Category: Rants 🤬

✓ Makes the U.S. Navy Blue Angels violate ethics rules by having them fly at his July 4th political campaign (July 4, 2019)

✓ Demands US military chiefs stand next to him at 4th of July parade (reported July 2, 2019)

✓ Uses his D-Day interview at cemetery commemorating fallen US soldiers to attack a Vietnam veteran (June 6, 2019)

✓ Starts his D-Day commemoration speech by attacking a private citizen (Bette Midler, of all people) (reported on June 4th, 2019)

✓ Made 2nd wife, Marla Maples, sign a prenup that would have cut off all child support if Tiffany joined the military (reported on June 4th, 2019)

✓ Turns away US military from his Memorial Day speech because they were from the destroyer USS John S. McCain (May 27, 2019)

✓ Orders the USS John ($7,740,521 from the NRA) McCain out of sight during his visit to Japan (May 15, 2019). The ship’s name was subsequently covered. (May 27, 2019)

✓ Pardons war criminals (May, 2019)

✓ Purges 200,000 veterans healthcare applications (due to known administrative errors within VA’s enrollment process and enrollment system) (reported on May 13, 2019)

✓ Deports spouse of fallen Army soldier killed in Afghanistan, leaving their daughter parentless (April 16, 2019)

✓ Complains a deceased war hero didn’t thank him for his funeral (March 20, 2019)

✓ Diverts military housing funds to pay for border wall (Feb 15, 2019)

✓ refuses to sign his party’s funding bill, which shuts down the government, and forces a branch of the military to go without pay (but his appointees got a $10,000 pay raise). This branch of military is forced to work without pay, otherwise they are AWOL (Dec 22, 2018 – Jan 25, 2019)

✓ doesn’t pay the Coast Guard, forcing service members to rely on food pantries (Jan 23, 2019)

✓ bans service members from serving based on gender identity (Jan 22, 2019)

✓ denies female troops access to birth control to limit sexual activity (on-going. Published Jan 18, 2019)

✓ tries to deport a marine vet who is a U.S.-born citizen (Jan 16, 2019)

✓ when a man was caught swindling veterans pensions for high-interest “cash advances,” Trump’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined him $1. As a reminder, the Trump administration’s goal was to dismantle the CFPB, installing Mick Mulvaney as the director, who publicly stated the bureau should be disbanded. (Jan 26, 2019)

✓ calls a retired general a ‘dog’ with a ‘big, dumb mouth’ (Jan 1, 2019)

✓ increases privatization of the VA, leading to longer waits and higher taxpayer cost (2018)

✓ finally visited troops 2 years after taking office, but only after 154 vacation days at his properties (Dec 26, 2018)

✓ reveals covert Seal Team 5 deployment, including names and faces, on Twitter during visit to Iraq (Dec 26, 2018)

✓ lies to deployed troops that he gave them a 10% raise. He didn’t give them a 10% raise (Dec 26, 2018)

✓ fires service members living with HIV just before the 2018 holidays (Dec 19, 2018-present)

✓ gets three Mar-a-Lago guests to run the VA (unknown start – present, made well-known in 2018)

✓ calls troops on Thanksgiving and tells them he’s most thankful for himself (Thanksgiving, 2018)

✓ urges Florida to not count deployed military votes (Nov 12, 2018)

✓ cancels Arlington Cemetery visit on Veterans Day due to the rain (Nov 12, 2018)

✓ doesn’t visit US cemetery marking the end of WWI due to the rain (but other world leaders go anyway) (Nov 10, 2018)

✓ stops using troops as a political prop immediately after the election. However, troops remain in muddy camps on the border (Nov 7, 2018)

✓ uses troops as a political prop and sends troops on a phantom mission to the border and makes them miss Thanksgiving with their families (Oct-Dec, 2018)

✓ doesn’t pay veterans’ VA benefits (made public Oct 2018)

