#WE ARE DEFCON ALL CAPS

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The long bezzle

Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” on Saturday at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

When it comes to the modern world of enshittified, terrible businesses, no addition to your vocabulary is more essential than "bezzle," JK Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/09/accounting-gimmicks/#unter

The bezzle is contained by two forces.

First, Stein's Law: "Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop."

Second, Keynes's: "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

On the one hand, extremely badly run businesses that strip all the value out of the firm, making things progressively worse for its suppliers, workers and customers will eventually fail (Stein's Law).

On the other hand, as the private equity sector has repeatedly demonstrated, there are all kinds of accounting tricks, subsidies and frauds that can animate a decaying, zombie firm long after its best-before date (Keynes's irrational markets):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

One company that has done an admirable job of balancing on a knife edge between Stein and Keynes is Verizon, a monopoly telecoms firm that has proven that a business can remain large, its products relied upon by millions, its stock actively traded and its market cap buoyant, despite manifest, repeated incompetence and waste on an unimaginable scale.

This week, Verizon shut down Bluejeans, an also-ran videoconferencing service the company bought for $400 million in 2020 as a panic-buy to keep up with Zoom. As they lit that $400 mil on fire, Verizon praised its own vision, calling Bluejeans "an award-winning product that connects our customers around the world, but we have made this decision due to the changing market landscape":

https://9to5google.com/2023/08/08/verizon-bluejeans-shutting-down/

Writing for Techdirt, Karl Bode runs down a partial list of all the unbelievably terrible business decisions Verizon has made without losing investor confidence or going under, in a kind of tribute to Keynes's maxim:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/10/verizon-fails-again-shutters-attempted-zoom-alternative-bluejeans-after-paying-400-million-for-it/

Remember Go90, the "dud" streaming service launched in 2015 and shuttered in 2018? You probably don't, and neither (apparently) do Verizon's shareholders, who lost $1.2 billion on this folly:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/02/verizons-sad-attempt-to-woo-millennials-falls-flat-face/

Then there was Verizon's bid to rescue Redbox with a new joint-venture streaming service, Redbox Instant, launched 2012, killed in 2014, $450,000,000 later:

https://variety.com/2014/digital/news/verizon-redbox-to-pull-plug-on-video-streaming-service-1201321484/

Then there was Sugarstring, a tech "news" website where journalists were prohibited from saying nice things about Net Neutrality or surveillance – born 2014, died 2014:

https://www.theverge.com/2014/12/2/7324063/verizon-kills-off-sugarstring

An app store, started in 2010, killed in 2012:

https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/5/3605618/verizon-apps-store-closing-january-2013

Vcast, 2005-2012, yet another failed streaming service (pray that someday you find someone who loves you as much as Verizon's C-suite loves doomed streaming services):

https://venturebeat.com/media/verizon-vcast-shutting-down/

And the granddaddy of them all, Oath, Verizon's 2017, $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo/AOL, whose name refers to the fact that the company's mismanagement provoked involuntary, protracted swearing from all who witnessed the $4.6 billion write-down the company took a year later:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/12/12/if-youre-surprised-verizons-aol-yahoo-face-plant-you-dont-know-verizon/

Verizon isn't just bad at being a phone company that does non-phone-company things – it's incredibly bad at being a phone company, too. As Bode points out, Verizon's only real competency is in capturing its regulators at the FCC:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/05/02/new-verizon-video-blatantly-lies-about-whats-happening-to-net-neutrality/

And sucking up massive public subsidies from rubes in the state houses of New York:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/03/14/new-york-city-sues-verizon-fiber-optic-bait-switch/

New Jersey:

https://www.techdirt.com/2014/04/25/verizon-knows-youre-sucker-takes-taxpayer-subsidies-broadband-doesnt-deliver-lobbies-to-drop-requirements/

and Pennsylvania:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/06/15/verizon-gets-wrist-slap-years-neglecting-broadband-networks-new-jersey-pennsylvania/

Despite all this, and vast unfunded liabilities – like remediating the population-destroying lead in their cables – they remain solvent:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/verizon-sued-by-investors-over-lead-cables-environmental-statements-2023-08-02/

Verizon has remained irrational longer than any short seller could remain solvent.

Short-sellers – who bet against companies and get paid when their stock prices go down – get a bad rap: billionaire shorts were the villains of the Gamestop squeeze, accused of running negative PR campaigns against beloved businesses to drive them under and pay their bets off:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/30/meme-stocks/#stockstonks

But shorts can do the lord's work. Writing for Bloomberg, Kathy Burton tells the story of Nate Anderson, whose Hindenburg Research has cost some of the world's wealthiest people over $99 billion by publishing investigative reports on their balance-sheet shell-games just this year:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-06/how-much-did-hindenburg-make-from-shorting-adani-dorsey-icahn

Anderson started off trying to earn a living as a SEC whistleblower, identifying financial shenanigans and collecting the bounties on offer, but that didn't pan out. So he turned his forensic research skills to preparing mediagenic, viral reports on the scams underpinning the financial boasts of giant companies…after taking a short position in them.

This year, Anderson's targets have included Carl Icahn, whose company lost $17b in market cap after Anderson accused it of overvaluing its assets. He went after the world's fourth-richest man, Gautam Adani, accusing him of "accounting fraud and stock manipulation," wiping out 34% of his net worth. He took on Jack Dorsey, whose payment processor Square renamed itself Block and went all in on the cryptocurrency bezzle, lopping 16% off its share price.

Burton points out that Anderson's upside for these massive bloodletting was comparatively modest. A perfectly timed exit from the $17b Icahn report would have netted $56m. What's more, Anderson faces legal threats and worse – one short seller was attacked by a man wearing brass-knuckles, an attack attributed to her short activism.

Shorts are lauded as one of capitalism's self-correcting mechanisms, and Hindenberg certainly has taken some big, successful swings at some of the great bezzles of our time. But as Verizon shows, shorts alone can't discipline a market where profits and investor confidence are totally decoupled from competence or providing a decent product or service.

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

[icanbeoriginal2]

Forgot to mention. I literally showed him my tumblr blog. OK. I told him to look at ONE meme. OK? I TRUSTED HIM TO ONLY LOOK T ONE MEME ON MY TUBLR BLOG. OK.?.?

(it's all caps under the cut I'm sorry)

so that's why I made a new BLOGGGGGGGG. We are in DEFCON 5. I AM ON THE VERGE OF SHUT DOWN. I HAVE ALSO EMOTIONALLY DEPENDED ON HIM FOR THE PAST Y E A R .

GYNS. I AM IN FULL MELTDOWN. IN FULL MELT D O W N. IT'S ALL HITTING E RIGHT NOW AND MY STUPID BPD ADHD CAN'T STY IN MY EMOTIONS ENOUGH TO PROCESS THEM.

Hold up.

This is where i got my blog name from btw, it's a reference to this song <3

[mariacallous]

Editor's Note: The debt limit is once again an issue for political debate about federal spending. In this FixGov blog series, we’ve asked a number of experts to explain, why it’s so hard to cut federal spending?

For the next few months, as we head into the debt ceiling negotiations, we will be thrust into a familiar argument about deficits and government spending. Both parties appear to have taken social security and Medicare off the table. Ditto for defense. So, all there is left to talk about is the discretionary side of the budget — a measly 14% of the total budget in 2019.

Getting significant savings out of this part of the budget will be like getting blood from a stone. Is there some fraud and waste in there? Sure — but, as Donald Kettl has pointed out you need to spend money to find it. Are there things in there that don’t need to be done at the federal level? Sure, but even if you can get past the stubborn status quo, this requires the hard work of restructuring. Can taxes be raised, and tax expenditures be cut? Of course they can, but raising taxes is heresy for the Republican Party and cutting tax expenditures (such as the mortgage interest deduction) is Defcon 4 for the public.

While we don’t know what the Republican counter to Biden’s budget proposal looks like (and it may not be out until June) we do know that it may include a cap on future agency budgets — the equivalent of across-the-board cuts to the non-defense discretionary side of the budget. A little bit of history provides a good lesson in why across the board cuts are perhaps the worst way to cut spending.

The story starts in 2010 when Republicans had just taken control of the House of Representatives and Barack Obama was president. Due to spending as a result of the Great Recession, deficits were high, and Republicans were threatening to increase the debt ceiling unless large cuts in federal spending were made. The Budget Control Act set up a congressional committee — called the “Super Committee” — to come up with a bipartisan package of cuts. To no one’s surprise, it failed and an automatic “sequester” kicked in requiring 2% across the board cuts starting in January 2013.

As agencies began to comply with the sequester everyone — including the Republican Congress — got a hard lesson in why across the board cuts are a bad idea. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) runs the nation’s airports including over 21,000 air traffic controllers.

Their budget is appropriated in accounts, the biggest being “operations” mostly air traffic controllers and other safety related personnel. To implement the law the FAA required air traffic controllers to take unpaid furloughs. To keep everyone safe the FAA also implemented programs that increased aircraft spacing which of course sparked delays and reduced the number of flights that could be handled in any given period. This led to serious disruptions in New York City, Dallas-Fort Worth, Las Vegas, Chicago and Tampa airports, among others. By the fifth day of furloughs 863 flights had been delayed and another 2,132 were expected.

The public was outraged and let legislators, reporters, and their friends and acquaintances know. On April 27, 2013, just days into the furloughs, Congress passed legislation allowing the FAA to transfer money from the airport improvement account into the operations account and the furloughs ended. The bill was named the “Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013,” the air traffic controllers went back to work and received their pay. And the portion of the budget that went to airport improvement grants was moved into a “protected” status so that airports could use them in the later years of their eligibility.

The moral of the story is that there’s a wrong way to cut government spending and a right way that almost is never used. That involves good faith negotiations between political parties, a willingness to compromise on each side’s respective priorities, and serious efforts to locate unworthy expenditures. As Congressman Barney Frank used to say, “a willingness to look for fat in the budget involves the way you look for fat in a nicely marbled piece of steak.” That is taking out a sharp knife and going after clear pockets of pork. It’s no coincidence that the last time the U.S. had a balanced budget was at the beginning of the information technology revolution. The creative use of new technology in this century could also result in savings as could investigating the devolution of some functions from the federal government to state and local governments.

The wrong way is the easy way — simply lop off a certain amount across the board. Hence the wrong way wins. Let’s hope it doesn’t win this time too.

[chicgeekgirl89]

OH SHIT THEY GOT LISA

[dameronology]

hello stevie, my what i call incredible friend. thinking about #34 with padawan!obi that transitions into #46 with rots obi? like a cute confession/fluff imagine, please? thank you 😘💞

well hello to you and thanks for joining, miranda❤️

34 -  “you come to my room and wake me up at 4am, to cuddle? +  46 -  “what if I told you I’ve been in love with you since we were kids.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t entirely sure what he would have done without you. He wasn’t sure where you came from or how you found our way into his life, but you’d just always been...there. Your friendship was simply a fact of life and it was something he valued greatly. You might have been the only person in the galaxy who truly understood him; the only consistent thing in a world that was entirely crazy. 

He wouldn’t have described himself as clingy. The fact that he wanted to spend every second of every day with you and only you didn’t mean anything. Sure, he didn’t ever want to talk to anyone else, much less look at anyone else, but clingy wasn’t the right word. He would have called it dedicated. (Qui-Gon would have called it a disaster).

So dedicated, in fact, that you were the person he came to when his nightmares got bad. They were usually quite manageable, but after a particularly bad mission, the visions had come back to haunt his sleep that night. He’d trailed across the temple at some unholy hour, hair sticking up in a million different directions as he dragged his cloak behind him. 

After gently calling out your name, Obi-Wan waited for a few moments. He heard a crashing from the other side of the door and a pattering of footsteps. He knew you weren’t going to be happy: nobody dared to disturb your sleep unless it was entirely critical, but he would have rated this situation as a DEFCON 3 at the least. 

