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Two Weeks Ago, I Almost Died in the Deadliest Plane Crash Ever

No idea as to the credibility of this blog, but worth a read anyway:

https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4...

Every story has two sides and for several weeks now Julie Ann Horvath has decided to share only the details of her side of her experiences at GitHub and the circumstances around her departure.

A few of us, those who knew Julie and the events that occurred, have decided that if Julie wants to share this story so publicly then everyone should at least have all of the story.

Here are some details that may help explain this story a little differently.

The Engineer
Julie calls out an engineer in her story. The engineer she alleges harassed her was in fact an ex-boyfriend that she was still friends with at the time, not a random coworker she barely knew. They had dated prior to working at GitHub and were on good terms at the time.

The project he “ripped out” code from was a small css refactoring on an internal side project that he was helping her with. At the time of the incident, she was not upset about it and it was quickly fixed. At the time of her departure, she was not on great terms with him and her public story changed.

The Cofounder and His Wife
Around the end of 2012, Julie started dating a close male friend of the cofounder’s wife and didn’t like that they were close. She asked them to stop being friends and when they would not end their relationship, Julie started telling coworkers that the wife had affairs and that the cofounder’s newborn child was not his. She told this to multiple coworkers directly and also to the wife through her boyfriend.

This is where the wife reached out to her and the rest of her story starts. All of Julie’s story involving the cofounder’s wife occurs only after Julie was spreading vicious rumors about him to even new employees.

Three months later, the first Passion Projects talk was held at GitHub. It’s difficult to know if this was a concession by the cofounder for her to stop threatening his family and undermining him to his employees, or perhaps just a way for him to try to get on her good side so she would not want to hurt his family.

We share this because reading through the TechCrunch article with this in mind changes the story for us. It seems less like a story of gender issues and more like a story of the problems that arise when employees date coworkers and cannot separate work and personal life.

We dislike that she is taking advantage of people’s trust in her in order to craft a message for which she wants to be the symbol. Good people are suffering for a story she knows is not fully true and she does not seem to care.

I put a little static cling sticker on the lens.

They are working on bypassing that particular security measure:

https://medium.com/the-physics...

I only read through the summary at https://medium.com/the-physics... but it seems like he is implicitly assuming that the universe is (or is equivalent to) a simulation running on a classical computer.

that looks like a map of Civilization!

yeah, you can take that as a slam against Alaska, Arizona, see if I care.

I don't give a flying fuck who invaded. Starting a nuclear war over some local pissing contest is NOT an option.

Russia clearly considers it an option for many policy issues, hence the threats, and now the invasion.

A discussion of a Cold War Soviet war plan found after the end of the Cold War:

This Is How the World Could Have Ended

TFA is worth reading.

The part with the Chineese lab is in the middle, search "I decided to get one made myself"

Also:

A single gram of 25i-NBOME contains up to 10,000 doses; it is as potent as a chemical weapon in the wrong hands.
A typical line of a powdered drug might contain around one hundred milligrams—for Bjerk, that was enough for a thousand-fold overdose. He died quickly in the street.

I really don't get it: how people can trust anyone selling such drugs ?
Even when the dose is correct, pills can contain so many other unknown substances...

There's this:

https://medium.com/the-magazin...

One of the libraries in my county acquired one last year.

You raise a fascinating question to bring up the next time the topic is the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Britain, NATO and Turkey (1959-1965)

In 1962, during the Cuba crisis Khrushchev sent a letter to the White House on 27 October. He sought to draw a parallel between Cuba and Turkey: missiles in Cuba would be withdrawn in return for the withdrawal of American missiles in Turkey; furthermore, the Soviet Union would pledge not to invade Turkey if the United States would make a similar pledge about Cuba[4]. This demand was based more on politics than on security or military grounds. The US had already suggested to Turkey in 1961 that she withdraw the Jupiter missiles. The Americans thought the missiles in Turkey old and useless[5]. The Turkish military leaders did not agree with this plan and they argued that these missiles were important for the defence and security of Turkey.

You might be interested in Soviet planning for nuclear war against Europe.

Russia has decided to make its relationship with the US, UK, and NATO in general complicated. (And perhaps Australia as well / in time.) While they cooperate in various matters such as terrorism and trade, the Russians have resumed various Soviet practices, such as certain foreign policy stands, and probing Western defenses with bombers and submarines. To that you can add making various threats regarding nuclear strikes against NATO countries. (Former Soviet sample.) Perhaps you simply don't bother reading about such things?

Russian bombers’ secret UK missions ‘not a friendly act’
Russian Bombers Perform Simulated "Strikes" on Sweden, U.S.

I would expect you to be at least somewhat acquainted with the various acts of Chinese encroachment and aggression against its neighbors. Various members of the Chinese government have also threatened nuclear strikes against the US. Perhaps you've heard that US forces are now providing greater aid in the defense of Australia?

