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Old 08-09-2018, 09:59 PM   #4026
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The military is absolutely concerned with an arms race, but not about satellite maintenance - it's all about AI. The belief is that private AI efforts like NVIDIA or Google's DeepMind are not that far ahead of open source AI projects, while China/Russia are considerably ahead in that department.

I personally and skeptical of this just because of how inferior Baidu is to Google in its search algorithm department (a far more basic application of database analyzation) but Baidu also doesn't give true results due to the pay-for-ranking model and censorship imposed by the PRC. But the people I talked to, while not technical, were very intelligent and well-read, and believed the US was vastly behind.

I can vouch that in my experience the US government and by extension the intelligence department is probably behind. The government moves very slowly, and when it comes to technology which moves incredibly quickly and is profit-motivated, there is going to be the biggest gulf. It's unlikely the US government has the capability to match more autocratic regimes that can use force or force of economics to motivate such interests. Look at how much the FBI struggled to crack the iPhone's security. PRISM was advanced for its time, but only because the companies that volunteered for it did so with the intent to use the research they did for the government to build the foundation for the data mine technology we all hate today. If you're AT&T, and you want to get into targeting advertisements and biometric measurement, there's nothing better than having the US government pay you to violate your own TOS and build the foundation for your new business model.

Stuff like Starship Troopers or orbital super weapons were explicitly shut down in the briefings I heard. None of the senior military think this is practical or possible. There isn't a need for such a thing right now. But, say the GPS system is taken offline tomorrow and the chaos that would ensue from all the services that rely on it to work. Or if you take out DirecTV's satellites, that causes a mass of cancellations which will significantly hurt a critical company to US stability (AT&T).

Right now, satellites were protected due to their geography and the fact that you needed nation-sized resources to reach them. Now we have individuals, corporations or families who have wealth greater than some countries. Earth's orbit may be 32,000 miles away but it's never been closer than it is today. And so the time has come to protect and maintain those assets.
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Old 10-06-2018, 03:04 PM   #4027
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So Kavanaugh has been confirmed, concluding a horrific series of events that revealed huge schisms in Democratic Party, 50-48.

If you're a progressive or liberal, I think you should start crying right now. Kavanaugh himself isn't a horseman of the apocalypse but the broader implications of this victory are morose.
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Old 10-06-2018, 05:18 PM   #4028
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So Kavanaugh has been confirmed, concluding a horrific series of events that revealed huge schisms in Democratic Party, 50-48.

If you're a progressive or liberal, I think you should start crying right now. Kavanaugh himself isn't a horseman of the apocalypse but the broader implications of this victory are morose.
It isn't really about left vs. right at this point. The man has flat out stated he thinks net neutrality has got to go. If California vs. FCC ends up going to court, which it will, and this Supreme Court rules in favor of Ajit Pai's FCC, you and every other self-identified conservative who spends over half of his free time online can kiss his sorry Internet routine good-bye and wave a tepid hello at a life not revisited since 1994. Load up your favorite copy of TIE Fighter, Doppel, 'cause you're going to need it.
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Old 10-08-2018, 08:57 PM   #4029
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regardless of Dr. Ford, Kavanaugh has no business sitiing on the SCOTUS and again ignoring the entire wall of black smoke he waved through with Dr. Ford at the end his judicial history shows it plenty. This man, much like Trump, is not Republican. They're a through-and-through corporatist.
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Old 11-03-2018, 01:01 PM   #4030
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Voted early yesterday. Cynical regarding practical effect, but meh. Principal of the matter and all that.

I tried to do it on Thursday first. But the line was 1˝ grocery aisles long. 90%+ senior citizens. I had to be at work in an hour so that was a no-go. Returned the next day to a line 2/3 of one grocery aisle long. The wait was about seventy minutes between when I got in line and when I got to vote. Apparently it would have been half that time, but they lost one of two machines they were using, so they had to call the county office. By the time I got to vote, there were four or five machines in working order.

