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Miss America on Life Support
The Miss America Emails: How The Pageant’s CEO Really Talks About The Winners
In late August 2014, the CEO of the Miss America Organization, Sam Haskell, sent an email to the lead writer of the Miss America pageant telecast, Lewis Friedman, informing him of a change he wanted to make in the script: “I have decided that when referring to a woman who was once Miss America, we are no longer going to call them Forever Miss Americas....please change all script copy to reflect that they are Former Miss Americas!” Friedman replied, “I’d already changed “Forevers” to “Cunts.” Does that work for you?” Haskell’s short reply came quickly: “Perfect...bahahaha.”
[...] In December 2014, Friedman emailed Haskell to offer his condolences on the death of former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley, writing, “So sorry to hear about Mary Ann Mobley” The subject line of Friedman’s email read: “It should have been Kate Shindle.” Haskell replied, “Thanks so much Coach...even in my sadness you can make me laugh...how was the Kennedy Center Honors? Love you and appreciate you! Sam.”
[...] Haskell and Haddad also appeared to dislike Gretchen Carlson, who won the Miss America title in 1989 and was on the organization’s board of directors for many years. The root cause of their disdain, according to three sources, was Carlson’s push to modernize the organization and her refusal to attack former Miss Americas.
Haskell told Carlson not to have Hagan on her program, according to three sources familiar with the conversation. Carlson refused.
On Aug. 15, 2014, Weidner sent an email to a group of former Miss Americas, including Carlson, about Shindle’s book, saying, “Is it possible for each of you to speak out in defense of Sam and the organization?” Carlson replied, “It’s one thing to talk about your own personal experience as Miss America … but totally different to attack people individually.” Haskell forwarded Carlson’s response to Haddad, who replied to Haskell, “Snake but now u have not doubts as to her loyalty. Makes it easy not to respond. Right?”
Just before Shindle’s book came out, Haddad emailed Haskell and said, “Why don’t u read susan POWELL’s [former Miss America] email on the board call and say it’s a shame that only one miss america who has come forward to offer help in any way.” Haddad was referring to an email Powell had written that was supportive of Haskell. Haskell replied, “Brilliant…..fucking Brilliant!!!! That will drive Gretchen INFUCKINGSANE.” After the email exchange, Haskell did not feature Carlson in the next Miss America broadcast ― an unusual decision given her prominence.
[...] Adams recalled an encounter with Haskell at his home in which Haskell attempted to convince Adams to break up with Hagan and instead date his daughter. Haskell stretched out his arms and told Adams, “All of this can be yours,” ostensibly referring to his Oxford mansion and the family’s money. “You don’t need a piece of trash like Mallory. You need someone with class and money like my daughter,” he said, according to Adams.
[...] In August 2014, Haskell received an email from someone he knew, who said Hagan’s hairdresser in New York had been commenting on Hagan’s sex life while Hagan was living in Los Angeles, as well as her recent weight gain.
Haskell forwarded the email to Friedman saying, “Not a single day passes that I am not told some horrible story about Mallory.” Friedman replied, “Mallory’s preparing for her new career … as a blimp in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade As she continues to destroy her own credibility, her voice will attract less and less notice while she continues her descent to an unhappy pathetic footnote.” Friedman ended the email with, “Ps. Are we four the only ones not to have fucked Mallory?” Haskell replied and said, “It appears we are the only ones!”
Miss America CEO suspended over leaked emails revealed in story he calls 'unkind and untrue'
rDT summoned.
Holiday Recipes
Humanoid Robot Can Exercise and Break a "Sweat"
[Put here because it isn't substantially different than when the story ran last year.]
A robot designed to resemble the anatomy of a human boy can perform actions such as push-ups and sit-ups, and uses "sweat" to cool its motors:
The design of a new life-size bot named Kengoro closely resembles the anatomy of a teenage boy in body proportion, skeletal and muscular structure, and joint flexibility, researchers report online December 20 in Science Robotics. Compared with previous humanoid robots with more rigid, bulky bodies, Kengoro's anatomically inspired design [open, DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aaq0899] [DX] gives the bot a wide range of motion to perform humanlike, full-body exercises.
Video (37s).
Also at Motherboard.
