SoylentNews

Astronomy Picture of the Day

And for the paranoid crowd:

Watch: Aurora borealis over HAARP

Still nothing funny about tired .@nbcsnl Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Like many, I don’t watch Saturday Night Live (even though I past hosted it). But I watched parts of it during, or over, the wonderful President's Day Long Weekend. Total hit job on me. Really bad television, no longer funny, no talent or charm. ZERO. .@DonCheadle, horrible Fake Hockey Jersey. Gary Clark (Jr.), such a dumb song. And the Baldwin impersonation STINKS. Just can't get any worse. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show. Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion! breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/02/18/watch-don-cheadle-promotes-breitbart-boycotters-sleeping-giants-on-saturday-night-live

I had some extra money from the company Christmas bonus, and decided to use it to buy another one of these single-board computers. I have a few of them lying around, including an old Raspberry Pi Model B with a broken memory card slot, and an ODROID C2 that has been my workhorse NAS server, torrentbox, and HTPC for the past several years. I heard about the ROCKPro64 from someone here (thanks, coolgopher!), and saw how they had some pretty damn sweet-looking silicon with better I/O than USB, and a mean-looking NAS case which I could deck out with two drives.

So I ordered one from them, and I was at first rather disappointed at their rather tardy customer service as it took them more than a few days to respond to my emails following up on my order. Eventually, it seems they decided to stop ignoring me and they began corresponding with me properly, and I got my stuff soon enough.

All of the spinning rust drives I own are Western Digital: they're the only manufacturer I've had much luck with. I have a 1 TB WD Elements I bought in 2009 that I have to give them full marks for, since at one point I tripped on one of the cables while I was copying some stuff to it from my computer, sending the whole thing flying with a crash to the floor. I was terrified that the drive might be destroyed, but not only was it not destroyed, it is still working fine a decade later. It didn't see a lot of heavy use thereafter though, plugged in once in a while whenever I needed to back up my files or whatnot. Not so though with some of the other WD drives I have though. My current ODROID-based HTPC/NAS system is based on a 3TB WD My Book, and it has worked well with almost continuous use for the past three years. I've never had that kind of luck with Seagate or other manufacturers on the other hand.

And so once I got the gear from Pine64, I started building the system. I had a 3TB WD Blue lying around that I originally planned to set up as extra storage for the ODROID but never got around to setting up, and bought another 4TB WD Blue to fill it up. Building up the ROCKPro64 NAS case was not so easy though, as the interior of the thing has very little extra room. Cabling the drives in particular was rather tricky, and they had to twist and turn. Now I'm getting some I/O errors from the drives as I copy some data from the 3TB to the 4TB. I'm not yet sure if it's because I've finally gotten a bad disk from WD, or if it's because of the ugly cabling on the inside. The drives pass SMART, but the kind of ugly, twisting cabling I've had to do inside the case is also a possible source of trouble.

I'm going to try to rearrange the cables again, and perhaps buy new SATA cables tomorrow as the cables that Pine64 sent me along with the case might have problems. I've noticed that swapping the cables around seems to change which drive experiences errors, so that might be it.

On President's Day, we celebrate the American President, the bulwark of our national prosperity and the cornerstone of our national greatness. We commemorate the achievements of this skilled businessman/actor and recognize his courage, will power, and ambition -- all values we cherish as Americans. In that spirit, we continue to seek new horizons for greater greatness and further opportunity on land, in sea, and in space.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim February 18, 2019, as President's Day. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities. I also direct that the flag of the United States be displayed on all public buildings on the appointed day in honor of our magnificent leader and all who have contributed to shaping this Nation.

Police sources: New evidence suggests Jussie Smollett orchestrated attack

Brothers released in reported attack on 'Empire' actor Jussie Smollett — 12 hours after police called them 'possible suspects'

Jussie Smollett Viewed As “Active Participant” By Cops In Alleged Assault

Jussie Smollett hires Michael Cohen’s criminal defense lawyer

General

This is a post / TFS text pre-processor designed specifically for use with soylent.org

There are three interrelated projects involved.

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Another is a Python(2) library that can be used to create your own project of a similar nature. This library is also used in the above project.

The other is a Perl library (module) with the same general functionality as the Python(2) library that is specifically designed to work easily with the soylentnews.org TFS system.

Here is a summary of features and capabilities as of 20190216:

Instance Types:

• Full bore web page for pre-processing your own posts
• Python class suitable for implementing your own handler
• Perl class suitable for implementing your own handler
    (specifically intended for soylentnews.org)

Capabilities:

• Generates tag pairs with terminology expansions for caps / numbers / caps+numbers sequences
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  • Handles pre-existing tag pairs when you want to add one-off uses
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    • links, canned and/or on-the-fly {link URL|linked text}
    • temperature display and conversion {f NN}, {c NN}
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    • smile (emoji) {smile}
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• Convenient unicode-to-unicodeEntity converter
• Provides optional Soylent-style post preview (default off)
• Handles unicode posting
• Incorporates basic self-test when run from command line
• Can use local configuration file to prevent update from repo resetting your preferences

The project can be found here on Github.

Folks, I don't think I need to do a Proclaimation to make this one a VERY SPECIAL day. A day with a lot of heart. 💕 One year ago today, a horrific act of violence took the lives of 14 students and 3 educators in Parkland, Florida. ❣️ On this somber anniversary, we honor their memory and recommit to ensuring the safety of all Americans, especially our Nation’s children. And believe me, the children are much safer today. Because we did the Ban of the deadly Bump Stocks. Little piece of plastic -- sometimes Metal -- that can turn an ordinary gun into a Weapon of Mass Destruction. 💘 And more importantly, we now have a Ratings System for Video Games. That's a big thing. A year ago, nobody thought that was possible. We made it happen -- together. And we're only getting stronger together. America First!! whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/presidential-message-school-safety-remembering-parkland-tragedy
pic.twitter.com/EVAeSwA8oV

Vox Media Attempts To Scrub Internet Of The Verge PC Build Video By Going After YouTubers

Many reuploads and analyses can be found.

There Is a Taboo Against Criticizing AIPAC — and Ilhan Omar Just Destroyed It

American Israel Public Affairs Committee

But AYYPAC doesn't donate to candidates!

‮۴۰ سال سرکوب. ۴۰ سال ترور. رژیم ایران فقط موجب #چهل_سال_شکست‭ شده است. مردم ایران که‮ مدتهاست در رنجند شایسته آینده روشن تری هستند ☁️️🍄☁️️‭pic.twitter.com/nKMQCHQFCZ