Aside from small scripts and stupid joke images, I used ChatGPT on a vacation for extra details about the area I was in. It was when it first came out and Wikipedia and Google were obviously better for facts or finding restaurants but being able to ask follow-up questions was sometimes useful. You can be more vague and slowly zero in on what you’re actually asking about.

So, I don’t rely on it for anything important but it’s handy for a number of edge cases (sometimes, if only to figure out what you need to do a regular search for).

Lots of western companies are. Not everything is subject to sanctions — the U.S. government still buys uranium from Russia and there’s cooperation on space launches — but even the companies that tried to divest for moral reasons found it challenging, to say the least. The ones who tried often had their assets essentially stolen or sold for pennies on the dollar to a Putin loyalist oligarch.

I’m not sure what Apple is doing there besides having the App Store. They did stop all exports so any new Apple products there are smuggled and probably way more expensive. On balance, I think it’s better keeping the App Store and software updates available to Russians. Some dissidents and journalists use Apple products too and you don’t want their devices left insecure.

Because she was getting death threats? They might have been credible and specific for all we know.

Why? I know why far-right Republican bozos want it — all the bribes (or “donations”) from the crypto and oil industries. But how would anyone else benefit from this? We don’t pay our taxes in random things that have a perceived value, whether it’s Mexican Pesos, airline miles, gold doubloons, futures contracts, corn, land, etc. for a reason. Individuals sell those assets (and often pay capital gains taxes on the sale) to get dollars, the national currency that has a known value and doesn’t need to be sold.

Then, the U.S. government would have to sell them all anyway and the price fluctuations make that very risky. Why put that risk on the government? And only for Bitcoin, which is by design¹ super volatile. It doesn’t even have a central bank. The U.S. government collecting and selling loads of BTC every April would probably make it even more volatile and speculative.

¹ Probably unintentionally since Bitcoin fanboys all seem to have found their Economics knowledge in a Cracker Jack box instead of a textbook.

chown changes the file owner. chmod changes permissions. So, if a file or directory is owned by root but a user should have access, you could make them the owner or you could keep root the owner and just allow read/write access.

They come up more on servers where you often have multiple users with different access levels. Some users might not have sudo permission but do have full control over their home directory and whatever else they need. And web servers, for instance, will usually have a user called www-data or similar and it’s shared by all the users in the “developer” group.

chmod is the command to change user permissions. The numbers mean user, group, and others and the value allows read, write, execute. So, 000 means no one has permissions to get rid of the mount point. 777 means everyone has all permissions. (4 is read, 2 is write, and 1 is execute and the numbers are added. So, 644 would mean you can read/write, the group and other users have read only access.)

You don’t have to use the numbers but eventually, almost every Linux admin does because it’s faster, a bit like a keyboard shortcut. But, for instance, you can add Execute permission with chmod +x /some/file/location.

Here’s more details on the how to chmod and the historic reasons for the 0-7 system (spoiler: it’s 8 bits): https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/linux-file-permissions-explained

The most sociopathic thing about all these careerist sociopaths is that they’re doing time for Donald fucking Trump. I’d be willing to do a little time for Civil Rights, labor unions, protesting war(s), etc. But I’ll be damned if I go to jail for a corrupt politician. And I’ll especially be damned if I get locked up for Donald Trump, the famous racist sex pervert who is allowed to do crimes for some reason.

My favorite drink is usually a crisp white wine like Pinot Grigio but I’ll order a Sazerac or Old Fashioned (or a specialty cocktail) at nice places. At a dive bar or music venue or whatever, I typically stick to gin and tonic or vodka soda, the main reasons being just that they’re simple for a busy bartender to make and also don’t make me as miserable the next day.

In 2003, The Onion had an “article” with no text that was just the headline “Taste Acquired” and a picture of empty beer cans.

I suspect the main upside will be that you can argue shitty regulations aren’t valid. Like if Trump decides to allow the dumping of poison in the waterhole, it’s very clear that the the EPA is allowed to act when somebody poisons the waterhole.

Or maybe it’s just a Calvinball ruling where they decided the Supreme Court is the only branch that doesn’t have checks and balances. It is a mystery.

At least it didn’t break in the middle of fighting a Lynel.

The Atlantic isn’t left wing. Its editor was a fucking Israeli prison guard despite being born in NYC.

The future of humanity rests on everyone, regardless of nationality, being able to ask Midjourney to generate an image of an Ewok with big naturals.

Molto bene.

Can his 78 year-old diapered ass even throw a football with a teenager? He’s basically as bad off as Biden in my expert* opinion.

• I’ve met over five old people.

print “Fine. Fuck y’all.”

There’s an awesome Afrobeat collection called Nigeria: The Definitive Story of 1970’s Funky Lagos. I don’t know if it’s streaming but it’s a good next step.

This is a way more chill recommendation but I love Mayra Andrade from Cape Verde for music to relax to.

And the brain worm died. Imagine having a brain so toxic, not even brain worms can enjoy a few bites, as a treat.

He doesn’t even have to assassinate 1 or 2. Thomas committed tax fraud on his RV deal and Alito probably did on his bribes. Joe Biden apparently has dictatorial powers over the IRS and DOJ. Start arresting people and when Trump supporters act up, use emergency powers to drone strike Mar-a-Lago. Those are all official acts.

Centrists putting fascists in power and then selling out the left to (temporarily) save their own asses is a tradition as old as fascism.