Previously: "Sweating" Robot can do More Push-Ups
Sexual Harassment in Indonesia's Cosplay Scene
And in other Indonesian news:
Gay Crackdown Continues in Indonesia Despite Court Ruling
Indonesia court jails men for two years over 'gay sex party'
Australian, American, Malaysian arrested in Indonesia's Bali for drugs
Vigilantes Stalk Indonesian Transgender Women
Indonesia is the world's 4th most populous country, behind the United States.
Please Tell Me I'm Hallucinating
I just ordered an Antminer L3+ so I can mine LiteCoin. When used with an L3+ the APW3++ power supply can be plugged into 110V. The S9 BitCoin miner requires 220V.
I expected the L3+ to make me rich beyond my wildest dreams with its yield of $7000/year. The S9 profit is about the same but it uses 500W more.
But today I read somewhere that Ethereum can't be mined with ASICs. One must - "must" - use the CPU or GPU. It seems that Ethereum's Scrypt proof-of-work is designed to defeat ASICs. Rather than lots of arithmetic as in the case of BitCoin mining Scrypt requires a lot of memory.
I was puzzled by that so I looked into it when I got home this evening - and yes one can use a CPU or GPU.
But to gain the advantage of one's GPU it must have enough memory to fit the entire "DAG File" into video ram. Presently that file is somewhat less than 2 GB but it is slowly growing.
I found a review of the AMD Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 470 that claimed it could perform 2.9 MH/s.
Newegg's page on the 470 recommends a 500W power supply. My Linux box has a 1000W supply. But let's suppose it needs all those 500 watts.
An Ethereum mining profit calculator I discovered by praying to Google, with the 8.16 cents per kilowatt-hour here in the Pacific Northwest with its abundance of hydroelectric dams predict a yearly profit of one hundred thousand dollars per year.
I gotta get me some of that.
I expect that outrageous profit is not yet well-known because BitCoin is getting all the press.
I participated in NAGA's Initial Coin Offering on Friday. I bought 1,400 tokens at one dollar apiece. The company being NAGA is a regular finance firm - so its regulated. I didn't have time to read their whitepaper before the ICO closed but I trust the opinion of the wise old friend who recommended NAGA to me.
Presently I own approximately equal amounts of BitCoin, BitCoin Hash, LiteCoin, Ethereum, Dash and B2B.
The B2B will quite likely turn out to be a mistake because CoinMarketCap's All Cryptocurrencies table said that B2B was going rapidly upward in price.
It was only after I bought some when I looked at the table a second time only to find that B2B had a daily volume of roughly $50k. With such a low volume just one sale or purchase will alter its price by a significant amount.
Really the wise thing would have been to sell it all back but I decided to hold onto it. You know just like my LivePicture stock certificate - it sure is pretty!
LivePicture was the only company whose options have vested for me. That experience led me to avoid startups entirely.
But I'm working part-time for one since a couple weeks ago. Sorry it's in stealth mode so I can't give you a clue but I am convinced its business plan is sound.
Sex Harassment and the Office Christmas* Party
Holiday Parties Gone Wrong: Careful Where You Hang The Mistletoe
*Holiday Party #WarOnChristmas
Facefook feature - creepy or not?
Well, I sat down at a computer which I haven't used in a long time. More than a year? I'm really not sure when I last logged into Facebook with it. For some reason, I thought I'd click on Facebook. Firefox has my saved password, I should just click and be in. Ooops - I'm not in. It wants me to enter a password, or click the "forgot password" thingy. Well - actually, I didn't want on Facebook very badly. It's far to much trouble to go to my own computer, and retrieve the password. I remember now that I changed the password about a year ago, give or take a little.
NOTE: I did NOT click the button to ask for a new password or anything. I loaded the login page, entered an invalid password, and was redirected back to the login page. End of story - the page was then closed.
So, a few days later - not minutes later, or hours later, but DAYS later - I check my email, and Facefook is offering to log me in. Hmmmm? Fact is, I've logged in, from this computer, since then. I wanted to check up on a group of veterans, and checked their Facebook page.
From: Facebook
Guy, get back on Facebook with one click
Hi Guy,
It looks like you're having trouble logging into Facebook. Just click the button below and we'll log you in.
Get Back on Facebook
If you weren't trying to log in, let us know.
