SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Trump Approval Rating Goes Up During Coronavirus Crisis
President Trump's Job Approval Rating Up to 49%
Approval rating up five percentage points from prior poll
60% approve of president's response to COVID-19
Job approval higher among independents, Democrats
The data was collected from March 13 to March 22. Some gaffes were reported during this time but it might take another round of polling to measure any effect from those.
President Trump is as popular as he's ever been right now
Trump’s Reelection May Hinge On The Economy — And Coronavirus
A lot can go wrong for Trump, and even if the economy bounces back, a lot of local businesses could end up shuttered (say goodbye to comic book shops, many restaurants, movie theaters, gyms, real estate agents, etc). But he is riding high and the media has picked up on why:
The media must stop live-broadcasting Trump’s dangerous, destructive coronavirus briefings
Trump uses daily coronavirus briefings to replace campaign rallies
Are Trump's coronavirus briefings the new 2020 campaign rallies?
“They Are a Clown Show”: Media Orgs Wrestle With Covering Trump’s Campaign-Rally COVID-19 Briefings
CNN and MSNBC Staff Push Back on Airing Trump’s Coronavirus ‘Lies’
Trump’s White House coronavirus briefings draw ‘Bachelor,’ ‘MNF’ ratings
Trump’s Briefings Are a Ratings Hit. Should Networks Cover Them Live?
Trump Turns a Crisis Into His New Nightly TV Show
Trump's coronavirus briefings see big audiences. Some argue that's bad
Free press was helpful to Trump in 2016, when Hillary Clinton outspent him about 2-to-1.
Joe Biden Debuts His Own Briefing To Counter Donald Trump’s Daily Spotlight
Joe Biden found his footing — then coronavirus changed everything
The marketing blitz, though, is undermined by a Biden campaign that still seems unprepared for this moment. The jury-rigged television studio in the rec room of Biden’s house projects more like a home-movie production than a high-tech presidential campaign.
He gave his first speech — about COVID-19, of course — on Monday, amid confusion about when the remarks would start. Biden got out of sync with the teleprompter and lost his place. He called the governor of Massachusetts “Charlie Parker” (his last name is Baker).
That was the bad news. The good news was that viewership was limited. None of the major television stations carried it live. It both relieved and frustrated many backers of the former vice president. The operational glitches of the campaign right now make them cringe.
When low viewership is seen as a positive (because gaffes go unnoticed), you've got a problem. Reuters points out the effect on fundraising:
Biden battles for attention as coronavirus threatens to blunt Democrat's momentum
But when [Joe Biden] delivered the debut speech on Monday morning, major cable news networks broadcast New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus briefing instead.
[...] Instead of the former vice president wrapping up the Democratic nomination, the coronavirus has taken attention away from the 2020 White House race and threatens to blunt Biden’s momentum by postponing state nominating elections and indefinitely halting in-person campaign events and fundraisers.
By contrast, Trump, who initially played down the virus’ impact, has used his daily televised White House briefings on the crisis to project optimism about getting the pandemic under control and grab media attention.
The turn of events frustrates Democrats who were eager to move past the nominating contest’s intraparty fighting. It is forcing the Biden campaign to recalibrate quickly to find new ways to connect with voters and donors and compete for attention as Trump leads the national response to the crisis.
“You’re not going to have high-dollar donor parties,” said Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and Democratic National Committee chairman, who supports Biden. “That’s going to hurt.”
Trump can get free press as usual (for now), Biden's messaging can't seem to get the same traction, and you can kiss those $50,000-a-plate fundraiser dinners goodbye.
Some media outlets may stop giving Trump's daily briefings coverage, but that would hurt ratings and ad revenue. So history could repeat itself.
Wio Terminal
Raspberry Pi-Compatible Microcontroller Wio Terminal Arrives in April
Wio Terminal: ATSAMD51 Core with Realtek RTL8720DN BLE 5.0 & Wi-Fi 2.4G/5G Dev Board
This looks pretty interesting, and at a decent price.
I can't tell if the RTL8720DN supports the long range PHY (Bluetooth is a disaster).
Where's Fauci?
You want an unindexed link? Ok, I can do it, why can't you?
To save you all from reading through all the replies to my last journal entry, I'm quite ready to give janrinok and everyone else the link that they can't seem to find, as I explain in this reply to one of my critics.
It's amazing, janrinok writes a web scraper to try to find a comment to an off-topic series of posts, so he scrapes the headlines and stories??? Not the brightest crayon in the box. If I can do it with a 90% probability of success, why can't he? The answer is simple, and it applies to most of you participating in defending the serial liar - you are so blinded by your excitement at being able to "pile it on" that your faculties are impaired. Just like he claimed that I said it was in the Guardian, something else I never said.
