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I've managed to use my laptop for over an hour without puking.
I can pretty much walk normally. I'll go farther today. Just after my surgery and the next day I had to get the nurse to help me walk; one of them gave me a walker. I haven't yet had a problem with walking too far.
I've eaten an entire peanut butter and jelly sandwich two days in a row.
However, William Jefferson Clinton remains reluctant to sign an Executive Order.
I'm up so early today because I slept all day yesterday.
When I asked my surgeon's receptionist if they'd mail me my pathologist's report, she said it would be in my private area on their website, then give me a sheet with login instructions. That means I have to find it.
In a little bit I'll go to the donut shop for a donut and some tea. I'll get an unglazed/frosted donut if I can, but their selection has been cut back because they're not getting enough business - I'm their only regular.
Or maybe I'll take the bus downtown then get a cheddar, egg and sausage sandwich at The 'Bucks.
Damn it, don't fucking make me stick up for Gab!
This is the dumbest, stupidest, most counterproductive, most self-destructive goddamn thing they could possibly have done. If I didn't already trust the government about as far as I can throw my bathtub--which is cemented to the floor--I would not have believed anyone in that position could possibly be that stupid.
Seriously, this is "Dealing With Nutbar Extremists 101" level shit here. When a group of people have utterly divorced themselves from reality and built an entire narrative around being oppressed and discriminated against, don't actually do anything to oppress or discriminate against them! Jesus!
What this idiot has done will be written down in history books, if indeed there are any historians left to write them and any literate people left to read them, as the pivotal, galvanizing moment for the United States' 21st century anti-Civil-Rights movement. This is going to kickstart a dark, twisted, blasphemous, zombified parody of all the 60s and 70s rallies that brought real, positive change to the nation. It's all gonna go to hell.
And why? Because some self-aggrandizing empty suit, some shortsighted, amoral political hack, decided to wipe his ass on the Constitution and do exactly what the fuck the kind of people who flock to Gab would do in the first place: advocate for lawbreaking violence (yes, this is a type of violence, it's a clear intimidation attempt) because "muh ideological purity!"
I don't think most people understand why this is so dangerous. The *least* bad part about this is that they've now turbocharged the aforementioned narrative. They have, in a word, turned Gab into martyrs. More dangerous is the precedent being set here; there is no reason that, say 10 years down the road when it's all gone to shit and we have Gab-denizens in charge, they can't and won't refer to this to shut down speech *they* don't like. Never, ever give yourself any powers or leeway you couldn't stand being used against you when the tables turn, as they always, always do. Especially not when your use of them is "this is dirty but I have to do it for great justice" and the opposition's use of them will be accompanied by nothing more self-reflective than a long string of maniacal, gleeful cackling.
But worst of all, this has undermined the legitimacy of government attempts to stifle actual violence and hate movements. From now on, any attempt to put a lid on any of it, all the way up to outright calls for genocide, is going to be viewed as suspicious, in any context, no matter who does it, and no matter what it is they're opposing. This asshole in Pennsylvania has played right into the lunatics' hands, and there is not a desk big enough to slam my face into that can express how utterly disgusted I am.
Let us not mince words: this is an intimidation attempt, a deliberate ploy to create a chilling effect, a fishing expedition in the worst way, and yes, very likely a Constitutional violation.
It's also--have I said this enough yet?--fucking stupid. What you do with toxic, asocial idiots like, well, like the kind of people who need a place like Gab, is...you let them go. You let them concentrate there, out of the way of civilized society, and you close the lid. Like a roach motel; Nazis check in, they don't check out, but because they want to stay in the motel. The correct course of action is to use the place as the internet's septic tank for white nationalists, and of course monitor it veeeeery very closely. Contain it, as you would any other plague virus, and make no mistake, what Gab is peddling is a memetic plague.