Both China and Russia are "great powers" in the classic sense, and pursue their interests. Sometimes that will mean working with the West, sometimes against it. China's power is ascending as they build towards a navy with four aircraft carrier battle groups, the first one now available, and India is right behind them. The US seems to be heading towards a much less capable navy than today, and Australia decommissioned its last aircraft carrier long ago.
   

Tess Rinearson's blog post (referenced by Philip Guo) at https://medium.com/tales-from-the-front/cc9ed433ec3c is as strong as Philip's - well worth reading.

Now you have your graphics cards and hard mined coin what do you do next?
Do you sit on them in the hope they grow; Do you purchase something with them or do you arbitrage them https://medium.com/bitcoin-bits-1/fc0098ac0511?
Decisions, decisions, decisions. . .

An account of what happened and what could have happened via Steve Weintz https://medium.com/war-is-boring/26b40dd869fb

Top scientists say you're a fucking retard.

Jeremy Hammond, Sabu, and the Intelligence-Industrial Complex

Targets supplied by FBI to Jeremy Hammond

classic infiltration? the kind of where the "intelligence" agency recruits some people to do something and then they bust them for being recruited to do something?

If you read this article ~ https://medium.com/quinn-norton/654abf6aeff7 ~ you would know that at times them "intelligent agencies" don't even need to do any recruitment

All they need to do is to set a trap and sheeples (even those with above average IQ) would fall in and work their ass off for worse than nothing.

https://medium.com/about-work/9b14f05a9832 ... even IF its partially assumed on her/their part, the fact remains that as long as women feel this way in the tech world, they will remains scarce.

why someone can just say a bitcoin is worth X dollars

Because it is a commodity, and the market price of a commodity is determined by the intersection of the supply and demand curves for that commodity. So, you **can** say that a bitcoin is worth $X. Now go find someone willing to either buy or sell at that price.

you can create money by "mining" for it with a graphics card

Well, you can go cut down a tree, make a table and sell it. Same thing, from an economics point of view.

It feels like something created by criminal entities which will eventually collapse or found to be fraudulent

Given the murky history of the creation of bitcoins, I can see how you might think this. However, let's suppose that it's true: Bitcoins are the product of criminal entities. What's the payoff? Bitcoins only have value because there is a market for them. It doesn't take much to create a run on the market and drive the price through the floor. Then again, there was the "Bitcoin Bubble" earlier this year; have enough bubbles and you can generate real money. It's worth reading up on Bitcoins, if only to see that it's the digital equivilent of Tulip mania. Try https://medium.com/money-banking/2b5ef79482cb for a nice overview of the bubble, or Wikipedia.

Here's my (tongue-in-cheek) response to that: https://medium.com/learn-to-code/34c62f023142

Tor was released by the Navy.

DPR was caught because he acted foolishly. See this excellent summary of the technically relevant parts of the criminal complaint. Thanks to YesIAmAScript for submitting the link.

DPR did nearly everything wrong, mixing his IRL and hidden identities.

https://medium.com/p/d48995e8eb5a

I didn't write it.

Link to indictment contained within too.

"In which the NSA and I freak each other out on LinkedIn" https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/4f46a6748c70

I feel that this collection of golden guns should be in an art collection https://medium.com/war-is-boring/51e8ba9ea975 as it also concentrated upon men bad men with a fascination with things that go "bang" but YMMV.

The worst part of the no trust is that they can't even know if the data they are collecting from is being misused. Not just they are lowering on pourpose your security (weakening crypto, planting backdoors, etc), and syphoning everyone's private information, but is already proved (to the public, with Snowden) that they don't know who access their information and how is or will be using it.

So if tomorrow your bank account shows a pretty rounded zero because the backdoors NSA planted on you was used by one of the employees of one of the companies the NSA hires (he just sold in the black market that backdoor information and someone else did it), don't be sad, the country must be defended from the terrorists.

Add to diet sleep, stress, electric lightning, gut bacterial unbalance, air conditioning, popular alcoholic beberages (because in any meeting you must have a beer, or better yet, drink a lot, else you are an outsider), lack of exercise, and several etcs. Most of that is under your control, but who controls you? Tried to go to a supermarket?

That food corporations are more interested in selling addictive food than of your health don't help a lot.

'How on earth could I, a junior analyst, possibly believe I could change the world for the better over the decisions of those with the proper authority?'

It is not surprising that courts want people to say certain things, to re-establish their sense of moral correctness and order, or that they get the people in front of them to say these things. It is (always) surprising that anyone not on the bench gives these words any weight at all. Coerced testimony is, after all, no true testimony at all.

As for Manning, I think that Geek Empire nails it

Someday, Bradley Manning will be as forgotten to them as Monica Lewinsky is. Then they’ll yield to the hornet-like, persistent buzz of the leftie peaceniks, and let Bradley go. He’s not dangerous. Bradley Manning will never do anything of similar consequence again. He’s not a power player. He’s a prisoner of conscience.