Now, I might understand this email, had I received it within a few minutes of the failed login. The system noticed that someone failed a login, and automatically generated an email - that seems like it might be a "feature". But, this email is days, almost a week, after the fact. WTF? Doesn't look like an automagic script thing to me. Worse, as I say, I DID log in, and check the page that I was interested in, then logged out. That probably should have turned off any automagic actions that the system was working on.
The email APPEARS TO BE from Facefook, but I'm sure as hell not clicking the link provided.
So, who thinks that I'm being phished, and who thinks that Facefook (or someone at Facefook) has chosen to give me some personal attentio? Shit looks weird to me!
Oh, before anyone asks, I'll decline to provide the actual email with identifying information. True, those identifiers are false, but I'd rather not associate them with this, or other accounts using this username, etc.
Episode VIII
So, I went and saw Episode VIII today at noon. I figured, screw opening night; I'll catch it Saturday in the daytime so I don't have to stand in line, fight for elbow room, or listen to a bunch of shitheads talk through it.
tl;dr: I wish I'd just given up on the franchise.
I'm not going to bore you with a lot of detailed analysis because that's not how you watch a movie for enjoyment. I'm just going to tell you it wasn't good and boil the "why" down to the most crucial bit: the dialogue.
If you ripped out the voice track from the movie, rewrote it, and re-recorded it, VIII could have been about as good as VI. As it stands, the dialogue was worse than I or II. Yes, even considering Jar-Jar. After mostly enjoying VII and the much better Rogue One, this was to me the biggest let-down in franchise history.
I'm Going To Order A LiteCoin Mining Rig
I at first planned to get an Antminer S9 bitcoin mining rig but it requires a power supply plugged into 220 volts. The only 220 outlet in my apartment is for the stove.
I came up with what I regard as a practical and safe way to plug the supply into my stove outlet, but then I had a look at the Antminer L3+ LiteCoin mining rig with the APW3++ supply.
The L3+ only requires 800 watts, well within the amount of juice that the APW3++ can provide when plugged into 110 volts.
Here in the Pacific Northwest electricity is only 8.16 per kilowatt-hour.
I consulted both a bitcoin mining profit calculator and a lite coin one. The L3+ lite coin rig was calculated to earn roughly the same profit as an S9 bitcoin rig, a little over $7,000 per year at the current exchange rate.
In other news I followed the advice of a friend to invest in the NAGA Initial Coin Offering. I bought 1,400 NAGA tokens. This particular friend has always given me good advice.
I was buying and selling bitcoin, lite coin and etherium at coinable but was no more successful than if I bought some then held onto it - "hodling" as the 1337 crypto-investors like to post.
My next paycheck was looking quite remote because my driver was totally borked on macOS 10.13 High Sierra. We were surprised because it works really well on 10.12 Sierra and earlier systems.
However one of my client's coders came up with a different approach that involved a userspace LaunchDaemon talking to the driver via an IOUserClient.
He got it mostly working but there was a serious problem - still a showstopper.
Today I fixed the showstopper.
His workaround unfortunately uses too much CPU. Possibly I can fix that by using an x86_64 assembly instruction that disables one line of the memory cache with the expectation that the code is going to write into the entire line.
I could use intrinsics but I once read an article that made a good case for using assembly instead: sometimes intrinsics yield very poor code generation.
When I get that next check I'm going to devote $6,500 to fund my 2017 Individual Retirement Account at eTrade, then use it all to buy an S&P 500 index fund. I'm not going to blow it all on cryptos, just some of it.
And I'll be donating $1,000 to the Right 2 Dream Too homeless shelter, as well as sending my Mom another $1,000. She was paying for my storage while I was homeless.
I'm going to get most of that stuff out of storage when I receive my renewed passport six weeks from now. This because that "most" is in Canada. To have it shipped into the US the truck driver must have a photocopy of my passport.
R2D2 is operated by homeless people. It's particularly forward-thinking in that one can sleep during the day there. Whenever I lost the bed lottery at the Portland Rescue Mission I stayed up all night then slept at R2D2 the following day.
Final Trump Tax Bill Version Released
The sausage is made. You may now officially commence the bitching that you prepared long before you knew what was in the bill.