So, I'm prepared to put up, after which I won't give a damn if you all shut up or not. Or as I wrote:
So here's the thing - if I can figure out how to do it in 20 minutes without violating the robots.txt file or scraping the site, why can't all the braniacs here who are criticizing me for not posting a link to the comments - a link that they can't find?
If the site admins want me to, I'll show you how (no, I won't just tell you how - that would be as lame as ignoring the robots.txt file). After which, either way, I'm done here. And no, I won't be scraping any sites.
So, take the next week or two to sort yourselves out, try to figure out how I can do it (hence the mention to the conspiracy theories in the linked post - was it because I worked on a Russian search engine for a few years, or was it something even more strange?)
Let's see just how smart you all are - surely your combined intelligence should be able to figure it out.
I won't he happy to give you what you ask for, but I will give it to you if that's the decision. After that, either way you're on your own. But boy, are you going to look stupid that you couldn't figure it out but I could.
Zen 3 and Navi 2X: October?
I had to block noreply@soylentnews.org
For weeks, one of the editors (janrinok) has been on my case for not posting a link in one of my comments. He hasn't done this to anyone else, there's no requirement anywhere to post links in comments (not here, not anywhere else that I know of), and now he's been sending me emails from noreply@soylentnews.org.
So I've flagged noreply@soylentnews.org as spam.
This has been going on for a while. He HATES that I don't always post links "to prove what I say". Before this latest outbreak, he was arguing that I HAD to, and I made it clear that if it's that important to someone, they shouldn't take my word for it, or even a link - they should do their own research. People post links that confirm their biases. It's basic human nature. I will post links from CBC and the Guardian, someone else will post links from The Daily Stormer and Breitbart. Bias is inevitable, so if it's important to you, do your own research. And if it isn't important to you, don't get your panties in a knot.
But janrinok has been using the fact that I don't always post links to attack me for a while, in various discussions. He doesn't do this to anyone else as far as I can tell, so it's targeted.
The latest outbreak started with my comment here - an on-topic post about the Covid-19 epidemic :
Anyone over 65 doesn't get a respirator even if they need it. They die. Triage can be a bitch, but with limited supplies, warehouses being converted to wards for the sick on camp cots, 12 years in jail if you break quarantine, panic is advised.
Two comments down, janrinok takes a shot at me with this:
Barbara doesn't believe in providing the evidence to back up her claims - she believes that the onus is upon you to find the evidence to support her statements. Trust me, don't go there, you might as well bang your head against a brick wall.
I go on to give my reasons, but no, he won't let it die. And it's over something that NOBODY ELSE seems to care about - that when Uber laid off it's first batch of 400 engineers, it came out in comments on the green site that they were trying to develop self-driving software using JavaScript because Javascript devs are cheap and it can be done quicker.
But for him, it's an "aha" moment. I have to provide proof. And this has been going on in various threads. He doesn't demand that of anyone else. So I'm thinking it's not that I didn't provide a link to the comments on slashdot, but that it's really about me.
How crazy has it gotten? Well, when I mentioned in a follow-up comment that there were plenty of stories on The Guardian about the ventilator shortage in Italy, he decided to attack me for not posting links to a specific story there too:
There's plenty of reports on the guardian. Go do your own research.
So presumably you have found the links - but you still refuse to provide them? Thank you for your invaluable contribution.
to which I replied:
The situation is changing hourly, and the site is updated much more often - why limit yourself to any link I post, which will be outdated withing an hour, when you can get fresh, up-to-date information just as easily?
Or are you really that determined not to continue peddling your silliness. Go back and re-read your excuse for not going to slashdot for the information. So childish. You want it from somewhere else "because". So you're cutting your nose off to spite your face. But it's still no skin off my nose.
Keep it up - I'm the one encouraging people to do their own research, and not trust anyone's links because people can be selective in the links they post. You're against this. Why?
Anyone who's worked for a search engine knows the limitations of even the biggest ones. Most stuff isn't findable via search, because algorithms and site limitations. I ran into google's 1,000 search results maximum a few times when looking for information that I knew existed, because they had it before, but it had been pushed out of the top 1,000 (have they fixed that "feature" yet?).
BTW, since you claim to be so smart, what was Uber using to develop their self-driving car software? c? ada? cobol? pascal? programmable fpga's? Java? Since you claim it's not javascript, as was revealed in the discussion threads on slashdot, you must know what it is. Or say you don't know, and it could be anything, including javascript.
