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RainCaster

RainCaster's Journal
RainCaster's Journal
December 13, 2021

White House Christmas 2021 on HGTV

It's so well done, lots of beautiful decorations. Best of all, there is no forest of Christmas Tampons.

December 7, 2021

Just how good is Crypto-currency?

Here's an interesting op-ed in a rather respected tech mag about "just how useful is blockchain"? The author draws some interesting conclusions.

The dark equation of harm versus good means blockchain’s had its day

The underlying technology of Bitcoin, the distributed ledger of the blockchain, is undeniably cool and dangerously seductive to intellectual types. A tamper-proof public database that needs no central control and is both transparent and anonymous, it entranced mathematicians and computer scientists. It seemed then and still seems now that something that clever must be useful for something.

Now we know what that is. Cybercurrency, by dint of eschewing central control, is terribly useful for transferring value outside the banking system. Early boosters said that this would reduce costs and increase flexibility so that you could and would be using it to buy things in corner shops, foreshadowing a future where it, like the laser, was a ubiquitous component of the retail experience.

That hasn't happened. Instead, it is at the heart of a $20bn a year world-wide extortion racket. Ransomware, that insanely profitable mega-heist, uses many techniques and is constantly developing, but it is utterly reliant on cryptocurrency to be worthwhile.

Cybercurrency does have a role in specialist retail too, the sort where drugs, weaponry, fake ID, hacking data stashes and dubious services are traded by the internet's demimonde: There is certainly an argument for an open trade in recreational drugs, but not like this.


November 29, 2021

Tick, tick, BOOM!

rave
I watched this tonight and I loved it! I was in tears several times and moved so many times more. Great music, heart breaking story, brought back many memories of friends no longer with us. I will see this again. The number of stars doing cameos in this was exceptional.
/rave

October 21, 2021

Where is Manchin's 10 Republican votes?

He told us he could get at least 10 to vote for his brand of bullshit. So where the hell are they?

October 20, 2021

Wanted: Facebook ad campaign towards Soviet oligarchs

I want to fund a highly targeted ad campaign towards Vladimir's buddies and it will be a vaccine misinformation push. What would Zuck charge me for such?
Asking for a friend...

September 25, 2021

60 days sober

So small, compared to the others in my AA group, but for me it's a great beginning.

September 21, 2021

Ausies find lock-downs to be an affront

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-21/victorian-construction-ban-avoidable-and-costly/100479272

A great op Ed about how the construction labor union has shot themselves in the foot over masks, Vax & covid.
Then the compliance blitz went badly and the government acted.

On Friday, The Age newspaper reported that the inspections found three in four Victorian construction sites were breaking coronavirus safety rules.

So the government banned tearooms and announced the entire industry would have to be vaccinated — at least a first shot – by Thursday, just six days later.

That day workers took to the streets setting up tearooms on the road to protest a ban on gathering inside.
September 10, 2021

If you can't keep them from voting, kill 'em

I'm thinking out loud here. The FGOP has been pushing hard ever since they lost the 2020 election to keep people from voting. Lots of bold new laws that are sooo racist and they are shameless about it.

Those repukes in the House & Senate have forgotten the Rule of Law and are doing everything they can to stop our government from doing anything that will benefit the 99%. They are truly owned by the 1%. The BS excuses they give are red herrings.

Now we have GOP governors lusting for the White House, and they are all against masks, distancing & vaccines. It appears to me that these clowns are so desperate to hold on to power that they are willing to kill their own constituents if it will keep them in the limelight.

Have I missed something here?

August 13, 2021

Judge asks why Capitol rioters pay $1.5M, while U.S. taxpayers pay $500M

Judge asks why Capitol rioters are paying just $1.5 million for attack, while U.S. taxpayers will pay more than $500 million
Washington Post, might be a paywall, not sure

A federal judge on Monday questioned why U.S. prosecutors are asking Capitol riot defendants to pay only $1.5 million in restitution while American taxpayers are paying more than $500 million to cover the costs of the Jan. 6 attack by a pro-Trump mob.

Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell of Washington challenged the toughness of the Justice Department’s stance in a plea hearing for a Colorado Springs man who admitted to one of four nonviolent misdemeanor counts of picketing in the U.S. Capitol.

Howell has already asked in another defendant’s plea hearing whether no-prison misdemeanor plea deals offered by the government are too lenient for individuals involved in “terrorizing members of Congress,” asking pointedly whether the government had “any concern about deterrence?”

On Monday, she pressed the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington on why it was seeking to require only $2,000 in each felony case and $500 in each misdemeanor case.


I've been asking this question myself- shouldn't those bastards be paying the bulk of this? The scales of justice are tilted on this matter.

Profile Information

Gender: Male
Home country: USA
Current location: Left Coast
Member since: Mon Oct 10, 2016, 07:19 PM
Number of posts: 10,938

About RainCaster

A Reformed Republican who saw evil and shook its hand. (Nixon) He now spends his time trying to change the world for the better.
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