Hell, if I were this guy, I would have half a dozen agents make fake accounts there, blend in, and exfiltrate as much information as possible out of that place, the more ridiculous the better. And plaster it all over, too, using the advantage of exposure available to a government entity. Remember that guy, name I forget, who was fucking his mother in law or something? That kind of thing. Spread it around like cream cheese on the world's best bagels and make sure everyone gets a bite.
And of course, watch the place like a hawk and intercept anyone planning to, for example, shoot up a synagogue or something. Good grief, the best argument for these neo-Nazi pukes not having the brains Madokami gave a tree stump is that they willingly congregate on the open internet and openly discuss plans to harm or kill other people! THAT is something the government has both legal and moral authority to go after! This could have been like shooting particularly ugly, stupid, morally repulsive fish in a barrel!
In time, the contagion would have become self-limiting, and eventually burned itself out. Mockery, slow resource starvation, and simple waning interest would have done for it, reducing Gab to the racist online equivalent of "old man yells at cloud.jpg." But no. No, they went and did this stupid shit instead. I hope the ACLU and the EFF and all the other progressive groups come out in support of Gab, and you know what? I will be standing right there with them.
The Constitution, the law of the land, the backbone of the US, what we should always aspire to even if we ain't there (and even if it's only possible to approach asymptotically) is worth more than this. It's one thing when private businesses refuse to do business with them because they find them odious; it's quite another when the government steps in. Congratulations, PA AG: you've sunk to the level of Gab's userbase, and in doing so you may have doomed us all.
Cool Vandalism
The Life Trajectory of a Will-O'-The-Whisp
(I just now emailed the following to a vast multitude of completely innocent victims.)
I Have A Problem:
Recall that I got my kidney taken out last Wednesday morning. I'm
recovering, but slowly.
Upon finding that spending more than five minutes at my computer will
lead me to be overcome with dizziness and nausea - thus this mail.
cannot be a Wall Of Text - I decided to spend the day lying in bed and
listening to music. Letting my thoughts wander for a while led me to
come up with a really compelling topic for a truly length Wall Of
Text.
Were I to attempt writing it, it would be no time at all before I was
Praying To The Porcelain God. Perhaps it would be better to lie in
the dark, listening to music and letting my thoughts continue to
wander?
But now those thoughts are obsessed with the topic of that essay. If
this continues, my thoughts will start to race. Racing thoughts are
commonly my first warning that I'm getting manic.
However, I have a fresh refill of Industrial Strength Happy Pills -
Zyprexa (olanzipine), 5 mg. Just one tablet of it and I'll be a sleep
quicker than if you hit me in the head with a break.
But I got up at 2:30 this afternoon. The single-most effective way to
prevent both mania and depression is to regulate my sleep. To stay
awake long enough that I don't spend too much time sleeping, I need to
be up until dawn.
But I can't write while I do so, so I'll lie in bed, listen to music,
and let my mind...
... obsess on that new essay.
Nauseously,
Misha
Yet Another Daily Pain Report
I at first planned not to take any pain pills last night, but upon concluding I wouldn't get to sleep without one, I took it. I am prescribed 10 mg oxycodone every four hours, which would have me stoned to the gills. Even just 5 mg puts me to sleep, and since I've been home I took at first 10 mg a day, then since night before last, 5 mg.
I have a pill splitter so that rather than going from 5 to 0 I will go from 5 to 2.5. Tonight I will take 5.
I managed to walk two long blocks to Taco Bell, where I availed myself of their $2 Duo, that comprising a burrito and a medium soda. I was able to eat the whole thing, which is a milestone for me.
During my surgery they inflated my entire intestinal tract with air. Here it is a week later and I've still got some - my first nurse led me to expect I'd get rid of it all at once. From time to time it causes worse pain than the surgical wounds.
When I awoke this morning there was no pain and all, but upon getting up and moving around the pain returned. Even so, my surgeon wants me to walk as much as I can. I'm also at a loss as to how to pass the time at home, and came to The Bell so as to be at a loss there.
