sylver_dragon

Are you really worried about the case where a thief steals the hard drive but not the rest of the computer?

Even if the thief steals the entire computer, BitLocker/LUKS and SecureBoot provide a reasonable level of protection against data theft. Yes, the drive (or bits of it anyway) are automatically decrypted (the whole drive is never decrypted, just the data requested by the OS). However, it still prevents the attacker from accessing that data outside the intended operating system, which makes data theft much harder. An attacker would also need a valid account to login to the system to start accessing data. It’s not an insurmountable hurdle, but it does mean that just having the computer isn’t the same as having the data.

Without encryption, once a thief has the computer, they have the data. They don’t need a valid account to access the data and they can even boot into a tool to reset passwords on the primary OS and start using it. Last I checked, chntpw still works with Windows 11. That sort of thing fails with encryption, even with TPM only. The TPM will not release the encryption key to an OS if SecureBoot fails. Granted, there is the YellowKey backdoor, but that was probably Microsoft giving the FBI a helping hand. But, that falls outside the intended design.

They are getting educated on just how bad of a choice Trump was.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that China managed to dump voter information. State governments have been pretty bad at security for a long time. The question on that is, “so what?” Sure, it sucks to have your data get siphoned off to yet another database. But, unless you are a significant target for blackmail or other high level operations, there’s not much China is going to do with it. It’s not really useful for election fraud.

And by “crash and burn”, it seems they got asked questions which should matter, but probably won’t when it’s time for the Senate to vote.

Trump will never resign. I’m convinced he fully believes his own bullshit and would do everything he can to cling to power. Assuming he makes it to January 2029, I fully expect some sort of tantrum as he tries to hang onto power.

But the idea of the GOP waiting until August and then dragging him behind the woodshed is an interesting thought. They get Vance to end the Iran War and look like a responsible adult after the toddler Trump and maybe ameliorate any blue wave a bit.

For all the desire to say, “good riddance to bad rubbish”, this does create an electoral problem for Dems in the Senate. And I can’t help but wonder if the GOP found something to buy him off with.

If the Dems are going to have any shot at taking control of the Senate this cycle and having some power to check the worst excesses of Trump, they need every seat they can get. Fetterman going officially Nazi means the Dems are going to have to win all the close races and even some not so close ones. It would be hilarious to see Texas go blue. But, as poor a candidate as Paxton is. And even with Talarico polling a slight lead, my money is on Texas being a disappointment for Dems again.

What is going on in the Middle Eastern countries is horrific and it really does get far less attention than it should. At the same time, it does pale in comparison to the scale and scope of the slave trade in the Americas. The US in particular also demonstrated an amazing level of hypocrisy in both having and keeping slavery for so long. When your entire country is premised on the phrase:

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.

And then you turn around and have slaves and institutionalize that they only count as 3/5 of a person. And also have a rebellion fighting to keep those slaves. It rather sticks out.

All that said. The fact that we treat modern dictatorships and slavers like our closest friends is utterly reprehensible. I really look forward to the day we can shift most energy production and transportation off fossil fuels. Those dictators will find themselves without friends and a ready source of wealth.

I would be more surprised if countries like Russia, Iran, and the DPRK didn’t have plans to try and interfere in US elections. Now, can he provide evidence that those plans actually went into effect and had a material outcome on the election? Because that’s what really matters. I can make elaborate plans to create cold fusion. But small issues like entropy mean those plans don’t count for shit.

Me: Copilot, what’s using up all my system resources?
Copilot: Me. The answer is me.

The Strait is open. However, the weather forecast calls for clear skies with a chance of explosive drones. And, I suspect insurers are telling their clients that transiting the Strait is currently not covered.

He absolutely needs to drop out.

If he doesn’t, it’s going to be interesting to see how many people show up to say “vote Blue, no matter who” when it comes time for the general elections. This has always been the problem with that mentality, it can lead to being forced to vote for some pretty odious people.

The downside in this is that his replacement will be chosen by the Democratic Party, which likely means Mills will get the spot. Or at least, someone who is calling for far less progressive positions. Sure, they will still be a damn sight better than Collins. But, between this scandal and a possible lack of enthusiasm, Collins may yet again prove to be the cockroach of politics and win another Senate term in a fairly blue Maine.