The reference to not going to slashdot led to him illegally accessing slashdot with a script to scrape the headlines, ignoring the robots.txt file, but not the comments, which is where I said the information was. His reply is self-contradictory, to say the least.
As a founder member of this site which we created because Slashdot didn't want us - the majority here who remember those times are of the same opinion as I. As we say - 'Fuck Beta'. As an Editor we have to ensure that we cannot be accused of plagiarism - we do this by not visiting the site - period.
However, I have been through all of the story titles on that site which contain the word Uber or Javascript from Jan 2017 until today.
... blah blah blah ...
Part of my reply just under it:
Third, your status as a founder/editor looks like an attempt at argument from authority. It's kind of irrelevant, and you just contradicted yourself in this post:
we do this by not visiting the site - period.
However, I have been through all of the story titles on that site
Those two statements are contradictory. Either the first one is true, and the second one false, or vice versa, or neither is true, but most certainly they can't both be true. I'll do you the courtesy of letting you pick one of the three possible options, but I've got to say, it doesn't look good from here.
You can always prove me wrong (won't be the first time) by practicing what you preach - post a link with information as to what Uber was actually using when they laid off the first 400 engineers.
I'm not the one requiring any proof from you one way or another - but you're the self-appointed internet cop who says a link is necessary to back up a claim. You claim it wasn't javascript - prove it.
Or just drop it. Because WTF is wrong with you that this is so important anyway?
Of course what Uber was using isn't the issue. Neither is that I didn't post a link. People don't do such obsessive-compulsive crap for a missing link.
So he sticks his foot in it by admitting that he scraped the site with a script:
But you said there was a newspaper report and discussion - you did not demonstrate that it actually occurred or what was said. Hence the request for you to provide a link so that we can ALL see what was actually said.
Second, as someone else just pointed out here [soylentnews.org], burden of proof is not a thing.
I do not believe that the opinion of a single AC (who, let's be fair, could be you) should actually replace the standards that this site tries to maintain and which are common in all scientific or technical debate (my bold).
I have written a program in python-3 using selenium which I used to scrape all the titles from Jan 1 2017 until today. If Slashdot's own search cannot find it that is a fair indication that they haven't got it. I have not read any articles.
So, he's violating the robots.text standard and the Patriot Act section VIII while claiming to observe " the standards that this site tries to maintain and which are common in all scientific or technical debate".
Don't make me laugh.
And how he could mistake slashdot for the Guardian is way beyond me, as I make clear in my follow-up.
But you said there was a newspaper report
Another lame attempt at misdirection, this time with a TOTAL LIE ON YOUR PART.
It's you who has not thought this out. I have written a program in python-3 using selenium which I used to scrape all the titles from Jan 1 2017 until today. If Slashdot's own search cannot find it that is a fair indication that they haven't got it. I have not read any articles.
And again, another lame attempt at misdirection. You claimed that you avoid the site completely to avoid any claims of plagarism, and yet somehow scraping and reading the results is "completely avoiding the site." You're so full of shit at this point it's not funny.
You made the claim that I was wrong. That is also a claim. According to your opwn standards, you have to either back up your claim or retract it.
There's more in most of these comments, but I've had to edit them for brevity.
It was after this that he attempted to continue to justify himself offline with more lies, sent from noreply@soylentnews.org.
You can see my replies if you follow the thread.
Summary
This is obviously not about posting or not a link. He hasn't, to my knowledge, gone to such extremes with anyone else, so it's personal.
He's lied, he's misdirected, he's dissimulated, and his behaviour scraping the headlines of slashdot while claiming he never visits it was over the line, a violation of the robots.txt file on the site, and yet another attempt at misdirection, since I always said it was in the comments, which aren't indexed by any search engine that respects the robots.txt file.
I'm sure he'd be the first to complain if a slashdot editor scraped the last 3 years of stories from here. After all, soylentnews.org also has a robots.txt file.
Anyway, he can't email me from the noreply address any more, and if he tries to from janrinok@soylentnews.org, that too will be flagged as spam. Which will probably automatically make anything from soylentnews.org be flagged as spam, but such is life.
And as I've pointed out elsewhere, human behaviour fascinates me. So I look at it all more as entertainment and research than anything else. Just checked in the mirror - still no skin off my nose :-)
Enjoy.
DOJ seeks new emergency powers...!
The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States.
Documents reviewed by POLITICO detail the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted.
I mean, yeah, it's perfectly plausible, and we have to prevent this kind of stuff, but really... Not a single congress person has spoken up? How is Politico able to see them? They have to cough up more than just links to their other articles. And every other link I found goes to Politico... Even Rolling Stone "Magazine"!
