9zWg

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@moira @Taweret

serve a basket of oranges, unpeeled. offer a knife and fork.

Next course: Spaghetti!

ColinTheMathmo, to random
@ColinTheMathmo@mathstodon.xyz avatar

The number of milliseconds in a day: 5^5.4^4.3^3.2^2.1^1

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@ColinTheMathmo

uhh. I'm assuming you meant
5^54^43^32^21^1

It definitely doesn't work with decimal points.

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@ColinTheMathmo @gjm

I've seen the centered dot all the time, but never a decimal point. Is this a UK thing?

moira, to random
@moira@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

I just realised that @TexasObserver outlasted Tucker Carlson xD

Anyway you did a great job of saving them from bankruptcy, now's the time to sustain so they can keep going and not have to do that shit again.

Saddle up! :D

https://texasobserver.social/users/gabrielarana/statuses/110255065302333341

eta pls boost ty ^_^

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@moira @TexasObserver

"outlasted"

We don't know, yet. In fact, I suspect TC will be back (somewhere) in the not too distant future; he hasn't quite gotten the Shovel Through the Head that he badly needs

moira, to random
@moira@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

WHELP let's try 750 characters.

SORRY THIS TOOT IS STUPID

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wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@moira
hmm. I think what I'd actually like is to be able to do the "Read More..." thing (basically the analog of ye olde LJ Cut Tag in the new AP/Fediverse world)

-- that some posters seem to be able to do but apparently stock Mastodon doesn't allow (or at least I haven't found it in the UI)? --

so that I'm not having to manually create long threads for the occasional response that needs to be long (and that I occasionally screw up).

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

@moira

we should ask @ColinTheMathmo

since Mathstodon is where I see people doing this (the "Read More..." thing). I.e., are they just using special clients or does mathstodon have some special local hack or is there an easy server plugin out there?

(... also curious how much overhead is incurred in enabling that LaTeX rendering you do)

mattblaze, to random
@mattblaze@federate.social avatar

Several people calling me naive for suggesting that election security might be improving.

I’ve been working on voting for over 20 years. Compared with when I started, we’ve made phenomenal progress. Paperless DREs are all but extinct. We’ve developed formal requirements like software independence, with practical techniques for achieving them (such as RLAs). Officials and even vendors no longer dismiss security concerns out of hand.

Still work to do, but my experience has led me to optimism.

wrog,
@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net avatar

Calling @Chartodon

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