✓ doubled the rejection rate for veterans requesting family deportation protections (July 5, 2018)

✓ deports active-duty spouses (11,800 military families face this problem as of April 2018)

✓ forgets a fallen soldier’s name (below) during a call to his pregnant widow, then attacks her the next day (Oct 23-24, 2017)

✓ sends commandos into an ambush due to a lack of intel, and sends contractors to pick them up, resulting in a commando being left behind, tortured, and executed. (Trump approved the mission because Bannon told him Obama didn’t have the guts to do it) (Oct 4, 2017)

✓ blocks a veteran group on Twitter (June 2017)

✓ discharges active-duty immigrant troops with good records (2017-present)

✓ deports veterans (2017-present)

✓ says he knows more about ISIS than American generals (Oct 2016)

✓ says vets get PTSD because they aren’t strong (Oct 3, 2016) (note: yes, he said it’s ‘because they aren’t strong.’ He didn’t say it’s ‘because they’re weak.’ This distinction is important because of Snopes)

✓ accepts a Purple Heart from a fan at one of his rallies and says: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” (Aug 2, 2016)

✓ attacks Gold Star families (2016-present. Myeshia Johnson–gold star widow, Khan family–gold star parents, etc)

✓ sends funds raised from a January 2016 veterans benefit to the Donald J Trump Foundation instead of veterans charities (the foundation has since been ordered shut because of fraud) (Jan, 2016)

✓ says he doesn’t consider POWs heroes because they were caught (July 18, 2015)

✓ says having unprotected sex was like Vietnam (1998)

✓ for a decade, sought to kick veterans off of Fifth Avenue because he found them unsightly nuisances outside of Trump Tower. “While disabled veterans should be given every opportunity to earn a living, is it fair to do so to the detriment of the city as a whole or its tax paying citizens and businesses?” – 1991

✓ dodges the draft 5 times

via Reddit

The music streaming service Spotify is terribly designed in a multitude of ways, but there is one aspect that is a special level of shitty:

The keyboard shortcut to put caret focus in the search field is Cmd/Ctrl-L.

Seriously… What. The. Fuck.

Meanwhile, the obvious and logical shortcut Cmd/Ctrl-F is mapped to the menu item Edit > Filter which has no function. You can slap Cmd-F on every page on Spotify and nothing will ever happen.

Police departments and the United States military are two of the least accountable institutions in our country.

Oakland police average $30 million a year in overtime; one officer racked up nearly $2.5M in 5 years [KTVU]

The environmental record of sea cruise companies is rather dismal as they have a rich history of illegally dumping, especially in international waters where laws essentially do not apply and are rarely enforced. The company Carnival, owner of Princess Cruises, repeatedly puts profits above adhering to environmental laws and their actions in 2017 are finally catching up with them. Unfortunately, the $20 million dollar fine is merely a drop of water in the ocean compared to their yearly profits. ($7 billion in 2017)

Carnival slapped with a $20 million fine after it was caught dumping trash into the ocean, again [Business Insider]

Facebook refuses to delete doctored video of Nancy Pelosi shared by Trump supporters [Global News Canada]

Vallejo officer who shot Willie McCoy killed unarmed man fleeing on bike – video shows [The Guardian]

The wireless industry lobby group CTIA is opposing a California bill which bans throttling emergency service providers and is even going as far as threatening a lawsuit against California if the bill is passed. CTIA and the people who run Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint are scum bag human beings.

Wireless carriers fight ban on throttling firefighters during emergencies [Ars Technica]

How Nest, designed to keep intruders out of people’s homes, effectively allowed hackers to get in [Washington Post]

This article from the Washington Post is a truckload of bullshit for a few reasons.

1) The author of the article does not understand the definition of “hacking”, or in this case “security hacking”.

If someone logs into one of your online accounts, such as your Nest account, because you use a shitty password or you use the same password over-and-over again on many websites, that is not security hacking.