Single Board Computer With AMD Ryzen Embedded
Embedded 1.8-inch Zen PC: DFI Unveils Credit Card-Sized AMD Ryzen Board
DFI has announced what they consider the world’s smallest single-board computer (SBC) that uses an AMD Ryzen Embedded processor. The highly-integrated credit card-sized GHF51 motherboard can be used for a variety of applications that have to be small, yet offer capabilities as well as performance of a modern PC.
The DFI GHF51 1.8-inch platform carries AMD’s dual-core Ryzen Embedded R1000-series SoC with AMD Radeon Vega GPU featuring three compute units (192 stream processors) with hardware H.264, H.265, and VP9 decoding. The SoC can be paired with 2/4/8 GB of single-channel DDR4-3200 memory as well as 16/32/64 GB of eMMC storage. The SBC features one Mini PCIe slot for an add-in card, an 8-pin DIO header, two micro HDMI 1.4 outputs (4Kp30), one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a GbE connector (controlled by the Intel I211AT or the I210IT chip), and an fTPM 2.0 chip.
No pricing. Like some of RasPi's recent competing boards, it doesn't have HDMI 2.0 so it can't output 4K @ 60 Hz without Display Stream Compression. The spec sheet lists the new 6-10 Watt Ryzen Embedded APUs along with the previous 12 Watt ones.
Also at Wccftech.
Happy first day of spring!
Yep, the first day of spring, and it's beautiful. Sure, there was some idiot emailing me at 2 am to rag me, but the rest of the day is great.
1. Sure, there was a ton of rain, but also a lot of sun. And NO SNOW. They're calling for some snow sometime in the future, but that doesn't change how it's actual real spring weather today. Something that doesn't happen often enough.
2. I had planned out how to do the code I want to work on, and then my "better" eye bled again. It's one of the reasons I've stopped posting links to everything - one night I tried, and wasn't able to read anything, and thought "Why am I doing this? People can do their own research if they need to." I still post some links, but some stories, like COVID19, any link will be obsolete within hours, if not minutes. So I do what I can, and the rest isn't my problem.
3. The software I wanted to work on, I ran into a stumbling block - the actual development of the libraries requires a crapton of mixed-case and lowercase expressions, and my eyes are no longer up to it.
So, this morning, I realized that I was being stupid in trying to make something that was equally usable by sighted, low-vision, and no-vision users. By catering only to low- and no-vision users, I don't need to provide graphics capability. I also don't need to deal with expectations of things like web browsers, etc. And I don't need to worry about platform capability.
I had originally opted for Java to check all those boxes. But I've always preferred c. And if I ditch all those checkboxes, c is more than sufficient. Ditto a subset of c++ - keep only the parts I like, no STL, no templates. C with classes.
So I can start working on it again.
4. Turns out that new research is changing the profile of those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 - almost 40% of people who get it are below 54. Most people are going to get it at one point, so as long as you practice social distancing, be careful with what you touch, don't have stuff or food delivered (tv news reports that the CDC has determined it was the people bringing food to the shut-ins on the cruise ship that were the major vector for transmitting the virus among the passengers - makes sense - they'd be exposed to the infected people and then drop off meals for uninfected folks), get plenty of fresh air, maintain 2 meters between you and everyone else, and avoid any sort of crowds, you shouldn't pick up a heavy initial viral load, and your immune system will be able to cope. Unless you're a smoker or vaper, in which case your lungs are already fucked, so I don't know what to say, except STOP! And good luck.
5. Stupid eye is now able to sort of work despite more floaters and stuff. And it looks like the bleeding has stopped again. So while it might be on borrowed time, I'll take it :-)
6. Looks like my penchant for corny jokes is contagious. There are 4 of us who go in on Wednesday or Thursday to prep for the next week, and now everyone has a few jokes. Sample groaner:
Q. Why was the teacher cross-eyed?
A. He couldn't control his pupils.
Helps take the mind off the grim news in the outside world.
Business Idea in times of Coronavirus
Make a hand sanitizer with 90 % alcohol.
Offer it in various colors and fragrances, just like any good hand sanitizer.
But your line of products has the fragrance and taste of popular alcoholic beverages. Each fragrance of your product is labelled with a name similar to the alcoholic beverage it smells/tastes like.
Make it safe for human consumption.
Don't market it as a beverage. It's not. Really. It's a hand sanitizer. It's very slightly a gel in consistency and viscosity.
It can be sold anywhere. Grocery stores. Convenience stores. Schools vending machines. Church parking lots.
But licensed and heavily regulated alcoholic beverage stores might not be able to sell it since it is definitely not an alcoholic beverage.
Nothing for anyone to get upset about. It's just hand sanitizer.
