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For the past couple days, the media has been digesting Robert Mueller's testimony before Congress. Once again, we have a fake situation set up for media. Mueller explicitly stated publicly at the announcement of his report that he wasn't going to add anything in future testimony. So, there was absolutely no reason to bring him to "testify."

It's clear (to me, at least, since I think both sides are being ridiculous in this whole fight) that Mueller was doing his best to sit there for a few hours and try not to add anything to what had already been said in the report, while responding to questions from both sides that were baiting him to try to get him to say something more than he had previously stated.

So, it was a failure for the Democrats, who clearly staged this in the hope to galvanize public opinion with a public face and soundbites, as nobody is actually reading the report. It was a mild success for Republicans in that Mueller tried not to go beyond his qualified and legalistic language as used in the report, so few people are going to hear this as a strong attack against Trump.

But the party "score" isn't important to me. I don't care who "won" in a preposterous setup. What shocks me, though, is the way Robert Mueller's "performance" is being analyzed. People are saying he's old, perhaps senile. (He is old -- that's undeniable.) People are saying he was "hesitant" in his answers, perhaps implying that he was unsure or maybe even (again) senile. He asked for questions to be repeated too much. Some are theorizing he might have some sort of illness.

I haven't watched the whole thing, which is a waste of time to see a bunch of Congressmen badgering a witness to get him to say something when he's on the record that his testimony explicitly was intended never to say anything more than already in his written report. But I did watch a bit of it.

And I would like to draw out a couple minutes from near the very beginning -- as the top Republican on the committee takes his first shot asking questions. I'm not even going to start at the beginning, but if you listened to none of the Mueller proceedings, have a listen to the exchange beginning here (and continuing for the next few minutes).

I would challenge ANYONE of any age -- even the most intelligent person in the world at top intellectual performance -- to sit in that environment for hours and deal with questions of that sort. Basically, every single Congressman there was out to get Mueller to say something beyond his report. The Democrats wanted to get him to be more forceful in condemnation of Trump's actions. The Republicans were hoping to trip him up.

And in that clip above is the first instance where it sort of happens. After badgering Mueller with arcane questions referencing multiple pages in the report in a rapid-fire manner (note that this Congressman said at the outset that he'd "talk slowly"), he gets Mueller into a semantic debate over whether "collusion" is a defined legal term that has a "colloquial" meaning equivalent to "conspiracy." Mueller said in his opening statement that "collusion" was not a defined legal term in federal law (which it is not), though in the report he admitted on some page that "collusion" and "conspiracy" are sometimes colloquially understood commonly to be similar.

The Congressman is trying to claim he's "reading the report" back to Mueller and that Mueller was now "adding to his report" by apparently denying that "collusion" and "conspiracy" are the same thing (which they aren't legally, though in some colloquial contexts they might be, which is what the report said), something Mueller claimed he wouldn't do.

This is all absurd. Whether or not the colloquial meaning or understanding of a term is "synonymous" with another term has no bearing on any significant legal question. But here we have a Congressman determined to trip Mueller up in a "lie" by "adding to his report," which Mueller is apparently supposed to have memorized enough to answer rapid-fire questions on this sort of semantic BS that isn't even relevant to an argument. Note that it didn't matter what Mueller said in response to his question, as the Congressman would have claimed he had contradicted his opening statement even if he had said yes, thereby claiming Mueller was unreliable. Even if Mueller had encyclopedic knowledge of every sentence in his report, there was no way to answer this question without the Congressman going on an irrelevant attack.

Now, again, in my opinion, Mueller was doing his best just to sit there and try not to say anything that wasn't in his report. That was his SOLE purpose, which the badgering Congressmen (from both parties) made exceptionally difficult.

To me, Robert Mueller doesn't look tired or ill or confused. He is hesitant because he's trying to avoid the sort of BS shown in this clip, and he knows he's going to be in for hours of it. Hours where he is gradually adding to an oral record that -- in addition to his report -- could then be cited and thrown back at him for any minor contradiction at any time.

If I were in his shoes, I would hesitate too. After a Congressman started acting like that and listed a page number in the report, I'd say, "Hold on... let me look at this..." and then waste three minutes on the page before answering. I doubt I would perform as well as he did at ignoring the flagrant BS spouted at me from both parties and simply adhering to what was already reported. After five minutes of this sort of BS, I would have likely said, "Look, it's in my report. I said I'm not going to add to that in testimony. I will therefore respond to every single other question with -- 'If the question is addressed in my report, the answer is there; if it's not, I have no comment.'" They'd probably try to charge me with Contempt of Congress but I wouldn't care. This was absurd.

And yes, I know from watching Congressional hearings that badgering is common. But both the representatives and Mueller knew this was a high-stakes day. They were trying their best to get him to say anything worthy of a "shocking!" evening news soundbite, but he didn't take their bait.

For that, Mr. Mueller, I applaud your service to the U.S. I'm not sure what to take away from your report, but for putting up with that BS for several hours, you should be praised and not ridiculed for your "performance."

Forced penetration: If a woman forces a man to have sex, is that rape?

When a man has penetrative sex with a woman without her consent, that's rape. But what if a woman makes a man have penetrative sex with her, without his consent? That's not rape under the law of England and Wales, but the author of a new study of the phenomenon says perhaps it should be.

[...] Aspects of John's story are repeated in the experiences of some of the other men Dr Weare has interviewed. One of her findings is that the perpetrator in "forced-to-penetrate" (FTP) cases is often a female partner or ex-partner (her research focuses only on forced penetration involving men and women), and that the experience is frequently one element in a wider pattern of domestic abuse.