Hacking is the process of gaining access to a protected system through the exploitation of bugs or other system vulnerabilities. Simply obtaining someone’s account password and then logging into their account is not hacking. It is certainly unauthorized access of an account, but it cannot be called hacking.

2) Nest provides two-factor authentication for their accounts

“Software designed to help people break into websites and devices has gotten so easy to use that it’s practically child’s play, and many companies, including Nest, have effectively chosen to let some hackers slip through the cracks rather than impose an array of inconvenient countermeasures that could detract from their users’ experience and ultimately alienate their customers.”

BULLSHIT. That quote is complete and utter bullshit.

Nest has allowed its users to turn on two-factor authentication for their accounts since early 2017. One could easily argue that Nest was late to the game in providing this feature, but to say that Nest has “effectively chosen to let some hackers slip through the cracks” is a straight lie. Once you turn on two-factor authentication for your Nest account, no one can access your Nest account unless they also physically steal your phone. What more do you want? A Nest employee to visit your home to physically verify your identity???

3) The login process is not examined when companies try to reduce friction for their users

“Nest could make it more difficult for hackers to break into Nest cameras, for instance, by making the log-in process more cumbersome. But doing so would introduce what Silicon Valley calls “friction” — anything that can slow down or stand in the way of someone using a product.”

This author does not understand how “friction” is considered by companies when they design their products. Companies want to avoid friction when it impacts their bottom line. Friction encountered when logging into your account does not, for the most part, affect any company’s bottom line. Sure, you need to be able to access your account, but as long as you’re able to login, almost every company will consider their login process acceptable.

Companies only want to avoid friction for their users when it impacts their money. Checkout processes, search features, and product detail pages are some of the areas where companies invest their resources in reducing friction. They want it to be as easy as possible to give them money or engage in the activities that generate revenue, such as seeing more ads as you use Facebook. Login processes are not part of this thinking. Account creation processes are, but once you are a user you’ve already been captured. The company does not need to spend its time thinking about how you login to your account once you are a user. As long as you can login, the company is satisfied.

This author seems to believe that companies are responsible for the ignorance and stupidity of its users. Following this same line of thinking, car manufacturers are responsible for all of the accidents caused by the drivers of its cars, knife manufacturers are responsible for the injuries and deaths caused by the users of its knives, and water utility companies are responsible for all the drownings of its water users. This line of thinking is unreasonable and senseless. If I am robbed while walking down the street, I don’t blame some company for failing to protect me. Rather, I blame myself for failing to take the necessary measures to prevent or minimize the possibility of a robbery. I am responsible for my own security. Companies cannot be held responsible for the world of stupidity that its users engage in, such as using the same passwords all over the internet.

This article is obviously a hit-piece designed to portray Nest in a negative light, but whatever the author’s intentions, it is irresponsible journalism to lie to readers about the facts which describe Nest’s login process and account security features.

You wouldn’t drive a vehicle without first learning how to drive it. You wouldn’t purchase a pet without first learning how to take care of it. You wouldn’t travel to a country without first researching what it’s like to visit. The exact same lesson applies to the internet: Do not go registering online accounts without first understanding what the fuck you are doing.

Vallejo’s police chief has decided to retire at the rather young age of 50. His retirement pension: ~$19,000 per month for the rest of his life, which is over $200,000 per year.

If that’s not disgusting enough, because he unexpectedly announced his retirement without allowing the city council to find another chief, the city is forced to re-hire him as interim chief while he is at the same time collecting his $19,000/month retirement pension. Of course he’ll be paid for this interim work at the rate of roughly $20,000 per month. This means that the police chief will earn $39,000 per month, half of which he gets for doing jack shit.

I’d say this is absolutely wrong, but I have to remember that I live in the United States where nothing is holier than a police officer. All praise the men in blue.

Vallejo police chief will walk away with a pension worth about $19,000 a month. But wait, there’s more … [SF Chronicle]