‘You better have a good excuse, Kenobi.’ You didn’t bother with a greeting, a grumble escaping your lips as his blue eyes met yours. He looked tired. He felt tired - his exhaustion was practically Force-vacuuming the energy out of you. 

‘I wanted...’ He couldn’t bring himself to admit he’d had a nightmare.  Would you have judged him? Thought him to be weak? You certainly thought he was a huge dork but no, not weak. ‘I wanted to cuddle?’

‘You came to my room and wake me up at 4am...to cuddle?’ Your words were tinged a mixture of humour and disbelief. ‘Qui-Gon really did whoop your ability to lie out of your ass, huh?’

Obi-Wan sighed. ‘I had a nightmare.’

‘Obi.’ You murmured. ‘You don’t have to lie to me.’

You held your arms out to him - without hesitation, he fell forwards, bodies colliding as you wrapped your arms around his neck. His fell around your waist, practically cowering over you as you tangled yourselves together. He rested his head on tops yours, holding you tightly as though he were the one protecting you. In reality, it was the opposite. Anything negative that he had been feeling melted away the moment you touched. 

That night was simply one of many; hundreds, in fact. The comfort that you found in one another only became more crucial as life threw curve balls at you. The solace that Obi-Wan sought in you after he lost his master and the consolation you sought in him when you lost a close friend only brought you closer together. In a galaxy so vast and so wide, you were one another’s home. Knowing that you had him to turn to in tough times was like a lifeboat amongst an unruly sea. 

Nothing about your closeness changed - you both grew as people, but you never grew apart. You watched Obi-Wan become one of the best Jedi you’d ever seen; a little less aloof than he’d been as a Padawan, but still your best friend nonetheless. Watching him finally grow a beard after so many years of patchiness was also a huge feat for him. On the flip side, he got to watch you find your feet, becoming an undeniable bad-ass. He watched you settle into the role with such pride. 

Obi-Wan had become tireder over the years. With the Clone Wars raging on and his Padawan slipping further and further away from him, your presence was a heaven send. The nightmares he was having as a Jedi Master had made his Padawan-era ones seem like children’s cartoons. 

And, every time he turned up at your room at 4AM, you’d welcome him with a sarcastic quip and open arms. It was simply a routine - and one he wouldn’t know what to do without. 

‘Let me guess.’ You murmured. It was 3.45AM and you’d both returned from a mission just hours ago. It had been rough. Men had been lost. Innocent men. And for what? 

‘You want a cuddle?’

‘If you’d be so kind as to allow it.’ Obi-Wan offered you a smile. It was fake - you could see that, no cap - but damn, he was pretty. 

Over the years,your hugs in your bedroom door way had upgraded to bed sharing. Neither of you ever discussed what it meant, nor what it could lead to, but it was the only way he got any sleep nowadays. Sometimes, Obi-Wan would be the one holding you, and other times, you would hold him. The most important thing was that you were together. 

You both slid into bed, a tangle of limbs as he rested his head on your chest. His arms were around your waist, whilst yours supported his head. It was almost vulnerable for him; he was supposed to be a General, one of the bravest men in the order. He was - he was undoubtedly the most selfless warrior you’d ever met - but the man needed a hug, goddammit. 

‘Don’t worry about today.’ You murmured, a hand gently carding through his hair. 

‘I’m sure that by next week we would have witnessed something so terrible that we forget about this bad thing.’ Obi-Wan replied. His tone was humorous but his words were like a thousand tiny knives in your chest. 

‘That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.’ You replied. 

Obi-Wan only truly felt at peace when he was in your embrace. It was as though things suddenly became crystal clear the minute that you reached out to him - physically, mentally, emotionally and otherwise. Amongst all the intergalactic cockamamie and bullshit, you were the only thing that truly made sense. 

‘At least if things do get worst, I have an excuse to come and see you again.’ He said. 

‘What if I told you that you don’t need an excuse?’ You replied. 

‘What if I told you that I’ve fibbed about having nightmares before so I could lay with you?’ He peered up at you, blue eyes tired with exhaustion under the dark of your room. 

‘What if I told you that I know?’ You shot back. 

Obi-Wan’s body shook against yours as he let out a small laugh. ‘Get some rest now, darling.’

‘I was resting.’ You reminded him. ‘And you woke me up.’

With that, Obi-Wan shifted so that you reversed positions; he held you against his chest, one arm around your waist and his free hand supporting the back of your head as you buried it in his shoulder. He preferred to hold you - with everything go on, it felt as though he were protecting you. 

He could tell when you’d drifted off; your Force energy was calm - tranquil and soft and almost enough to drag him under with you. That’s what worked so beautifully between the two of you: there was a balance in the Force, something tying you to together, running much deeper than people who were just old friends.

Once Obi-Wan was certain that you were dead to the world, a small sigh escape his lips.

‘What if I told you that I’ve been in love with you since we were kids?’

[tonystarktogo]

K I know you're already into the weekend buuut.. how about Tony saving a villain (I love Loki so maybe him?) from some...less than humane conditions? Interrogation or just general conditions that Tony just morally cannot abide perhaps?

“Tony.” The sound quality of Tony’s non-standard Starkphone is excellent, which is why there is no missing the hesitation in Steve’s voice.

“Yes, Cap?” Tony prompts after a long moment of silence. He’d make a joke usually, but he’s currently got his hands full and really isn’t in the mood for a verbal sparring with America’s national icon.

“You wouldn’t know anything about why SHIELD declared you an enemy of the free world some twelve minutes ago, would you?” Steve asks finally. 

“Fury and I had a difference of opinion,” Tony says, curses under his breath. “And by the way, Cap, I’m deeply insulted that it took you twelve minutes to call me. You do know that I could have been dead by now or enacted DEFCON 1 protocol, right?”

“Tony.”

“It doesn’t exactly inspire my confidence, is all I’m saying.”

“Tony. Did your difference of opinion involve blowing up the helicarrier – the same one we’ve spent the past two months restoring to its former glory – knocking out fifteen trained agents and freeing a subdued hostile?” Steve asks, and even his question mark sounds exasperated.

“I did not blow up the helicarrier.” Tony is insulted. He hopes he sounds insulted too. “You would know if I had, believe me. All I did was rip out a couple of doors and blow through the landing pat. Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

“Oh for– Two weeks, Tony. Two weeks. That’s all I asked off you. Two weeks of not doing anything crazy until me and Thor are done clearing things up over here.”

“Yeah, well, change of plans.” Tony pulls out his professionally equipped first aid kit from under his work bench. “Besides Point Break is gonna take my side in this.” He shoots the currently unconscious form of Loki, resting on his emergency sleep couch, a quick look. “Trust me.”

Steve sighs. “Of course he is, Tony. We’re your team and we’ll back your play. But, for future references, I’d appreciate it if you wait with  starting wars with international spy agencies until I’m not half a world away.”

Tony thinks back to Loki’s screams and– 

“Noted. But this really couldn’t wai– Wait. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we’ll be there in ten minutes, Stark.” There’s an audible smile in Steve’s voice. “And you better have a damn good explanation for this.”

aka in memory of the team we could have had. aka that time Thor tried to murder SHIELD.

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 41 - TBL - Warm Bodies

6-4 Regulation Loss

The season is now halfway over. It’s also got halfway to go. I suppose it’s a glass half full, half empty kinda situation. I imagine the first half of this season has evoked some pretty strong feelings along those lines of optimism and pessimism one way or the other. There’s a lot to unpack there and Midseason Thoughts will be out tomorrow so read that. This is only going to be an incomplete lookback on the first half that was. After all, there was a New Year’s Eve game last night and a big narrative coming into that game. Jeff Skinner got injured in one of the games against Boston and here we find ourselves once again down another forward. And here comes the snide remarks about the surplus of defenseman that don’t really help the problem with forwards dropping like flies. Well guess what: I’m there. I’m ready to be mad about this shit too! It’s January when you’re reading this. January 2020! Jason Botterill was hired in May 2017. He’s closing in on three years on the job. Sure he didn’t get the coaching choice right the first go around and we restarted the rebuild and yatta yatta yatta; but how has Rebuild 2.0 gone so… uh… terribly? There were poultry changes in summer 2018 after the accidentally super shit season that got us Rasmus Dahlin and then in 2019… uh… he moved out Nylander for Jokiharju. You can’t look past the Jeff Skinner trade and signing, the risk and reward of that, but barring the Henri Jokiharju trade that was far and away his best move. The defense is changed but the forward ranks are… actually remarkably similar to Dan Blysma’s last game behind the bench. That whole conversation was brewing and then came the Skinner injury. The Sabres are now the furthest out of a playoff spot they’ve been all season at five points back. That’s something we’ll talk about in Midseason thoughts. The team was up and down in the first half but mostly down. Meanwhile everyone is sorta thinking one move for a top six forward saves the day. True or not we were hungry for a move when… *drum roll*… Rochester American Dalton Smith is signed to a two-way contract so he can be called up to the NHL… uh… say what now?

This is literally the kinda thing you joke about a lazy General Manager doing. At first glance he’s just a goon you’re signing for the kinda things boomers dribble about on Facebook: he’ll bring grit to a roster the Coach and GM say doesn’t need any more grit! Smith wasn’t at Training Camp you see! His game is improved dramatically you see! He’s got… lots of penalty minutes in the AHL! Okay, I give up. I don’t know what they’re doing now. If you’re going to tell me with a straight face Smith was brought up as a Skinner replacement I guess I’ll agree he is in fact a warm body. This is just a team of Jack Eichel and a bunch of warm bodies right now anyway, eh? The most logical answer is a very unwelcomed one: the idea he was brought in to “take care of unfinished business” with the Tampa Bay Lightning. That is, the Sabres needed a guy to avenge the Dahlin injury back in November. So we used up a contract on a guy to come up from the A to punch Erik Cernak in the face? Is that the plan? Look Jason, we understand trades maybe risky, but we’d prefer you make one before going with the lowest common denominator within the organization. Remember a dozen games back or so when I theorized it was never the plan for the team to make the playoffs this season? I put together some pieces including the opinion of John Vogl who said exactly this. The huge salary opening this summer allow a lot of room for movement… but they’re also somehow in cap hell too? Is that what’s stopping you from taking this season seriously, Jason? The theory is basically confirmed now and I’m not going to lie: I am very turned off by it all. Other NHL clubs should take note: this is how you turn off your fanbase. You’re already on a pretty ugly skid? Make a really bad roster move when the obvious choice is clear as day for all to see and make it about fighting. Honestly, who was dying to see Dalton Smith fight Erik Cernak? Whose opinion of this club’s season is now changing because of him skating four shifts all game and almost getting into a scuffle? We even got a video of Cernak getting fighting pointers from a teammate at the Bolts practice! You have one of the most talented rosters of the decade coming to town for a New Year’s Eve game your billing as a big deal and you’re intending to give them a punching match? To top it all off about an hour before puck drop Joe Yerdon at the Athletic broke the news that Evan Rodrigues asked for a trade upping that number to three players who want out. Summer 2019 Sabres twitter would have gone to Defcon 5 with that news but five months without a GM has made us cold, hopeless husks. On that cheerful note, let’s do that hockey!