The day I voted, I would say it was 80% senior citizens, 10% people 40-60, and 10% people 39 and under. Pretty abysmal turnout of young voters. That stated, hopefully they either came already, will come later, or are planning to vote on Election Day proper. We'll see! ^^;;
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Old 11-03-2018, 10:24 PM   #4031
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Early voting in Maryland ended this Thursday (and all the absentee deadlines passed in October lol), so I'm going to be going home after my singular 8:30 AM class on Monday so that I can wake up dark and early on Election Day proper to get to the polls before I have class at 11 on Tuesday. Yeet?
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Old 11-06-2018, 08:25 AM   #4032
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There was hardly anyone at the voting station but it was also 8 in the morning and really wet out.

Someone was out there in support of Stefanowski tho. Smfh
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Old 11-06-2018, 08:56 AM   #4033
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Someone on Reddit reports, "NPR saying this might be the first midterm with 50% turnout since 1914." I'm not surprised. But still, think about that.
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Old 11-06-2018, 03:17 PM   #4034
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Just got back from voting. This is also a special one for me because my dad voted for the first time ever. This past summer he passed his U.S. Citizenship exam and registered to vote right after being sworn in. I basically only told him how the ballots worked and he made all his own decisions.

He also turned 80 just a few weeks ago- born during WW2, raised in Communist China, kicked out of China to Macau, snuck into Hong Kong, then came to America with my mom. He's had a pretty wild ride and I'm very proud of him coming all this way.
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Old 11-06-2018, 10:34 PM   #4035
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>Nate Silver said Indiana's Democratic Senator had odds of 7:3 of holding onto his seat
>current tally of votes (70% counted so far) says Republican 54%, Democrat 42%

Welp.
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Old 11-06-2018, 11:59 PM   #4036
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I hope the markets respond positively to the Republicans holding on to the Senate. Republican control of the Senate, Presidency and Supreme Court will cockblock any threatening policies.

The wall isn't happening, not that anyone really wanted it anyway. At least not for this term.
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Old 12-22-2018, 09:38 PM   #4037
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So what do you ladies and gents think of Trumps decision to pull out of Syria?
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Old 03-26-2019, 12:12 AM   #4038
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So Barr has exonerated Trump, and the Mueller report didn't find enough information to indict him.

This strange circus act continues, however. Intuition and Trump's behaviour in office suggest he's not in collusion with foreign powers, though he definitely idolizes them for their strong arm governance. But why he went to such an extent to interfere with the investigation seems more puzzling.

My only conclusion is he was trying to protect those who had shown him service in the past - good ol' nepotism, but it was probably not even that. The Democrats hate him and have lost all composure and restraint in trying to thwart him. I guess the Russian thing was supposed to be karmic payback for the Hillary email thing.

Along with Concept's brief on Brexit, the world continues to turn and inch ever closer to the sun.
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Old 03-26-2019, 12:06 PM   #4039
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The whole thing doesn't really make sense or add up to me.

Barr's claim is:

Quote:
The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
What puzzles me about this is that there were a great many credible allegations of collusion between very prominent members of the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort as the most obvious example. Mueller specifically charged Manafort with sharing polling data with the Russian government, which was behind the IRA and other entities mentioned by Barr in his summary.

I don't really understand how Mueller/Barr can say "there was no coordination or collusion between anyone associated with the Trump campaign and Russian election interference efforts," when Manafort has already been charged with coordination and collusion with Russian election interference efforts.

Does Manafort not count? Is Barr deliberately publishing a misleading summary and analysis, and if so, why? Were the allegations against Manafort concluded to be false? How does Trump himself fit into this - what did he do and why? The Barr report is confusing and distressing not because it says "sorry folks, nothing else happened" - it says "Sorry folks, nothing EVER happened."
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Old 03-26-2019, 12:09 PM   #4040
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From what I'm aware of the full Mueller report was not released to the public which has got some people up in arms because Barr is so deep in Trump's pocket he might as well be inside the bottom cuffs of his pants so their summary basically carries no water with a large number of the people who actually care enough.