[...] One myth Weare's research dispels is that forced penetration is impossible because men are physically stronger than women. Another is that men view all sexual opportunities with women as positive.

A third myth is that if men have an erection they must want sex. In fact, Weare says, "an erection is purely a physiological response to stimulus".

"Men can obtain and sustain an erection even if they're scared, angry, terrified etc," she says. "There's also research that shows women can respond sexually when they are raped (e.g. have an orgasm) because their body is responding physiologically. This is an issue for both male and female victims that is not discussed enough, but there is clear evidence in this area."

A number of the participants in Weare's 2017 study reported FTP experiences after getting extremely drunk or high, and being unable to stop what was happening. One of those interviewed for the new study describes going home with a woman after a night out clubbing, and blacking out after being given what he suspects was a date rape drug. He says he was then forced to engage in non-consensual sex.

FTP is not rape, but all PIV is rape (of a female).

Telegramgate

Puerto Ricans in Protests Say They’ve Had Enough

Puerto Rico Governor Misread Anger Brewing Against Him

Who Is Wanda Vázquez, Who Is in Line to Become Puerto Rico’s Next Governor?

Watching the Everyday Astronaut stream.

Would be a nice palate cleanser after the scrubbed CRS-18 launch.

Oh, here's an official stream.

Edit: Confirmed not happening today.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) are teaming up on legislation to reform the nation’s marijuana laws and help victims of the War on Drugs, which disproportionately hurts communities of color.

The bill, titled the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, would decriminalize cannabis and require expungement of prior marijuana-based convictions on the federal level. Such proposals have been floated in the past and are supported by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Kamala Harris, Jerry Nadler Introduce Bill To Decriminalize Marijuana

ASUS Announces New ROG Phone II: 120Hz OLED, 6000mAh & Snapdragon 855+

12 GB of RAM, 802.11ad wireless. Phone size, thickness, and weight increased significantly.

Also features one of the new ARM DynamIQ core cluster configs, that I think I've seen on at least one other recent smartphone:

1x Cortex-A76 @ 2.96GHz
3x Cortex-A76 @ 2.42GHz
4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.80GHz

I imagine that in 10 years, every smartphone sold will have specs exceeding this and will be intended for use with a dock and monitor/TV so it can be used as a portable desktop replacement. Or forget the dock, and just use a successor to 802.11ad to connect to a display wirelessly, maybe while laying it down on a nearby charging pad.

Never forget.

It used to slightly tweak my nose when the weaponized outrage mob on the left complained of not feeling safe. Primarily because they'd say it in response to someone doing nothing but disagreeing with them or even simply saying something they didn't want to hear. Since neither of those remotely implies impending violence, I figured they're either lying or so paranoid that they need to be institutionalized and medicated.

Nowadays though, I count it as a happy thing. Turns out it's usually a combination of them lying and being extremely fragile little pussies. That sets me up to call them out on both counts and I genuinely enjoy doing so.

Corsair Unveils 32 GB Vengeance LPX DDR4 DIMMs, 64 GB & 128 GB Dual-Channel Kits

$150 for 1× 32 GB @ 2400 MT/s, $155 for 1× 32 GB @ 2666 MT/s (price for 3000 MT/s not specified). Basically no additional charge for 64, 128, and 256 GB kits.

That's the equivalent of $37.50-$38.75 for 8 GB, which isn't so awful but shows how DRAM pricing has stagnated over the last decade. If we had scaled down, we might be looking at $1-2 per GB today. Hopefully we will reach a point where 128 GB costs $100-$150, and larger module capacities could help make that happen.

This one from last month is a bit more expensive: Samsung 32GB DDR4-2666 Non-ECC Memory at Retail: $168

So when do we reach the point when all DIMMs have ECC by default? 64 GB modules? 128 GB? We have to protect against all those cosmic rays, right? ?

Patriot Launches P200 SSDs with Maxio and Silicon Motion Controllers: From $31.99

This is a launch of a budget line of SSDs. Not specified if it uses QLC NAND, but it has better rated endurance than Samsung 860 QVO (for the 1 TB models: 640 TB for P200, 360 TB for 860 QVO).

256 GB for $31.99 ($0.125/GB)
512 GB for $49.99 ($0.0977/GB)
1 TB for $87.99 ($0.088/GB)
2 TB for $189.99 ($0.095/GB)

That's newly released products, not sale prices.

A quick Slickdeals search finds:

$85: 1TB Intel 660p QLC 3D NAND NVMe M.2 2280 PCIe Internal SSD
$80: 1TB Crucial P1 3D NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD
$80.5: 1TB Samsung 860 QVO 2.5" SATA III Internal Solid State Drive
$80: Crucial 1TB BX500 2.5” SATA Internal SSD + F/S

Looks like $80 is a good sale price right now, with lower than $80 sure to come for drives like the Patriot P200 SSDs.

Even if you don't trust them as far as you can throw them, they might make good portable drives if you can insert them into an enclosure.

Following the Nintendo Switch Lite, they announced a refresh of the original. Same features, but longer battery life due to using a die shrink of the Tegra X1.

Someone somewhere speculated that it could improve performance a little bit by alleviating thermal limits.

You would have to wait for a "Switch 2" or "Switch Pro", but maybe that's a good thing.

Nintendo Announces New Version of Switch with Longer Battery Life

Nintendo Switch Delivers On Promises Of Streaming, Doug Bowser Says