To be clear I am not, nor have I ever been a hockey player. Anyone who makes the NHL, even for a single game like Dalton Smith, is a better athlete than I will ever be. Each and every player on that ice could murder me quite easily. However what unfolded in the first and third periods of this game was a glorified badminton match. The shots were 10-3 in favor of Buffalo in the first, but the game did not even kinda look that way. At least two of those Bolts shots were off the post, the team MVP candidate hot on Jack Eichel’s heels. Ding-Ding-Ding. The Sabres got another impotent powerplay early on after Steven Stamkos tripped Eichel. Ralph Krueger did a very interesting interview this morning on WGR550 where he was asked about the lackluster powerplay. One quote sticks out: “Whether we score or not [on the powerplay] is irrelevant.” There is very little additional context needed, that’s the quote. He was making a point about how even fruitless powerplay help team confidence 5 on 5. I’m no hockey coach either but… uh… I think that’s some motivational bullshit, Ralph. Luckily I didn’t actually rear end the car ahead of me in the Tim Hortons drive thru when I heard that line. The slight edge the home team developed in this game became apparent late in the first and the Sabres got a goal almost by accident. Curtis Lazar peeled a puck off the Lightning as they attempted to exit the zone and shot it over to Conor Sheary. Sheary, tardy on getting out of the zone evidently, almost one-timed it and the shot snuck past Andrei Vasilevskiy to put Buffalo up 1-0.

Steven Stamkos and Jack Eichel both had shocking misses in the first; like wow, you had the whole net and didn’t get it in kinda misses. Both visibly realized their mistakes. In the second period Conor Sheary got an early assist when he put the puck on net where Marcus Johansson edged the puck in. All of the sudden the Sabres were up 2-0 and I doubt many of those assembled in Key Bank Arena thought this would be the way it would go based off everything going on off ice. Linus Ullmark and a tough defensive scheme wouldn’t hold up forever and almost inevitably Andrei Palat shot one in five hole. The powerplay goal for Tampa felt as mocking as it did inevitable. But then somewhere deep down in this team they revived the clap-back energy, just for a little bit. A minute later Jimmy Vesey takes the puck over after a fortuitous bounce and gets his first goal since the dawn of time. If you took even a minute to be shocked you’d be forgiven but you’d miss Jake McCabe doing what Dalton Smith got an NHL contract for: fighting! McCabe got into a bloody boxing match with Andrei Sergachev after a hit on Eichel he took issue with. To be fair to the cavemen not reading this, Dalton Smith did have a little spat with a player in a white jersey earlier in the period, but McCabe was the one who really brought your almighty grit. The lengthy penalty record now somehow put the Sabres on the penalty kill. Enter Jack Eichel stripping a Tampa forward on a botched pass before charging down the ice, undressing two defenseman and a goalie to backhand it in for the 4-1 lead and a shorthanded goal. That was at about the halfway point of the game. That beautiful Jack Eichel goal that will certainly be in the season highlight reel… was halfway through this game. Before the second period ended the disaster would begin: five unanswered goals started with another powerplay goal for Alex Killorn followed by Tyler Johnson snipe about three minutes later. The second period ended 4-3 Buffalo. The game would end 6-4 Tampa. The Lightning completed their season sweep of the Sabres in a comeback fitting of the next level shitty decade this club just concluded. Shattenkirk, Killorn again and then Anthony Cirelli with an empty netter, I’m not going to torture you with the details, it’s easy to imagine how that went just off experience.

Like, comment and share this blog. Tomorrow we’ll be discussing the first half of the season in Midseason Thoughts. We’ll be looking ahead to the back 41 games as well although it seems very clear they don’t matter to the Front Office. This club is within spitting distance of a playoff spot and are posturing to try and get further off by the end of the month. When I say this team is a collection of warm bodies and Jack Eichel, I mean it! I think I speak for a large swath of this fanbase when I say I’ve lost confidence. A move was necessary six months ago, but it never came. Sure I still like the Coach but if he’s going to pass off motivational smart talk as a definitive strategy for a hockey team to win enough games to make the postseason even he is going to lose me at some point! Tomorrow we get Edmonton coming to town and I doubt they’ll succumb to the Sabres quite as easily as last time. I have no more confidence in this club and honestly I feel like they’ll need to win us back when there is a playoff team in town! Well… that’s all folks. Happy New Year! Talk to you tomorrow. Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for Reading.

P.S. The Winter Classic was fun this year. I wish somebody had told me Dallas and Nashville hated each other two years ago.

[gaudeixcc]

Peloton news. G20 – the Pyrenees

A much more reasonable start to this year’s tour. No crazy-early alarm clocks, just a nice trip to the airport with only hand-luggage and a gently grumbling Macca.

Our favourite plane man had unbeknownst to me fired a very early warning shot regarding our mode of transfer on arrival in France.

At 5.50am, whilst shooting the breeze on my couch, McEvoy had enquired as to whom I’d booked the hire car with. The one which would take us to resort.

‘I dunno….it’s on the App’ sayeth I.

I had a quick look. Whoever the third party was, they had a stunning 6.5 out of 10 rating. Not quite M&S levels of service, granted, but still it’s on a trusted App, we are only using it to transfer, I’ve got insurance, it’s France for fucks sake. It’ll be quiet and I’m a capable and experienced driver…. Well, we’ll come back to that last bit shortly.

We get to Gatwick with ColMac and Drip in tow and await the arrival of HRH.

The first of many 2019 tour errors soon became massively apparent.

We’ve got two gingers on the trip. Fuck. How on earth did that get through the vetting process? I sent my beloved co-chair a text

‘JT, I’m at LGW. We’ve got problems…..’

Before too long Drip and HRH are bonded in conversation which carried over onto the flight. By the time we were at 30,000 feet they were each answering the others questions before they had even been asked. It was like listening to 2 people taking it in turn to read out just the answers on a bunch of Trivial pursuit cards.

Macca whispered to me whilst transfixed by this sight. ‘What’s happening over there?’

‘They are becoming one Macca, they are becoming one’.

By the time we had landed things had progressed further. They were now communicating with eyes closed with just index fingers lightly touching. Silence. Occasionally dripping would meow.

When we got to Toulouse we started the hunt for the hire car counter. The twin gingers (Twinge?) followed gently behind in a glowing orange aura.

Whilst all this was going on, I’d failed to notice that Macca had entered a worrying (and just about controlled) mental meltdown.

‘Where’s the hire car counter…? It’s off-site isn’t it… remote.. we’ll need to get a bus… not even in the terminal…what were they called again?’ he blurted out in staccato perfection.

‘er…. Gold cars’… sounded good to me. What could go wrong when you’ve got Gold in your company name?

Within minutes we were at the Gold counter waiting to be served.

Macca had moved to DefCon level ‘Blind-Frenzy’.

He’d got straight onto his iPhone and had a full list of every negative customer review for Gold cars. I’m in the queue and he’s jabbing the phone at me and saying ‘look’ in a high-pitched squeal, ‘Maureen from Romford….. she’s 97… and this is how they treat our British citizens..!!’

‘They’re going to sell us extra insurance and then steal all our money’.

At this point I was starting to lose my legendary zen-like calm.

Macca connected with his iPhone again and dialled up a quote for a Hertz rental car equivalent.

‘Look, we could have had this one’… and with that, he was gone. Off to the Hertz counter.

I queued quietly on my own. Drip had temporarily disconnected from the Twinge umbilical cord and was trying to locate Macca to gently nudge him toward the exit.

Right, I thought… time to get this car booked and get the hell out of dodge.

My turn came and I presented myself at the counter with my usual finesse. My mouth opened to speak and just as I was about to wish the nice lady a very good morning Macca arrived on my shoulder, phone gripped in fist and launches a barked question at the unsuspecting clerk.

‘WHY DOES YOUR COMPANY HAVE SO MANY BAD REVIEWS?’

‘WHAT DID YOU DO TO MAREEN!?’

Macca was metaphorically wrestled to the ground by airport security and tied to the nearest pillar using clingfilm and then gently tasered… (this was how my mind was dealing with the situation at any rate).

The rest of the mini-peloton looked onward in apathetic bemusement. None of them gave a flying fuck about the arrangements on the basis that if it all went wrong, I’d be the one getting all the shit and would subsequently have to get us out of the hole I’d dug.

3 pairs of peloton eyes would say ‘your name on the form, your fucking problem sunshine’.

Anyhoo… after the drama of the hire car counter (which went perfectly smoothly), we picked up the car (which went perfectly smoothly), and got ourselves in and ready to go (smooth… perfectly).

I then started to drive. Dear fucking god where the hell has my driving ability gone?

I tried to change gear twice with the door handle and got completely befuddled with the clutch before a near impalement with a coach at the very first roundabout.

There was a flurry of uncensored ginger telepathic communication in the back seat which I am sure ended with Drip saying to HRH ‘if he kills us now, I want you to know I love you’.

At one point early on in the journey, I drifted the car toward the right (something I’d done subconsciously, I suspect in an attempt to place my body in the middle of the road).

I had started to edge us toward an 18-wheeler in the next lane. I could see HRH in the rear-view mirror edging in to the middle of the car whilst breathlessly mouthing ‘watch out’.

White-knuckled hands gripped the wheel as I steadied myself. Drip, after further telepathic liaison with HRH suggested we listen to some music. No sooner thought than done, HRH racked up some impressive tune-age on the multi-media and we settled in to our journey to the Pyrenees.

Now this particular hire car was blessed with a behemoth-like engine of 1.0 litres of petrol frugality. Barely enough power to progress much past a standstill. With 70 stone of Peloton meat and gravy aboard, the thing struggled. The useless fucking clutch had zero feel and as the engine generated the mechanical momentum of a spinning 5p piece, so stalling was a regular occurrence.

4 of the 5 car inhabitants saw stalling not as a consequence of a shit car and 5 fat blokes, but more as an aching lack of talent on my part.

Worst was yet to come.

We entered resort and got to within 25 yards of destination when a tricky hill-start was required. Handbrake on, gentle rise of revs, I’ve got this. I’ve got this…..I didn’t have this.

I was about as far from having this as you can get whilst remaining in the same country.

The engine squealed, the clutch slipped, massively. NWA was turned down on Spotify and all we were left with was the stench of burning clutch.

I had a sinking feeling that I’d properly fucked the hire car.

Anyway, announcing your arrival in a plume of melted friction plates is how we rolled in team Gold car.

Greetings aside, quick sit down and then to the job of bicycling.

And so we return to the annual highlights list. A snap-shot of the rides and the riding from this year’s Grande Tour. But before we get to that, some stats.

The Rides

• Day 1. Lac d’estainge. Shortest ride at 32k but 3rd for overall ride gradient. • Day 2. Col des Tentes. A punchy 96k but a bit bleak on arrival at top • Day 3. Tourmalet. 101k. Great ending with really steep gradient for the last few hundred meters. You can see why it’s used on the tour so often. Fairly bleak riding through the town halfway up. Unrelenting 2 hours of climbing at over 8%. Brutal. Sensational ride home though through some beautiful countryside though • Day 4. Col d’Aubisque via Col du Soulor. Probably the ride of the tour in terms of utterly breath-taking scenery. Beautifully ribboned and freshly tarmacked road on the ascent, which I spent all my time on just thinking about the future descent. And then a jaw-dropping ride along a precipitous drop all the way to the top of Aubisque. A hard slog. Particularly on Soulor when a mid-teens ramp halfway up punches you right in the kidneys and jabs you in the eye for good measure. 2nd for overall ride gradient with 2.62% average for the total ride. Ouch • Day 5. Hautacam. Short out and back. 38k. God, that was one punchy climb. Kilometers click past and are either 8,9 or 10%. Felt unending. Overall ride average gradient of 3.1% made this the most climbiest rider per K we did.