I won't be disappointed if Trump is still in line regardless but honestly I'm convinced he's not (ie he's guilty of something, impeachable or not) for the sole reason that if he were innocent the fact that he should have nothing to hide would mean he should have no reason whatsoever to make such a big deal out of getting in the way like he did the entire time this went on. He believed an investigation completely aimed at guilty parties was targeting him, for all appearances, which says enough for me. If that would be a false positive, the man needs a serious assessment of his ability to function as a President because holy fuck.

At the end of the day though Mueller's whole deal was to pin down whoever actually broke the law regardless of whether or not Trump numbered among them.
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Old 03-27-2019, 04:55 AM   #4041
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There's no reason to release the entire Mueller report to the public except as a pandering move to this era's lust for leaks and sensationalism. Keeping it confidential is SOP in this situation, as it was with the report done on Nixon back in the day.

I don't think Barr is corrupt either, though what Shuckle says does hold true. We'll have to wait a little longer for a longer breakdown of the contents.

I need to remind everyone though that ultimately, what is being spun as Russian interference is just as easily manufactured by 4chan as it was by a authoritarian Eastern European regime:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
[Mueller's] report confirmed that Russia had attempted to interfere in the election in two ways: disinformation and social media campaigns, and computer hacking and strategic release of information.

The clandestine influence campaign involved the Internet Research Agency "troll farm" creating thousands of social media accounts that impersonated Americans supporting radical groups, planning and promoting rallies, and reached millions of social media users between 2013 and 2017. According to criminal indictments by the Special Counsel, those messages and activities "spread distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general", for example by discouraging African Americans from voting or by motivating conservative voters wary of Trump.

Additionally, hackers affiliated with the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) penetrated computer systems of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and Clinton campaign officials, notably chairman John Podesta. Tens of thousands of private emails and attachments were released to the public during the final months of the campaign, via DCLeaks, Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks. The exposed information revealed internal bias against Clinton's primary challenger Bernie Sanders, which led to the resignation of the DNC chair and lukewarm backing of Clinton by Sanders supporters.
Does it really strike anyone as likely that Trump's campaign crew would collude with internet trolls, directly? I find it highly unlikely it's a calculated conspiracy and more some of Trump's more corrupt staff members made clumsy and haphazard attempts to cozy up to the ambassadors, as was the case with Manaford and Gates.

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I won't be disappointed if Trump is still in line regardless but honestly I'm convinced he's not (ie he's guilty of something, impeachable or not) for the sole reason that if he were innocent the fact that he should have nothing to hide would mean he should have no reason whatsoever to make such a big deal out of getting in the way like he did the entire time this went on. He believed an investigation completely aimed at guilty parties was targeting him, for all appearances, which says enough for me. If that would be a false positive, the man needs a serious assessment of his ability to function as a President because holy fuck.
Yeah his behaviour makes zero sense. Although, this errant behaviour is hardly unique to the Russian interference controversy; Trump acts weird and impulsive everywhere. So maybe this is what he's really like all the time.
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Old 03-29-2019, 07:02 PM   #4042
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After near complete radio silence from the Trump administration after the news broke about Brunei, especially given Trump's proclamation about decriminalizing LBG people worldwide and the condemnation of Venezuela for its dictator, I am pleased to inform you that the (alt)right people are pressuring the right politician for their statement of condemnation of Brunei:

Ilhan Omar.






I really need a fucking drink
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Old 06-24-2019, 05:29 AM   #4043
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Probably the most disgusting headline I've ever seen in my life.

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Originally Posted by Nymag
68 Minutes With Marianne Williamson The self-help guru makes a case for a recovery presidency — and sees “both sides” on vaccines.
There are some truly awful people running for office now. Here we have a Democrat so thirsty, she's going to capitulate to Republicans on vaccine autism.