Bruce Sterling had some great lines in his recent piece The Ecuadorian Library

On the role of the FISA court in controlling the NSA:

"It's like a cardboard steering wheel in the cockpit of a Predator drone"

Most people don't realize the FISA court is appointed entirely by one person, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts. Its a bizarre anomaly, a critical protector of the American Constitution completely controlled by a single person. If he or one of his successors goes bad, the Constitution can be eviscerated overnight and since its completely secret we probably wouldn't even know it.

That "fine article" is paraphrasing other sites, which are paraphrasing other sites. They're claiming the searches were for pressure cooker bombs based on statement from the police, which conflicts with that of the couple, but their slapdash editor didn't even notice.

This is the site owned by the wife, where she explains from her perspective: https://medium.com/something-like-falling/2e7d13e54724

This is the original breaking story from Gizmodo that Wired is just paraphrasing:
http://whitenoise.gizmodo.com/yes-the-fbi-is-tracking-americans-google-searches-981986667

Note that Michelle Catalano herself did not say this was JTTF or FBI. That was apparently asserted by The Guardian or The Atlantic writing about the incident. Michelle's own writeup simply refers to men with guns and badges, and does not specify who they were with. (BTW, Michelle Catalano is a moderately prominent blogger and writer whose writings certainly remove her from the likely terrorist suspects, if any of these badge-carrying morons had bothered to actually Google anything for themselves before showing up to harass free citizens.)

Here is what Michelle herself had to say about the incident, the most chilling part is at the end:

This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.

All I know is if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I’m not doing it online.

All of a sudden, Glenn Beck's ranting about the Cloward-Piven-Ayers "collapse the system" strategy doesn't sound so far-fetched. We know now that we have far more to fear from our own government than we do from any terrorist group, even the bloodthirsty suicidal Islamic ones. (FWIW, no Islamic terrorist has ever tried to humiliate me by groping my junk as painfully as possible, but the TSA has. It's time to face the fact that the entire Dept of Homeland Defense was an insanely bad idea and disband it back into its constituent agencies, at pre-9/11 staffing levels. Hell, DHS couldn't even stop the Boston bombing after the Russians *told* us these guys were bombtastic Muslims, so why on earth should we accept any loss of freedom at all to these totalitarian goons?)

here 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, Try again.

The Atlantic article is BAD. Not only is it a summary with no additional information (and information removed), but uses a bad and unrelated photograph!

Read the original article on Medium, and I strongly suggest that a Slashdot editor change the article link.

Although circumstantial, this implies one of two possibilities. Either Google is voluntarily looking for "suspicious" searches and reporting them to law enforcement, or law enforcement (using a warrant, a wiretap, a NSL, or similar) is either forcing Google to look for such suspicious searches or simply wiretapping Google.

First, I hope you mis-spoke when you said "difference between business and commercial uses of the internet". I presume you meant, non-commercial vs commercial. Which gets to the point that finally a journalist has on the record agreed with me about. I.e. the way NetNeutrality currently exists, such distinction is not in the legal domain of ways that ISPs may block or throttle "lawful devices connected to the network" (including servers, small like pi or large like an onyx). I.e. suppose I find a way to make $1,000,000 serving less traffic in funny cat videos than my neighbor uses for skype calls with their grandchildren. Are you really suggesting that it is the commercial vs non-commercial nature of that traffic that should allow Google as an ISP to charge me more for it?

https://medium.com/editors-picks/5a2d9322bdc4 (Ryan Singel, former editor of Wired.com's Thread Level blog)

"FCC orders Google to Respond to Net Neutrality Complaint
Once the biggest backer, now a potential violator

For years, Google was the most active corporate supporter of federal Net Neutrality regulations prohibiting broadband providers from controlling what apps or devices Americans use on the internet services they pay for."

Bill Hicks had a good bit about advertisers you might like-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

And for my opinion of the biggest marketer hypocrisy going on lately-

https://medium.com/editors-picks/5a2d9322bdc4

headline: FCC orders Google to Respond to Net Neutrality Complaint; Once the biggest backer, now a potential violator

I find it somewhat disappointing that despite the connectivity options we have today, we still so far from being able to access our own data in a secure and consistent manner that's easy for everyone. It's even more disappointing to see a company like Dropbox solving only the "consistent" and "easy" parts of it. I say it's disappointing because I have problems with the encryption scheme [1] and non-decentralized way they're currently doing things.

As it's been pointed out [2] and essentially beaten to death recently, these things may not matter a whole lot to most people now, I think you have be pretty optimistic to think they won't matter in the future.

[1] https://www.dropbox.com/help/28/en
[2] https://medium.com/surveillance-state/b804de3b5b