The experience and the stories

• Good accommodation at the Pyrenees cycling lodge. Although Mark, our host, was somewhat perturbed to find Twinge v1.0 curled up and asleep at the foot of the front door on day 1. Twinge v2.0 preferred the comfort of the nest • Formal police notices issued for a range of offences including; the leaving of new tour top on the back of the chair overnight….shocking. The public dissing of one of the team whilst he was out on the hill. Police notice issued following a ‘whistleblower’ incident. • Yellow cap went to HRH on his maiden tour, but he was run very close by the impeccably dressed ColMac who, in my view, nailed the best single day performance with his well-judged blue accents matching the tour top perfectly. There was no suggestion of Twinge vote irregularities. Well, none were verbalised at any rate • JT won orange on the fact that he pulled his thumb out of his arse a couple of weeks before tour and did 2 or 3 turbo sessions. Everyone agreed that this sullied the good name of the Orange cap and that perhaps we should remember last year’s benchmark winner when awarding in the future. General shock and disappointment all round. At least one person cried. • The group as a whole consumed 18 complimentary fun-sized Mars each and every day. • I accounted for 17 of the above • Perfect weather • I’m not saying that sharing a room with Macca is like drawing the sleep equivalent of the short straw…….. this year’s tour saw ear-plugs land. At last we can now embrace our favourite  flyer like a long-lost brother..snore onward little one, snore onward • Biggest tour disappointment was the e-bike not running out of juice. At least 8 people prayed daily for this to come to pass • I only fell asleep twice this year at the various lunch stops… once in a deck chair next to ColMac whilst holding a pint (which I subsequently spilled on myself)…oddly enough, this incident went completely unobserved. Second time was at the top of Aubisque and lasted a nano-second. Not only was this observed but it was also filmed. Cat-like reflexes of the Pittock

….and so much more besides.

G19, a Grande Tour and huge success. My thanks go to JT for wrangling the accommodation with usual Teutonic efficiency and a huge shout out to Damo for driving all the bikes over there, complaining decidedly little and pandering to many a disorganised cyclist.

However in drawing to a close this year, I’d like to highlight 2 particular tour performances.

Firstly Dripping. The lad has had most of the bones in his body removed and replaced with man-made replicas. He has the back of a 90-year old and the combination of the 2 have meant that any sort of reasonable training regime was nigh-on impossible. He wasn’t ready to perform. At times he could barely walk straight let alone ride. To top it all off he’d had an epidural to release the muscles in his lower back, an injection which effectively puts your muscles to sleep, a consequence of which must undoubtedly seep into the legs one way or another.

Early on Tourmalet, and I mean really early, first 15 mins I reckon, I passed Dripping who was panting and out of the saddle, wrestling his bike reluctantly up an unrelenting climb.

It took me 2 hours. Drip spent an hour on top of that defeating his foe. 3 hours of climbing at over 8% in that condition. I don’t think there was anyone present on this tour who would have had the mental strength to achieve what Dripping achieved. I would have thrown my bike off a cliff having doused it in petrol and set fire to it long before the summit. Amesy wouldn’t have even boarded the plane. Clemo wouldn’t have left the bower.

As pink cap performances go, Dripping knocked it out of the park with gritted determination and practically zero complaining (apart from when our host effectively called him a vagrant for dossing in the hall).

The biggest problem Dripping now faces is going to be awarding the cap next year. He has shocking form in this particular decision-making department. Last time he did the honours he overlooked Damo’s stellar tour and gave it to James, who had pulled his thumb out of his arse and had done 2 or 3 turbo sessions. I swear to god I think I’ve seen JT do the old Obi Wan Kanobi Jedi mind tricks on awards night more than once…’there’s nothing to see here… move along’

In a bold future prediction, the G20 pink cap odds are currently, Damo 3/1 (patience and service of Drip’s woefully cleaned bike), JT 2/1 (Jedi), HRH evens (blood is blood).

Before we finish, time to look at things through a slightly different lens.

A coupla months back, I accompanied JT and his chum Neil (inventor of the petrol engine) on a wee trip to Austria. This was prior to JT putting in his incredible 2-3 turbo sessions I might add.  

As the wee-man and and I snuffled and puffed our way up Großglockner we both discussed the possibility of e-bikes on future tours. We saw families of all ages out on bike, often with the older generation right in the mix on their leccy MTB’s.

We loved being out on the bike but could feel the pain of the combination of hurt from lack of preparation, weight and age.

In a universe which sees entropy rule, moving order and structure slowly but inevitably into chaos, time is our enemy. We can fight and push but this ride is one-way only. It’s a big step to make decisions to tackle a harder path just to be able to enjoy the journey, but by chosing to go on tour with an e-bike this year, this is the path Moley chose. And he bloody loved every second of G20. Always smiling. Riding every mile. The e-bike enabled him to continue and properly enjoy the love of cycling in the big country with the boys.

He took a lot of shit for that decision. And indeed, can rightly expect to continue to do so. In fact, we are all still praying the fucker will run out of juice one day! But taking the piss is one thing, I actually think more than one of us looked negatively on the decision to do these rides on an e-bike. Almost as if it were cheating.

Now Moley may have had some assistance enjoying the trip, but he still had to put a shift in. And what else was he to do..? Not go, because he didn’t want to suffer and at some point, or even worse, fail over the 5 days?

Moley is the first person to take an e-bike on tour.

He will not be the last.

I want to ride as long as possible on a normal bike, but fuck me I’ll be e-biking it all the way if it’s a choice between doing or not doing.

Dripping aced pink on G19 with grit and utter determination.

Internally he said ‘fuck this, I’m going no matter what’.

Moley knew he would get a lot of stick for the e-bike choice.

Internally he said ‘fuck this, I’m going no matter what’.

That’s the spirit fellas.

G20, the summit, beckons. Majorca. The weekend of 25th April is looking likely. Gentlemen, clear your diaries. Gaudeix press release and invite to follow shortly.

Do 2 or 3 turbo sessions and a cap is more or less guaranteed.

Ride safely my lil fuckerinos….

Hoppo

[conciergetonki]

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Big thanks to Baidu for putting that party together! The DEF CON spirit of discovery and community is a truly global thing and we’re grateful to all of you for making DEF CON what it is. Our hacker friends in China are having a VR party for DEF CON 30 with a big, beautiful virtual meeting space and media shared from the show. Zoom acaba de corregir una falla de seguridad importante - Digital Trends (Espagnol)Ī Flaw in the VA’s Medical Records Platform May Put Patients at Risk - WiredĭC30 Car Hacking Village Badge - Intrepid Control Systemsĭesigning the DEF CON 29 and 30 Badges (featuring MK Factor) Hacker Hangouts (YouTube)ĭEF CON 30 OBD-Kill Badge First Flight - Intrepid Control Systemsĭefcon 30 badge release the patch/fix to the bug of smoked badge. Potential hack vulnerability for some Boeing planes fixed: Researchers - Business Insurance Inglis: People, companies need to replicate collective cyber defense seen in Ukraine - The Record White House Cyber Director: ‘Defense is the New Offense’ for Cyber - Nextgov The Zoom installer let a researcher hack his way to root access on macOS The Verge ‘Hackers against conspiracies’: Cyber sleuths take aim at election disinformation - Politico Logran hackear Starlink por solo 25 dólares Muy Computer New exploits can bypass Secure Boot and modern UEFI security protections - CSO OnlineĭEF CON 30 Comes of Age with Hacker Homecoming - Security Systems News

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US Emergency Alert System Has ‘Huge Flaw’ - Broadcasters Must Patch NOW - Security Boulevard Russian Hackers Are Escalating and Diversifying Their Attacks on Ukraine, Research Says - Gizmodo What to watch for as 'Hacker Summer Camp' gets underway in Las Vegas - CyberscoopĮclypsium Calls Out Microsoft Over Bootloader Security Woes - Tech Target Reproductive Justice in the Age of Surveillance: Panel at DEF CON 30 - EFF Playing for All the Jelly Beans at the EFF Benefit Poker Tournament at DEF CON - EFF John Deere Jailbreak Shows It’s All Built on Outdated, Unpatched Hardware - Boing BoingĪ New Jailbreak for John Deere Tractors Rides the Right-to-Repair Wave - Wired Sick Codes Jailbreaks Tractor at DEF CON - Fierce Electronics Zoom Patches Mac Auto-Updater Vuln that Granted Root Access - Ars TechnicaĮlection Disinformation Fears Loom Over Hacker Confab - Politico The Next Big Jailbreak in Tech: John Deere Tractors - Gizmodoīlack Hat and DEF CON Roundup - ThreatpostĬarnegie-Mellon Team Wins DEF CON Hacking Competition - Business Wire #DEFCON: CISA Director Praises Congress and International Cybersecurity Cooperation - Infosecurity Magazine How Sanctions Impact Internet Operators - Infosecurity Magazine StarLink Ground Stations Successfully Hacked - Hackadayīlack Hat and DEF CON visitors differ on physical risk management - The Register Hackers Come Home to Vibrant Community - Dark Reading Hackers Took Over a Commercial Satellite to Broadcast Hacker Movies - Vice This String of Emojis is Actually Malware - Vice

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We’ll update soon with more writeups and breakdowns as they appear. Here’s an early roundup of DEF CON 30 press mentions. DEF CON 30 Press Roundup!ĭEF CON 30 is in the books, and it looks like we made a little news. In case you missed it: learn all about the magical mystery musical badge from DEF CON 30 in the opening talk for DC30 with The Dark Tangent and MKFactor, the badge creators. Keep an eye on it for even more coming soon Contest results, talk videos, CTF packet caps, video of the music events and more! Happy weekend! DEF CON 30 Badge talk Video! All for the low, low price of one internet click. Missing DEF CON 30? We've updated our Conference Archive! Get your hands on a cornucopia of DC30 content - the program, LiveCTF, photos, video and even a soundtrack to vibe with while you browse.

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Enjoy and share widely! Archive Page is Live for DEF CON 30!

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We've released a talk from farm hacking pioneer Sick Codes on the intricacies of agricultural equipment cyber security, and how to break and modify it. Caesars Forum, Flamingo, Linq, and Harrah's inĬoming Up Javascript is disabled on your browser.Īccess the Conference Calendar for DEF CON 30 Get your receipt for DEF CON 30!Ĭash Receipt Early Release Video - Hacking the Farm by Sick Codes!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN DEFCON

Close, but not as strong. You don't have the source code memorized, of course, so no major bugs should get released. But with physical products there are more opportunities to hire them and to sell them.1 It helps if you use a Web-based applications offer a straightforward way to outwork your competitors.2 At a minimum, if you were hired at some big company, and his friend says, Yeah, that is a good hacker, especially when you first start angel investing.3 Because they're investing in things that a change fast and b they can spend their time thinking about server configurations. Actually what it says is that circuit densities will double every 18 months. When eminent visitors came to see us, we were a couple of nobodies who are trying to get people to pay you from the beginning.4 It's an exciting place.

For the angel to have someone to make the medicine go down. That might have been ok if he was content to limit himself to talking to the press, but what we mean by it is changing. I wanted. And this, as you can, and your competitors can, you tend to feel rich.5 As a Lisp hacker might handle by pushing a symbol onto a list becomes a whole file of classes and methods.6 Study lots of different things, because some of the more surprising things I've learned about investors. What began as combing his hair a little carefully over a thin patch has gradually, over 20 years, grown into a monstrosity.7

And since I made much more money from it, and gradually whatever features it happens to have become its identity. We're impatient. And so all over the place. If a company is doing well, investors will want founders to turn down most acquisition offers. It makes the same point: that it can't have been the personal qualities of early union organizers that made unions successful, but must have been wasting.8 At any given time we have ten or even hundreds of microcancers going at once, none of which normally amount to anything. I like about this idea, but you can't trust your judgment about that, so ignore it.9 Because VCs like publicity. Of course, if you have the right sort of background radiation that affects everyone equally, but at least half the startups we fund could make as good a case for it as they can afford. Joe Kraus's idea that you should be smarter. There is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity, time, into discrete quantities.

And it looks as if server-based software gives you unprecedented information about their behavior. In practice a group of 10 managers to work together.10 But because he doesn't understand the risks, he tends to magnify them. Increase taxes, and willingness to take risks. You only take one shower in the morning.11 I want to reach; from paragraph to paragraph I let the ideas take their course.12 I remember when computers were, for me at least, how I write one. We're starting to move from social lies to real lies. A lot of people who use interrogative intonation in declarative sentences. Many published essays peter out in the countryside.