This is problematic no matter how you slice it. Either this woman has no morals or restraint, or she's a nutter butter.
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Old 06-24-2019, 06:40 AM   #4044
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When was mutual exclusivity implied?
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Old 07-24-2019, 04:33 PM   #4045
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Maybe phoopes can give some insight into this...this story seemed way to bizarre to be real.

I'll just link it:

https://6abc.com/education/school-de...bills/5413862/

It sounds to me like the children are being punished because the district wants to leverage the debt to punish the parents...which is bizarre. What school district has the power to do that?
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Old 07-27-2019, 09:32 AM   #4046
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None of them do.

The fact is, they wanted to try to use a paper tiger to cow poor people who didn't know any better into paying up. It's basically legal extortion.
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Old 09-26-2019, 04:03 AM   #4047
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Here's something of a tl;dr on the Trump impeachment.

Impeaching a president with just a little more than a year in office is incredibly stupid and a waste of time. By the time Trump would be convicted, he'd be out of office and the process moot. Impeachment has been historically used to derail a president in his second term as damage control for failing to defeat him in the election, derailing his ability to control the government in a term where he isn't beholden to election pressure.

Pelosi wanted to keep impeachment as a last resort, but what Trump found out about Biden - that he used his VP privilege to install his son in Ukraine and reap millions - would potentially destroy Biden's campaign now that he's emerged as the preferred Democratic nominee. Sanders and Warren are not electable, so the Democrats cannot let Biden be character assassinated.

In a sense, if Trump were more neutral and less obviously bigoted, and Biden were not a potential challenger for his presidency, his investigation into Biden's corruption would be totally legitimate. If Trump didn't have the narrative of destroying Obama's legacy, few people would stand in his way. But Trump obviously wasn't motivated by justice here, and Pelosi was bankrolling on the idea of knocking out Trump legitimately.

Her having to use impeachment is on face value alarming for Trump supporters, but it's really a last resort for Pelosi, because without Biden the Democrats have no way to oppose Trump next year. So her hand was forced, and amidst the impeachment the Democrats are going to do everything possible to prevent Trump for finding evidence of the Biden corruption. Because if he does find hard evidence, Biden is dead and Trump wins by default against literally anyone.
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Old 09-26-2019, 01:01 PM   #4048
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honestly going to kind of agree that bringing up impeachment now is odd timing

However, strongly disagree with your assessment that Bernie/Warren are unelectable. This is a FOX News Poll from about a week ago:
Spoiler: show



Considering the source, this is probably more biased towards Trump if anything and has him being beaten by Biden, Sanders, Warren, and even Harris as of now. Based off what I've seen this has been a trend for awhile. Now I get it, last time the polls really favored Hillary and she ended up losing, but I think the numbers are really worth looking into, especially for Elizabeth Warren. Hillary got a lot of bad press last go around, and it seems like it's going to be that way for Biden this time too. People aren't really as enthusiastic about Bernie this time either, but all of the buzz I've been hearing about Elizabeth Warren has been mostly positive. Like the only negatives about her that are on my radar are whenever Trump calls her "Pocohontas" which is really minor compared to the stuff you hear about Biden.
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Old 09-26-2019, 01:55 PM   #4049
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My problem with polls at the moment is that when the previous election happened, it seemed like all the answers were about the pollers fucking up the polls rather than reexamining polling methods. I'm pretty sure given that, Biden is likely to lose to Trump and VVarren and Sanders have a much stronger chance.
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Old 09-27-2019, 04:05 AM   #4050
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Bernie and Warren are so politically extreme I'd be shocked if they did that well. There's no way that any of the Trump base would vote for them, and then you have the swing voters wary of extreme changes.

As obnoxious as Trump is, this is far from the most troubling presidency ever. Trump has been unable to deliver on some of the most outlandish campaign promises, so even though it's been a media circus, Trump has been more bark than bite.

With swing voters, it becomes a matter of Trump, who is known but sort of toothless, or Bernie and Warren who are unknown quantities but are promising very extreme things. Trump at least has managed to extend the bull market even further than ever imagined.
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