I got a call from A Highly Respectable Company this afternoon, asking me to apply. My response: "I'd love to work for $HIGHLY_RESPECTABLE_COMPANY but what I'm actually going to do is bet the farm on Soggy Jobs."
"Would you like me to call you around the middle of next year?"
"Yes."
Today's Pain Report
I feel a lot better than I did yesterday. Part of that is that I bought some Calcium antacid; I had nothing yesterday. Towards the end of the day I bought some generic Pepto-Bismol, but didn't realize until I was about to take some that its Bismuth Subsalicyclate might cause bleeding, because it was Salicyclate in it - as Aspirin does. My doctor and two different nurses repeatedly asked me if I'd taken any "aspirin-like drugs", then after my surgery my surgeon advised me to continue not taking any.
My incisions are sore. I have a long vertical one where my kidney actually came out, and two short horizontal ones for the laproscope. I've been concerned they could get infected so I inspected them all carefully just as soon as I got up and bed, but no they look ok. Look man, if you tore out your own spleen with a rusty entrenching tool that would hurt just as bad.
I'm puzzled that my doc advised me to eat anything I want. What I want is a big steak that the food pantry gave me, what I can really eat are a half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as well as a tossed side salad that Mom bought me.
I'm going to do a few hours of work tomorrow, mainly to fix whatever is wrong with my mail server, which won't relay outgoing mail. It started doing that spontaneously, I had not changed anything. For all I know I might just need to restart the postfix process.
But what I actually did was subscribe to Google G Suite so as to receive an anal probe with the above-mentioned entrenching tool.
And what is an entrenching tool? The gentle reader quite reasonably asks. It's a small folding shovel that trench soldiers always carried with them in the event they needed to dig some cover. I expect they got rusty quite a lot, as it rains quite a lot in Europe.
PSA: Google Becoming Crap at Finding Old SoylentNews Stories
I have used Google to look for previous SN stories for a year or two now. Mainly because there have been inconsistencies with SN's own internal search engine in the past (that may have been fixed since). I use the "site:soylentnews.org" search parameter, plus the keywords, and I have a textbox that automatically adds the "site:soylentnews.org" bit to the query.
While writing this submission:
China Still Has Trouble Staffing the World's Largest Radio Telescope
I'm pretty sure that the following story exists on site, although I don't know where it is or know the headline just yet:
China Can't Find Anyone Smart Enough to Run its Whizzbang $180M 500 Meter Radio Telescope
So I search for stuff like "china radio telescope" and "aperture spherical telescope". No dice.
I use SoylentNews internal search, looking for "Aperture Spherical Telescope", and it works.
Let's try "china radio telescope smart enough". Nope, nothing.
Let's try the exact title of the submission. Welp, there it is, finally. Except that that just before finishing this journal entry a few minutes later, it no longer works (I checked to see if it was a special character issue, and it doesn't seem to be).
This isn't the only example that I've come across, and it seems to have gotten worse in recent weeks. IIRC I had trouble looking for previous stories for an opioid-related submission. These have been popping up often enough that I may just ditch the GOOG for this purpose, especially since SN's search seems to work just fine.
Using My Computer Makes Me Nauseous
This is repeatable. I just took a ranitidine table - generic Rantab.
How shall I get my daily portion of The Tubes?
Surgery Be Damned: I Am Going On An Adventure
I shall walk to the corner store to buy some ice cream.
Should I survive, I shall post a reply bearing the good news.
AMD Event on Nov. 6th
AMD Investor Relations Announces “Next Horizon” Event for November 6th
On Election Day? Gee, what's the bad news?
Anyway, this is likely related to "7nm" Zen 2 Epyc server CPUs, which will debut well before desktop or mobile variants. They might also announce a Radeon RX 590 "12nm" Polaris GPU or talk about "7nm" Vega GPUs.
If Zen 2 Epyc has 64 cores, and Zen+/Zen 2 Threadripper has 32 cores, then Zen 2 Ryzen could have up to 16 cores.