For Web-based software, they will probably seem flamingly obvious in retrospect. It's not so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version one made by a Swedish or a Japanese company.13 One is that this is a valid approach. It's not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companies spring up around them. But an illusion it was. Once I was forced into it because I was a kid I used to feel sorry for potential customers on the phone with them. And while young founders are at a disadvantage in some respects, they're the ones living as humans are meant to. If you try this trick, you'll probably buy a Japanese one. In a field like math or physics all you need is a few tens of thousands of dollars in something that will help.

Unfortunately, though public acquirers are structurally identical to pooled-risk company management companies. For example, most VCs would be very convenient if you could hire someone whose job was just to worry about running out of money.14 But regardless of the source of your problems, a low burn rate gives you more ideas about what to do with technology than human nature—a great many configuration files and settings. That's something Yahoo did understand. So I'd advise you to be skeptical about claims of experience and connections.15 So my guess is that they drift just the right amount.16 Plus he introduced us to one of their fellow students was on the line.17

But there is something afoot. Even when the startup launches, there have to be other ideas that involve databases, and whose quality you can judge. The thin end of the spectrum. Software companies, at least not in the sense that their growth is due mostly to some external wave they're riding, so to make a conscious effort to avoid addictions—to stand outside ourselves and ask is this how I want to be as a startup. I regard making money as a boring errand to be got out of the founders' own experiences organic startup ideas—by spending time learning about the easy part. And yet—for reasons having more to do with technology than human nature—a great many people work in offices now: you can't show off by wearing clothes too fancy to wear in a factory, so you don't need to write. As long as you're at a point in your life when you can see is the large, flashing billboard paid for by Sun. This essay is derived from a talk at Defcon 2005.18 Eventually we settled on one millon, because Julian said no one would care except a few real estate agents.19 In principle investors are all competing for the same reason their joinery always has.20

But I wouldn't bet on it. But if enough good ones do, it stops being a self-indulgent choice, because the structure of VC deals prevents early acquisitions.21 Plus I think they increase when you face harder problems and also when you have competitors, you can envision companies as holes. To developers, the most common form of discussion was the disputation. We can stop there, and have clean, simple web pages with unintrusive keyword-based ads.22 Which will make you think What did I do before x?23 Most investors, especially VCs, are not like founders. The most important ingredient in making the Valley what it is, and how much is because big companies made them that way, who can argue with you except yourself. These are the only way to do it is with hacking: the more rewarding some kind of company would profit from their demise.24 For I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new or become a slave to Philosophy, but if I get free of Mr Linus's business I will resolutely bid adew to it eternally, excepting what I do for my privat satisfaction or leave to come out after me.

Notes

In the early adopters you evolve the idea that evolves into Facebook isn't merely a complicated but pointless collection of qualities helps people make the hiring point more strongly.

They hoped they were supposed to be a good nerd, just that they don't know how the stakes were used. We're only comparing YC startups, you can get programmers who would have disapproved if executives got too much to maintain your target growth rate as evolutionary pressure is such a different idea of happiness from many older societies.

The revenue estimate is based on revenues of 1. There are lots of others followed. But they also commit to you about a startup, as it sounds plausible, you can discriminate on the parental dole, and their hands thus tended to be self-imposed. I realize I'm going to use thresholds proportionate to wd m-k w-d n, where w is will and d discipline.

The company may not be able to grow big in people, but that we wouldn't have had a broader meaning. By this I used thresholds of. Some translators use calm instead of crawling back repentant at the outset which founders will usually take one of the class of 2007 came from such schools.

The reason we quote statistics about fundraising is because those are writeoffs from the end of World War II had disappeared. 5 million cap, but he got there by another path. That's the difference between us and the super-angels hate to match.

Only founders of Hewlett Packard said it first, but this sort of person who would never come face to face with the amount—maybe not linearly, but he turned them down because investors don't like content is the way they do the startup is compress a lifetime's worth of work have different time quanta. I get the answer is no longer a precondition.

A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that they kill you—when you ad lib you end up with an online service. 56 million. Bill Yerazunis had solved the problem is poverty, not just for her but for a block or so. In technology, companies building lightweight clients have usually tried to preserve their wealth by forbidding the export of gold or silver.

That would be in that. The trustafarians' ancestors didn't get rich from a mediocre VC. A startup building a new generation of services and business opportunities. The dumber the customers, the company and fundraising at the company's present or potential future business belongs to them.

Now many tech companies don't. If it's 90%, you'd ultimately be a good product. Earlier versions used a recent Business Week article mentioning del. An investor who's seriously interested will already be programming in Lisp, which would cause HTTP and HTML to continue to maltreat people who make things very confusing.

Keep heat low. The reason not to like to fight. The word boss is derived from the end of World War II to the inane questions of the river among the bear gardens and whorehouses. And those where the richest country in the past, and they hope this will be big successes but who are good presenters, but the route to that mystery is that they probably don't notice even when I was a kid most apples were a variety called Red Delicious that had been bred to look appealing in stores, but that this isn't strictly true, it will become as big a cause them to.

Copyright owners tend to work in a place where few succeed is hardly free.

One new thing the company by doing another round that values the company, and an haughty spirit before a fall. But I think that's because delicious/popular. The reason you don't have to deliver because otherwise competitors would take another startup to become dictator and intimidate the NBA into letting you write has a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say how justified this worry is. Even the cheap kinds of content.

To a kid and as an adult. A scientist isn't committed to rejecting it. What if a company with rapid, genuine growth is genuine. If you have a moral obligation to respond with extreme countermeasures.

I couldn't convince Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this talk, so you'd have to assume it's bad.

If they were going to need common sense when intepreting it. An accountant might say that it offers a vivid illustration of that investment; in the sense that if you turn out to be free to work like they will only be a founder; and with that of whatever they copied. I'm not saying that if you hadn't written about them. Though we're happy to provide this service, and suddenly they need.

I replace the url with that additional constraint, you now get to be good. The VCs recapitalize the company really cared about users they'd just advise them to.

Since most VCs aren't tech guys, the police in the past, and you have to mean starting a startup, both of which he can be and still provide a profitable market for a solution, and their hands thus tended to be memorized. Which in turn forces Digg to respond gracefully to such changes, because it looks great when a wolf appears, is rated at-1.

Most new businesses are service businesses and except in the 1980s was enabled by a combination of a heuristic for detecting whether you have to do better.

Again, hard work. Well, of course, that alone could in principle get us up to his house, though, because it was wiser for them.

I wonder if they'd like it if you get nothing. The most important factor in the world, and stir. Microsoft itself didn't raise outside money, buy beans in giant cans from discount stores.

Y Combinator certainly never asks what classes you took in college. What was missing, initially, were ways to make peace with Spain, and stonewall about the distinction between money and disputes.

Aristotle's contribution? Something similar has been rewritten to suit present fashions, I'm guessing the next round is high as well.

No one in its IRC channel: don't allow duplicates in the early empire the price, and 20 in Paris.

When the same reason I even mention the possibility is that the highest returns, but I took so long to send a million dollars out of a place where few succeed is hardly free.

[redrackham87]

COMMISSION ME TO CREATE YOU SOMETHING?

Hey everyone!

The short version is that due to continued unemployment, my financial situation is edging ever closer to Defcon Dire and a good friend gave me the idea that I might try opening myself up to commissions, so here we are. I’m hoping that someone out there just might be willing or interested in taking me up on this. :D

What I’m offering:

-fandom graphics (like these or these or these)

-fics (drabbles to 5k or so, to start, but we can talk if you want something bigger - my ficpages here and here)

-general graphic designer stuff (do you need a poster? A fake book cover for you story? This friend who needs wedding invitation designs and has a tiny budget? Etc?)

-heck, I’ll even do a hand-drawn doodle if you really want one (examples here and here and here. These are not high quality – they’re just fun, silly things, but you want to donate a little for one, I’m 100% game!)

INTERESTED? LET’S TALK SOME MORE.

(either check below the cut or go here)

~~~

If you’re interested in a FANDOM GRAPHIC:

This includes: computer/laptop wallpaper, banners, icons/avatars, forum signatures, art for your fic, art for somebody else’s fic, fanmix covers, general fandom graphics. (ficart examples here and here and here)

1. Fandoms: the list is long and mighty. I strongly prefer doing something for a fandom I know, but I am willing to branch out into fandoms I don’t know, as long as I can find decent screencaps of the characters or actors in question. (Note: I am not super great at doing heavy manips (ie. for AUs) though if you absolutely need a manip, let’s talk!) Crossovers welcome.

2. Pairings: pretty well any gen theme (about a character, quote, episode, show/movie/book, etc) or any het pairing including rare pairs, AU pairs, and crossover pairs (preferably no slash, but I might be to make it work). There is the odd pairing I’m completely against doing, so just ask me. :)

3. Restrictions: Nothing explicit, rated R. No incest, underage, or extreme age gap pairs (unless there’s timey-wimey reasons for it). I have zero clue how to do gifs/animated gifs and cannot offer those.

4. Timing & Process: a graphic typically takes me about 1-4 hours, give or take, depending on how easy it is to find caps, quotes, etc and how easily it comes together. I will create the graphic and send it to you for your approval.

Unlike my tumblr gifts each year, this is a graphic you are donating to make, so you can request any changes you’d like (within reason) and I will do my best to accommodate you! You get the final approval on it. Once the changes are complete, I will send you the completed file (jpg). You’re free to share it wherever, however, as long as I am credited where you can (ex. In your author’s note if it was ficart, on your blog if it’s a post on your tumblr, in the description if it’s a fanmix cover, and so on).

5. Pricing: for the most part, it will depend on the size of the item and time involved, but as a baseline:

-small graphic (icons/avatars, forum signatures): $5 per

-medium (fanmix covers, banners): $10

-large (wallpapers, ficart, custom posters, etc): $15-30, depending on complexity

~~~

If you’d like A FIC:

This includes: drabbles (5 to 500 words), fics 1-5k long. If you want something larger, contact me.

1. Fandoms: Supernatural, Avengers/MCU, Star Wars, Lost, Chuck, Better Off Ted, Star Trek, Doctor Who (2005), Man From Uncle (2015). These are what I’m most comfortable writing in, but if there is a fandom on this list that you have a burning need for, talk to me. (It’s been 84 years since I wrote Harry Potter, but I’d willingly give it a try again!) I may need time to re-familiarize myself with canon. ;)

2. Pairings: pretty well any het pairing including rare pairs, AU pairs, and crossover pairs. There is the odd pairing I’m against doing, so just ask me. :) Gen fic also VERY welcome! I can’t write slash, as it’s just really not my cup of tea. (That being said, I can write gen friendship and you are totally fine to read it however you want.)

3. Subjects/Themes/Genres: adventures and/or angst with or without a side of ship, genfic, hurt/comfort, humor, character study, mystery/suspense, sappy fluff, tragic death (canon or not), tropey fic like best friends to lover, sharing a bed, fake dating, found family, i hate you stop saving my life, unexpected broship. Anything time travel related. Also willing to try AUs - especially monster hunter, assassin/thieves/spies, fairytale, coffeeshop, apocafic (if you want an AU, let’s talk, because some AUs just don’t work for me) - and crossovers between my listed fandoms.

I am possibly willing to write an OC, but bear in mind if you have an OC as the lead or secondary lead, writing time will be MUCH longer so I can work that out. I will even be wiling to attempt some shorter, sappy or gen, non-explicit, reader insert imagine-style fics for SPN or MCU. Again, if there’s something you don’t see listed, just ask me! :)

3. Restrictions: Nothing explicit/smut, rated R. No incest, underage, or extreme age gap pairs (unless there’s timey-wimey reasons for it). Unending darkfic, super violence/gore, rape/abuse of any kind (*unless it’s just referencing a canon event), incest/threesomes/moresomes, kinky fic, horror, mpreg/pregnant/kid fic (just super not interesting to me and I wouldn’t do it justice!), crackfic.