Ya, this seems like a case of folks going nuts over anything done by the Trump Administration. The fact is that US Presidents have been using helicopter travel from the White House for a long time and will continue with that going forward. Having a dedicated landing pad is likely better and safer. Sure, it’ll be bit of an eyesore, but the White House is supposed to be a functional home for the head of state, it’s going to have a few nods to functionality.

Slavery is hardly new, novel or confined to a single group of people. Slavery has been pretty common through out human history. So much so that we have archeological evidence of it back to Sumer. The real answer to someone bringing up slavery in other contexts is, “so what?” Yes, some native American tribes had slaves, that does not less the impact that slavery had on African people kidnapped and dragged to the Americas as slaves. Nor does it lessen the impact that a century of discrimination has wrought on Black Americans.

Honestly, it sounds like you have fallen into the Myth of the Noble Savage. Humans suck, we have always sucked, and that has been true across cultures. Every once in a while, we figure out how to suck less. But that tends to be rare, fragile and fleeting. Also, it’s often a lie and we just hide our suckage.

Wow, never thought I would be nodding along as I read the crap dribbling out of Steve Brannon’s mouth. But, the GOP’s only hope is people who are so ignorant of reality that they can’t see the obvious lies right in front of them.

Of course, one should never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I could certainly see the DNC sorting out a way to fuck over more populist candidates, handing seats to the GOP.

Good luck with that. At the very least, he’s trying to do it the Constitutional way, via an Amendment to repeal the 17th Amendment. But considering the high hurdles set in front of that process, I doubt this is going anywhere.

Translation: Microslop is going to start slopping out AI slop and hope that gamers eat it up like good little piggies.

The base is taking about Iran and not the Epstein files. I’d say Trump’s done a fine job fooling his base.

When you get to doing division and multiplication, it can make sense to look at what is being done to what and see if operations cancel out or simplify. E.g. if you are multiplying by 6 and dividing by 2 and bother operations are going to affect the same number/group/etc. there is no need to do both operations, you just multiply by 3 since that’s ultimately what you are doing. Really, any place you can simplify operations, do that. Same goes for addition/subtraction. The Commutative Property is really handy for making hard math easier.

Do any of you, living in the US, vote?

Yup, everyone does. If someone chooses not to vote, they have cast a voted for “I don’t care”. And have decided to let everyone else choose for them. They may not like any of the choices, but politics has always been “the art of the possible”. If they want perfect solutions, they need to start their own dictatorship. If they won’t or can’t do that, voting is the only bit of control they’re going to get. And that means some type of compromise with everyone else in society. It’s a terrible system, but history hasn’t provided a lot of better examples to follow. Don’t like the system, change it. And unless you have the force of arms to do it the violent way (and it’s really unlikely you do), you’re only real option is to do it via the soap box and ballot box.

Would you ever consider voting DSA/Socially democratic[?]

Sure, though not any time soon. One of the things I’d like to change about our system is the First Past the Post nature of elections. But, until that happens, the math just doesn’t work in most elections. I vote in primaries and vote for the options who most closely match my views in those. But, come the general elections (especially at the federal level), third parties are basically DOA. I’d rather vote “not Nazi” than sit on my thumbs and watch “Nazi” coast to victory because I’m stuck letting “perfect” be the enemy of “not a fucking Nazi”. Should the DSA reach a point that they aren’t an “also ran” in an election I’m voting on, sure I’d probably vote for them.

Would you ever vote for someone like Trump just to make things intentionally worse in the hopes of sparking off a revolution?

Well, it hasn’t happened with Trump. And looking at history, I really don’t think revolutions are such the clean and wonderful things people in online forums like to make them out to be. History provides lots of example of revolutions ending up with groups like the Taliban in charge and basically none ending up as egalitarian utopias.

Not sure if I will ever vote again at this point

That’s your choice, but you’ve made the choice to let other people decide your government. You can sit on the sidelines and stew in your own smugness. But, no one cares. And no one will ever care about your opinions if you’re not willing to enter the political milieu and fight for them.

The same place they came from.