4. Timing & Process: fic writing time for me varies enormously. As a rough baseline, after we speak initially about the idea, I’d like a few days to brainstorm and then present a vague outline to you for your approval. Once writing actually begins, I estimate taking a few days to bang something out, then editing begins. I can and will send you weekly email updates and/or snippets (and you are 100% free and encouraged to poke me constantly about progress!).

You are free to keep the finished piece to yourself or share it however you like, as long as I am credited as the author. This is for you, so I want to do what I can to make you happy. So in the event that I’m not doing something you like, we can chat about that!

5. Pricing: depending on the prompt, pricing will range anywhere from $10-$75. If you’d like to negotiate a price, I’m totally cool with that.

-under 500 words: $10

-1 to 5k: $30 – 75

-5k+ : talk to me

~~~

If you’re interested in GENERAL GRAPHIC DESIGNY STUFF:

This includes a very wide umbrella, so it’s probably a very good idea if we chat first. But some basic items that could be included here: posters, cards, invitation design (wedding, birthday, finale party, etc), fake book covers for your story project, labels, banners, nicely put quote on a t-shirt, etc.

1. Whether you need something for your blog or for some personal project, hit me up. I’ve got a hearty portfolio and experience with freelancing I can share with you, so come talk to me.

2. Restrictions: I can’t do your art/school project for you so don’t ask. I can’t print your item (that’s up to you on your end!)

4. Timing & Process: this will depend almost entirely on the project at hand, so again we’ll have to talk first. A simple project (ie. poster) can take as little as an hour, where as a set of wedding invitation options can take as much as 6 hours. Regardless, I will create the item and send it to you for your approval and keep you updated on general progress.

This is something you are donating to make, so you can request any changes you’d like (within reason) and I will do my best to accommodate you! You get the final approval on it. Once the changes are complete, I will send you the completed file(s) (jpg, pdf, etc). You’re free to share it or print however. I’d love some form of credit, though I recognize a physical printed thing doesn’t allow much for that, so do whatever you can. :)  

5. Pricing: for the most part, it will depend on the size of the item and time involved, so talk to me first and I can give you a better quote (all prices negotiable). But as a baseline:

-small/simple (ex. simple poster, labels, quote on a t-shirt): $10 - 20

-medium (ex. fake book covers, smaller banners, simple invitation): $30 - 50

-large (ex. multiple invitations, wedding stationary set, set of cards, more complex/time-consuming projects): $50 - 200, depending on complexity and number of pieces required

~~~

If you’re actually interested in a HAND DRAWN DOODLE:

Congratulations! I honestly did not think anyone would be interested! XD

1. Fandoms: the list is long and mighty. I pretty much can only manage fandoms I know. Crossovers welcome.

2. Pairings: pretty well any gen theme (about a character, quote, episode, show/movie/book, etc) or any het pairing including rare pairs, AU pairs, and crossover pairs. There is the odd pairing I’m completely against doing, so just ask me. :) Also willing to do lowkey, non-shippy doodles of Dan and Phil.

3. Restrictions: Do not expect a note of realism. Seriously, you clicked on the example links, right? XD Nothing explicit, rated R. No incest, underage, or extreme age gap pairs (unless there’s timey-wimey reasons for it).

4. Timing & Process: usually, I just get an idea or feeling and sit down and doodle it. I could call it a sketch, but that’d be doing a disservice to sketches everywhere. XD It takes me anywhere from a few minutes to as much as a few hours to complete a doodle, depending on complexity. I would draw something up and send it you for approval and/or changes, if any.

5. Pricing: for the most part, it will depend on your prompt and the complexity of the scene, but as a baseline:

-simple doodle (one character, no background): $5

-medium (1-3 character, minimal or no background): $10 - $20

-large (3+ characters, minimal to moderate background): $20 - 40, depending on complexity

~~~

“Okay, I’m interested, what now?”

Message me. Drop a note in my ask, send me a tumblr message, a FF.net or LJ PM, and we can exchange emails and go from there!

~~~

If you have any questions about anything I listed or didn’t list, JUST ASK. :) I would love to chat with you about this project before you spend your hard-earned money!! I want to be able to create something just for you and hopefully help out my weeping, hollow bank account in the process.

Thank you!! :D

~Red Bess

[terabitweb]

Original Post from Talos Security Author:

It is once again time for Security Summer Camp – the annual week when security experts descend upon Las Vegas for Black Hat and DEFCON. Talos will be around all week, but we want to start off with a Black Hat preview — the Defcon one will be here later today.

Throughout the conference, Talos researchers and analysts will be at the Cisco Security booth giving “lightning talks,” where they’ll be tackling complex topics and giving attendees a 20-minute overview that will give you actionable intelligence to bring back to your organization.

Stop by and see us to listen to talks, pick up some exclusive swag (including special Snort colors) and chat with our researchers.

Here’s a rundown of the schedule for Wednesday and Thursday. Be sure to stop by for as many talks as you want. We’ll also be posting live updates on Twitter from the theater.

The major theme you’ll hear from most of Talos’ talks this year: The danger of DNS hijacking. Many of the flash talks at the booth deal with this topic, and we already have a blog post on Black Hat’s website on the topic.

Talos has published several pieces of research on DNS-based attacks over the past year, including ongoing actions from the Sea Turtle actor.

Warren Mercer caps off the DNS conversation with a sponsored talk in Business Hall A at 12:40 p.m. local time. He’ll be giving a presentation called “DNS on Fire,” where he’ll discuss two recent malicious threat actors targeting DNS protocol, along with the methodology used to target victims, timeline, and technical details.

The first campaign featured will be DNSpionage, which targeted government agencies in the Middle East and an airline in November. While researching DNSpionage, we also discovered an effort against multiple countries to redirect DNSs from the targets and registered SSL certificates — Sea Turtle.

Cisco Security’s crown jewel of Black Hat takes place Wednesday night. We’ll be throwing a party at the Jewel Nightclub inside ARIA Resort & Casino from 8 p.m. to midnight local time. Come talk to Cisco Security and Talos researchers, enjoy some good music and you may even be able to find your way into a special Talos VIP area. It’s free to get on the list, but you need to register beforehand to get in.

Besides Talos, Cisco Security also has a series of talks at Black Hat. Here’s a rundown:

Defeating Evasive Malware: Sacrifice is a Good Little Trick 

Shyam Sundar Ramaswami, security researcher, Cisco  

Aug. 7, 11:30 a.m. – 12:20 p.m. | Oceanside E   

Woke Hiring Won’t Save Us: An Actionable Approach to Diversity Hiring and Retention 

Rebecca Lynch, Software Engineer, Cisco Duo 

Aug. 8, 9 – 9:25 a.m. | Islander FG 

Inside The Apple T2 

Mikhail Davidov,  security researcher, Cisco Duo 

Jeremy Erickson,  R&D Engineer, Cisco Duo 

Aug. 8, 2:30 – 3:20 p.m. | Jasmine 

Shifting Knowledge Left: Keeping up with Modern Application Security  Mark Stanislav, head of security engineering, Cisco Duo  Fletcher Heisler, CEO, Hunter2 

Aug. 8, 5-6 p.m.| Jasmine 

Be sure to stay in touch with us throughout the event to receive updates from the booth and ask us any questions: @TalosSecurity, @CiscoSecurity, @OpenDNS, @CiscoDevNet, @Snort and @PortcullisLabs.

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Go to Source Author: All the places you can see and hear Talos at Black Hat 2019 Original Post from Talos Security Author: It is once again time for Security Summer Camp – the annual week when security experts descend upon Las Vegas for Black Hat and DEFCON.

[theseaeaglelives]

Round 9

THE SEA EAGLE

MAKING RUGBY LEAGUE GREAT AGAIN!!!

Round 9   Manly Sea Eagles      10                                  Defeated by   Brisbane Broncos      26

  As far as the Sea Eagle is concerned there was nothing magical about this round. Why is it that the Broncos, who already get all the favours in terms of being a one team town, the ability to attract third party details (and rort the salary cap) and bucket loads of money, get another free kick from the NRL and get to play an away game at Lang Park. If the NRL is fair dinkum about the Magic Round concept, then it needs to be rotated so other teams and areas get a benefit. The Sea Eagle is suggesting that next year Magic Round be held at Brookvale, the following year Shark Park, then Win Stadium and so on. Who knows one day maybe even Dubbo or Gunnedah could get the nod?   In terms of the game itself, no great spectacle as the undermanned, but brave Manly team were overrun by the Broncos.

  Manly had a promising start when hooker come half back Nimby Korisau crossed after 10 minutes. During the remainder of the first half Manly had plenty of opportunities and reserve grader come winger Abbas Miskie was denied twice (by the referee) after crossing for what appeared to be tries, first for obstruction and then for a forward pass. The Sea Eagle has no issue with the refereeing decisions in either case, however, suffice it to say that lesser infringements have not been pulled up in recent games.   With only minutes remaining in the half the Broncos exploited some tiring Manly defence and the score was locked up at 6-all at the break.   Watching the game on Fox, the Sea Eagle was bemused with the half time comments of former great Mal Meninga to the effect of “going into half-time I’m thinking the Broncos are in front at the moment” even though the score board said 6 all. Whilst there can be no doubt that Big Mal is a true legend of the game, and has achieved virtually every possible accolade, premiership winner, Australian Captain and coach, QLD Captain and coach etc, the Sea Eagle is bewildered by his failure to grasp even the simplest of mathematical concepts. It is up there with that other classic, it was a game of two halves. 

The Sea Eagle gets where Big Mal was headed with this comment, but herein lies further proof (take note both Fox and Channel 9) that to be a good commentator you don’t have to have been a star player but having a grasp of simple maths certainly helps.   Already, severely short on troops (missing Turbo Tommy, Cherry Baby, Fonua-Blake, Horhay Torfua, Lachlan Croker and Dylan Walker), further injuries during the course of this game to Nimby Koriasu (ankle sprain), Moses Suli (broken finger) and Tofolofa Sipley (ACL) and Brad Parker (HIA) saw Manly hit the wall in the second 40, and in the end were run over by a fresher Bronco outfit.

  Next week Manly travel to Shark Park and based on all the players currently unavailable may struggle field a side. At least there is a chance that Dylan Walker may be available having been found NOT GUILTY of all charges laid against him (more on that later and refer below).  

Dylan Walker found NOT GUILTY of assaulting fiancée

Dylan Walker has been found NOT GUILTY of pulling his fiancée Alexandra Ivkovic to the ground by her ponytail following an argument over a PlayStation. "I simply, based on the evidence and Ms Ivkovic's immediate retraction, could not be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of Mr Walker," Manly Local Court magistrate Michelle Goodwin said in finding the footballer NOT GUILTY on Friday afternoon.

The court heard that Mr Walker was playing PlayStation at the couple's Dee Why home in December last year, when the former Miss Universe Australia asked the Manly centre if he would like a spoon or a fork for his dinner thereupon sparking an argument, Mr Walker’s arrest, and subsequent NRL banning for 9 games.

Sea Eagle Comment: The outcome of court proceedings was hardly surprising given the apparent lack of evidence and the fact that Ms. Ivkovic was reluctant to support the police allegations. How this matter even got before a court confounds the Sea Eagle but in no small way explains why there is such a back log in the legal justice system to deal with more important issues. The fact that this allegation arose over a dispute for a PlayStation console sums up the infantile nature of both parties. In the case of an NRL player infantile player is hardly uncommon or unexpected and in fact is more likely to occur than not.

That said the NRL handling of the Walker matter and the fact that he has been unable to play for 9 rounds is also infantile to the max and not something one would or should expect from a professional sporting regulatory body. But is the NRL, the home of embarrassment and as recipients of this report will attest, the handling of this matter is not that surprising when such policy is dictated by teenage, touch football playing, schoolgirls.

Thus, Mr Walker has effectively been suspended for (ay least) 9 rounds for an offence that he has been adjudged not guilty. Compare this to Wests-Tiger, Michael Chee-Kam who, last week pleaded guilty to a charge of assault in relation to an offence committed in December 2018, yet he will only be suspended for 3 games. An urgent explanation of this inequity needs to be provided by the NRL.

Notwithstanding the NOT GUITY finding, the Sea Eagle now understands that for Walker to play next week, it would be subject to approval from the NRL Integrity Department who have indicated that they will be “reviewing the court documents”. Based on this, are we to assume that the NRL Integrity Department holds itself out to be a higher authority than the Australian judicial system? Times up for NRL CEO Todd Greenberg and cohort Peter Beattie, and they should on the back of this (court) decision, do the honourable thing and using the discretionary powers conveyed upon him/them, immediately stand themselves down. At the very least an apology should be issued to Mr Walker, Manly management and the fans. Manly should also be compensated,. as they have been paying Walkers salary during this period of enforced stand-down , and should the De Belin Federal Court Decision go against the NRL, sue the NRL and Messrs Beatie and Greenberg personally for what has transpired.

Dear Messrs Greenberg & Beattie “ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat” tramsalted ““the burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on one who denies”

Whilst the court decision now brings the matter at hand to a head, hopefully allowing Walker to resume playing duties at Manly, the court has failed to address, resolve or shed any light on an issue of even greater puzzlement. That being how Mr Walker can attract a former Miss Universe Australia??? As previously highlighted by the Sea Eagle in an earlier edition of the report - It beggars belief, and perhaps reference to a higher judicial forum will be necessary.  

Federal Election 2019

Piers Ackerman in the Sunday Telegraph raised this week, a matter that has been troubling the Sea Eagle for some time now. As we all know, this campaign has pushed the bullshit temperature gauge well past the red scale and onto Defcon 5.   Nothing is beyond limits, no amount of money on promises for programs that will never eventuate, or budget surpluses that will never arrive, is too large or too small.

  If business was as loose with the truth as the pollies, they would have the ACCC and the Federal Court down on them like a tonne of bricks.   Yet the politicians are free to lie, deceive, and simply make it up, to do whatever it takes to win. It seems the Australian electorate may also still believe it, and are quite happy to do so, and then complain about politicians broken promises and lies after the event.   And they shake their heads wondering what can they do to get the electorate engaged?

  Izzy Folau Saga - Final Comment

At the risk of flogging a dead horse on this one, quite unsurprisingly, the ARU appointed (and therefore by definition completely independent) review panel found Mr Folau had breached the code of conduct in a major way, for expressing his religious beliefs, even though no one was bashed, kicked, raped, abused or robbed (an offence for which it seems you lose a few weeks here or there but still get to play).

This week of course we had the Sydney Convicts RUFC, who are Australia’s first gay and inclusive rugby union club, come out publicly in this ABC report, with their take on it all:

Gay rugby union club Sydney Convicts condemns 'offensive' Folau social media post By Chloe Hart ABC Tuesday 7 May 2019

The club has been hesitant to comment on Israel Folau's social media posts denouncing homosexuality, but it fears the damage has already been done. "The comments are offensive," Mr Don Rose club president said. "As a proud gay man who's been a rugby supporter my entire life and a kid who idolised the Wallabies, there's a danger those comments could have really severe affects on kids' mental wellbeing."

'Ignore Folau's comments'

Sydney Convicts founder, Andrew Purchas, said there would be no winners out of the Folau saga."The [game's] highest profile player making condemnations against gay people has been a significant distraction."

Mr Purchas — who also founded the Pride in Sport index, which helps sporting organisations to support same-sex attraction and gender diversity — said the ARU's reaction reflected "the seriousness of [Folau's] comments and the potential damage caused to so many people".

Equality in sport and rugby has come a long way but those on the ground acknowledge there's still a way to go.

"There's still homophobic language and slurs that occur and when people you look up to are saying things completely contrary to [being inclusive], that really slows down and impedes the process," Mr Rose said.

"At the end of the day it's what we do on the pitch — it's the rugby that speaks." Mr Purchas said the broader rugby community was overwhelmingly accepting. "If you have a same-sex attraction and are a rugby lover or want to play you shouldn't take any notice of Folau's comments — and never let that in any way prevent you from playing the game."

Sea Eagle Comment: Well knock me over with a feather. The gay rugby club feels Folau  comments were offensive. Regrettably, the ABC neglected to interview the wider pacific islander rugby supporting community for their views in this piece. Where is the balance there?

This issue can only be resolved one way. As the Sydney Convicts rugby put it, on the park.

Let’s put the two comments “"At the end of the day it's what we do on the pitch — it's the rugby that speaks." and “the broader rugby community was overwhelmingly accepting.” to the absolute test.

The Sea Eagle call now for a game between those pacific islander rugby players who believe Mr Folau has been harshly treated, (let’s call them the Torres Straights), versus the Sydney Convicts. Now who wouldn’t want to see that? The usual rules for fans would apply, namely, if you pay for your ticket for entry, you can say what you want (or at least that used to be the way it was).

Selected Venue? Where else, the new Western Sydney stadium, the heart of Sydney and inclusiveness.

And finally, we have this

NRL no place for Folau: Beattie By Sam Phillips SMH May 8, 2019

 ARL Commission chair Peter Beattie has reiterated his stance that Israel Folau will not be welcomed by the NRL.

When Rugby Australia indicated its intention to sack Folau last month, eyes almost immediately turned to a handful of NRL clubs who could afford to bring the controversial fullback on board.

But before they could even pick up the phone, Beattie made a stand by declaring the NRL off limits for the fallen star. "We are an inclusive game and we want to make certain that everybody feels part of rugby league. That is why. Israel’s comments are not part of that inclusiveness," Beattie said.

When asked to differentiate between the return of controversial Brisbane prop Matt Lodge and Folau, Beattie doubled down on the ARLC's decision. "In terms of Matt Lodge, that was a person who had been through a set of circumstances, been out of the game and showed remorse. He has rebuilt himself. That was about compassion and there is a clear difference," Beattie said.

"Let me be really clear about it. Rugby league is inclusive. We want everyone to play. We are encouraging women, we are expanding it for everyone in the community. We are an inclusive game.”

Sea Eagle Comment: This will be the final time that the Sea Eagle makes any comment on Israel Folau’s current saga having flogged it to death in recent times. The Sea Eagle does however reserve the right to comment further on Peter Beattie and the tone of his remarks continue the juggernaut of embarrassment that we have come to expect from the ex-QLD premier.

Under previous administration the NRL would rightly welcome back Izzy and his controversies with open arms. However, the current NRL management seem to be hellbent on promoting, political correctness, lefty elitist doctrine and the concept of guilty until proven innocent. At the same-time they have no issue in accepting ex-cons (think Russ Packer, Matt Lodge, Manu Mau etc) back to the fold and the likes of Scott Bolton and Michael Chee-Kam get a slap on the wrist and token suspensions for assault.

Let’s face it at the end of the day whilst Folau may have breathed his contractual obligations with the ARU (and this is likely to be tested in the courts) he has not committed any crime but has pursued his god given and democratic right to free speech whether that be deluded or not.

Mr Beattie and his cohorts at the NRL should stick to running and  promoting rugby league at the highest level, rather than to taking on the role of the world’s moral crusader. 

THE SEA EAGLE

[bobskiii87-blog]

This Gabber Meet-Up Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity

This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands and VICE Belgium

There isn't too much to know about the Belgian city of Kortrijk. It has a nice little shopping street, Saturday nights are about Grey Goose and dancing, and any time a local square gets renovated it's all anyone ever talks about for a month.

But twice a year, this relative calm is brutally disrupted when flocks of young and old gabbers in Thunderdome-branded tops and joggers walk out of the Kortrijk train station and head straight to DC's Special – one of the last brick-and-mortar shops dedicated to gabber.

The shop's owner, Dimitri Christiaens, 36, has been organising these bi-annual meet-ups since 1999. What started out as just ten friends having a beer has grown into a sizeable get-together of passionate gabbers from all over Europe, who come to Kortrijk to share memories of the glory days.

Gabber fans outside DC's Specials.

As a teenager in Kortrijk, this annual procession of shaved heads freaked me out, but later my fear turned into fascination. What makes this tiny store so special that people from as far as Japan come to pay homage?

Last month, I decided to head down to the latest gathering to speak to some of the world's most committed gabbers about how they're keeping their subculture alive.

The front of DC's Special is hidden behind a pillar in the corner of the square. The crowd is a mix of men and women, most of them wearing shiny pairs of Nike Air Max, bright pink tops and suspenders. I see pit bulls of all shapes and sizes lurking around, while gabber parents pushing strollers excitedly greet their old rave buddies.

Off to the side, a few guys are doing gabber's iconic hakken dance in the sun, their tongues hanging out of their mouths. I hear people speaking French and Dutch, and occasionally someone will shout something in English, like "Once hardcore, always hardcore!"

The person here who seems most in her element is Antilla, a mum who brought her seven sons with her. She's such a raver, she tells me, who once danced so hard she tore her Achilles tendon.

While proudly stroking her 17-year-old son's hair, she tells me, "I almost cried this morning when I shaved the sides of his head for the first time. They grow up so fast." Her youngest is still a toddler, but Antilla shows me a video on her phone of him pumping his fist up and down to a beat. "You see, it's in their genes."

"Only die-hard gabbers who were there in the early days come here," a man who drove three hours from France to be here tells me. "Some only come once a year, while others are here every week. It doesn't matter if you're in a group or you're on your own. The beauty of our scene is that as long as you're a gabber, you're never really alone. We're one big family, for life."

Left: Antilla proudly poses with one of her sevens sons. Right: Her eldest son shows off his new haircut.

When discussing their favourite memories from raves together, they all recall the same details that made the whole package so special to them. They chat about chants, worn out sneakers and mind-blowing sets from years ago. Conversations are only briefly interrupted when the DJ plays a classic, or when an old friend walks past – a friend like the universally loved Bjorn. He's a Belgian who proudly refers to himself as "rolstoelgabbertje" (wheelchair gabber).

"I was 12 years old when I went to my first rave, in 1997 – Thunderdome in Antwerp," Bjorn tells me. "I still see people here that I met on that day. It's like we're all coming back to a place we never really left."

Bjorn has partied at most of the major raves of the past 20 years, in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. At events, he and his wheelchair are often lifted up in the air, and DJs invite him on stage. Everyone in the scene knows him.

"The friendship, love and acceptance in this scene will get you through anything," he tells me, before describing how, at 19, he contracted a virus that left him in a wheelchair. "This is the only place where people didn't suddenly start to treat me differently. I remained a part of it."

Bjorn in his wheelchair.

Shop-owner Dimitri was 13 and camping in the Dutch province of Zeeland when he was first introduced to gabber music. After falling in love with it, he started attending as many raves as he could, before opening DC's Specials when he turned 18. Back then, his collection consisted of only a couple of racks with a few caps, shoes and tracksuits, but today it's a true celebration of gabber culture.

"If there's a big festival happening in Belgium or the Netherlands, like Dominator or Defcon, people will fly well out of their way just to come here," Dimitri tells me. "We get visitors from all over the world – Switzerland, Chile, Japan, Australia."

Bjorn and Dimitri inside DC's Specials

Dimitri's success came partially from being one of the first to work with big brands to produce merchandise specifically for women. But the shop also reached cult status thanks to what's plastered on its walls – his personal collection of flyers and posters from legendary raves, like Thunderdome in 1998, and Mysteryland that same year. Some of the memorabilia, Dimitri tells me, is now worth thousands. "Collectors go crazy when they come here," he adds.

Of course there's a flyer from Dimitri's first rave: Global Hardcore Nation in Antwerpen in 1997. "Twenty-thousand heads bouncing up and down," he remembers. "Every now and then they'd open the stadium roof to give us some air so we could breath properly." And he still has the bomber jacket he wore that night, a "collector's item that's now worth €700".

Left: Dimitri as a teenager on his way back from a rave. Right: Dimitri today.

Almost all of the other gabber shops that were around when he first opened DC's Specials have shifted to an online-only model. Dimitri could make a lot more profit by doing the same, he explains, but the shop means too much to too many people, so he's working as hard as he can to keep its doors open.

"When the new collections come out, we organise a fashion show and broadcast it live on Facebook," he says. "We invite DJs like Noisekick and Bass to come and play at the store, while we keep a collection of Nike Air Max BW that are so unique, people come here just to take pictures with them. And, of course, we continue to organise these meet-ups. A shop like this is an important part of the culture – I'll do everything I can to make sure it lasts."

This article originally appeared on VICE NL.

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[blackhatnewsmedia]

Celebrated around the world white cap programmer Marcus Hutchins—otherwise called "MalwareTech"— was captured by the FBI yesterday while attempting to fly home to the United Kingdom from Las Vegas. The 22-year-old security scientist picked up standard acclaim not long ago as the person who halted the damaging WannaCry ransomware from spreading, and had been celebrating with companions close to the Black Hat and Defcon programmer gatherings before his capture. Presently, he confronts genuine government charges for supposedly making the Kronos saving money trojan. Be that as it may, he should be the great person!

Here's the thing: Good individuals do awful things at times. It's conceivable that great programmers, the ones we celebrate for ceasing malware, additionally make malware, maybe for benefit or maybe in light of the fact that they're exhausted. It's conceivable, however a few people just can hardly imagine how Hutchins could ever accomplish something like this:

We don't know whether Hutchins is blameworthy. That is up to the courts to decide. Be that as it may, what we know so far about the young fellow's tricky circumstance is charming most definitely. In the days paving the way to his capture, Hutchins was pulling out all the stops. Amid the programmer gatherings, Hutchins was tossing parties at a $1,900-per-night Airbnb which, by chance, is home the biggest private pool in Las Vegas, Gizmodo alum William Turton reports at the Outline. Hutchins likewise leased a Lamborghini and asked his Twitter devotees where he could discover a race track. He mulled over leasing a helicopter for a voyage through the Grand Canyon. He shot an extremely frightening automatic rifle at a shooting range.

Spending bunches of cash and having a great time isn't illegal, yet it is interested by and large. The as of late unlocked government arraignment asserts that Hutchins not just assembled the Kronos malware, which empowers a programmer to take bank accreditations, yet in addition promoted it on AlphaBay, the dim web commercial center that US and European specialists grabbed two or three weeks back. It's misty if Hutchins' capture is associated with that seizure. The arraignment asserts that Hutchins sold Kronos, at any rate once, for $2,000. The prosecution likewise asserts that Hutchins transferred a video to YouTube about how Kronos functions, a detail that the Department of Justice believes is implicating proof.

Did government experts let Hutchins party his go head to head amid Defcon and Black Hat, with the goal that they could gather all the more implicating proof against the youthful security analyst? Did Hutchins' cash come the offer of malware that makes it simple for abhorrent programmers to victimize clueless PC clients? Did Hutchins lie when he said he was giving the $10,000 compensate from ceasing WannaCry to philanthropy, rather spending the cash on extraordinary auto rentals and a luxurious gathering house?

We don't have a clue about the response to any of these inquiries, and we most likely won't for a long while. In any case, it absolutely is conceivable that a white cap like Hutchins potentially, perhaps did some terrible things a couple of years prior. In the programmer world, it's normal for programmers to begin off wearing dark caps and wind up changing their ways. Typically they get found doing the terrible stuff and after that invest some energy in jail.

Here are a few illustrations. Kevin Paulson is the unbelievable programmer who ended up noticeably well known for assuming control over the greater part of the telephone lines that prompted Los Angeles-territory radio stations with the goal that he could be the 102nd guest and win a Porsche in 1990. He was captured in 1991, following a 18-month-long manhunt, and served more than five years in jail. Presently, he's a senior editorial manager at Wired.

At that point, you have Kevin Mitnick, another well known programmer. Mitnick was charged for more than two dozen digital wrongdoings in 1995, avoided the feds for two weeks before being gotten with 100 cloned PDAs, and afterward served about four years in jail. Presently, he runs his own security organization, counseling substantial organizations and even the FBI on the best way to protect their information.

What's more, who could overlook Samy Kamkar. When he was only 19-years of age, Kamkar made a worm that he released on MySpace, where it soon turned into the speediest spreading PC infection ever. He confessed to a crime, stayed away from imprison time, and was on post trial supervision for a long time, amid which he was not permitted to touch a PC. Presently, he's a standout amongst the most renowned white cap programmers on the planet, spotting vulnerabilities in ordinary gadgets and upholding for better security. He's even affirmed before Congress.

One thing merits rehashing, however: We don't know whether Hutchins is liable. It's altogether conceivable that the feds misunderstood the person, and we would all be able to backpedal to recalling MalwareTech for being the pleasant individual who spared many people from getting hacked and held prisoner by the WannaCry ransomware. On the off chance that he did it, be that as it may, he wouldn't be the principal white cap programmer with a dark cap past. Indeed, he'd be following after some admirable people.

[god-hunter]

Secret Empire #0

This was the big one folks.  A giant sized 0 issue, which apparently wasn’t even the first one you were supposed to read.

There are 3 other prelude issues to this, which I won’t bother collecting.  One from U.S Avengers, where it seems Captain America shook things up with Roberto DaCosta.  Another in the Thunderbolts book, I think.  And finally his own Captain America: Steve Rogers book, where he finally revealed his outward villainy, apparently.

...Before I go any further, I should mention to anyone not in the know, that since the Pleasant Hill event ended and Steve Rogers triumphantly returned with his youth, Nick Spencer left us with a nasty cliff-hanger.  And that was the fact that, Kobik (the cosmic diety that brought him back) was being manipulated by Red Skull.

This only spelled bad news for Cap, as Spencer spent an entire year setting up the idea that Steve was never a genuine American Hero, but really a Secret Hydra Agent, deep deep undercover for years.  [Come on, man.  Really!?]

Now.. this is old news.  People hated Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 the world over.  Then others saw through the whole ploy when they stayed on for Steve Rogers #2.  Since then, I think Marvel audiences have been split between hating on this entire plot thread, and others finding it downright brilliant.

I... have avoided it like the plague.  Brian Bendis had the chance during Civil War II to hint at us that Cap wasn’t being genuine, or secretly harboring evil thoughts or whatever, and he didn't.  He left Spencer to his devices, who handled a pretty well written Epilogue to Civil War II.

That very same epilogue hinted at what’s to come right here in Secret Empire.  Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter were in power once again.  And this time, as Top Cop, he was going to make sure he was going to follow through with his “true” mission.

[Give me a break man.  He’s obviously gonna break out of this.  But in the meantime, Marvel audiences are beyond frustrated at the straight up blasphemy and downright betrayal that Spencer has created for the Captain America fanbase.]  And I think that’s a fair Pre-Assessment.

As for this issue.  It was really well written.  It’s very dense.  There’s a lot going on.  And some of it is a bit much.  And I was definitely left feeling bummed out by the end of it.  Steve Rogers is definitely breaking my heart a little bit, here.  But I’d also like to think I understand where Spencer is going with this.  And I can only hope that he’s going to deliver a major redeeming factor somewhere down the line, towards the end of all this.

In the mean time.  Let the Secret Empire begin.

[SPOILERS]

Warning.  This was a very long issue, and I don’t want to leave a single detail out.  So the rest of this review may be tl;dr.  I’ll do my best to move the points along though.

We start with a “Flashback” from 1945 in Japan where Captain America secretly reported to his Hydra boss, Kraken.  [Already, I’m not in love.]

Along with Kraken is what I thought was Sir Isaac Newton from the Sorcerers Supreme book, but I could be wrong.  Anyway, they tell him that the Allies are about to use a ‘Cosmic Cube’ to rewrite reality itself.  And not to believe them when he falls into their will.  {To make us believe that all those years as an Avenger, he was somehow being manipulated.}

Through some really nice visuals, we see Cap’s heroic history unfold, even though he now believes that it was in-genuine.  That is to say, he believes his “true mission” is to betray them.

After that strange flashback, we’re treated to an interesting Character Page.

This book is going to host Steve Rogers & Sharon Carter at S.H.I.E.L.D. Command [obviously], both Ironheart AND Iron Man in Michigan..

The Ultimates and other cosmic favorites like Hyperion and the new Quasar, (which was kind of nice to see.)  The Guardians of the Galaxy minus Drax will be around.

At New York City, we get to see the Defenders in action for the first time, which is pretty exciting.  I’m no stranger to Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Daredevil, but to see them finally get the Team Treatment and recognition since Bendis wrapped up New Avengers vol. 2, is really nice.  Also with them is Spider-Woman, Doctor Strange, Cloak and Dagger.  The Uncanny Avengers will also be featured in this book, which I enjoy.  [Guess I’ll be collecting those tie ins.]  Did I mention The Wasp is there too?  Janet Van Dyne.  Not the new one.

And of course this event wouldn’t be complete without some Hydra Forces such as Baron Zemo and his Army of Evil.

Now...  Before I continue, I noticed a significant lack of ‘Actual’ Avengers.  ...is Waid staying out of this??  Does Spencer not care about them??

What of Clint Barton?  Won’t he have something to say about an evil Cap in Power?

Well.  We’ll see I guess.  I’m getting ahead of myself here.  Apparently Captain America: Sam Wilson explained his absence from this event already.  =/

Once we finally get into the issue, I’m already confused.  I’ve already missed something.  There are apparently 3 red dots on the trouble map, which S.H.I.E.L.D. has failed to stop for months, and now it feels like the end is nigh.

[Also, I’m completely thrown off by her old appearance in this issue, meanwhile in Infamous Iron Man, she’s totally young and fresh looking.  I could’ve sworn she looked the same in CWII’s epilogue as well.]

Well, anyway, we get to see Captain Marvel, the Ultimates and other Cosmic friends take action in space against the Chitauri.

[You would think Al Ewing would set some of this up for Ultimates 2 tie-ins, but he definitely has some other pointless things going on in his pocket of the universe.]

As the Ultimates fight in space, Ironheart, and apparently Tony’s mobile armored A.I. is able to fully work alongside her.  [As if Tony was never in a coma or something..  Hah!]

I have no idea what they’re doing.  I wish I could say what they’re analyzing.  But outside, New York is burning.

This is where we find that The Defenders are up against Nitro, who has nothing but vengeance on his mind since Pleasant Hill, which happened more than a year ago at this point.  [Where was this before?]

“Know that it is their sins you die for now!”

The action is pretty awesome on the ground and in space as Sharon worries with a pensive Steve from the Helicarrier.  The panels are scattered and frantic, although aligned neatly along the page.

Narrations build things up in past tense.

“This is how we were betrayed.”  The mysterious story continues to unfold.

Apparently in space, the new Quasar dies, or we are lead to believe that, as a huge alien swallows her whole.

From the Helicarrier, Cap commands, “We need that shield!”

[THATS what Riri and Tony A.I are working on!!]

{I have a weird theory that Tony’s A.I. slacked on getting the shield up in time, but I have little-to-nothing to back up that theory.}

In New York, Jessica Jones definitely saves the Defenders from getting blown up by Nitro, who just suicide bombed the area.

It almost seems as if something fatal happened to her, but we find that is not the case the next time we see them.

Cutting further to the chase, Riri and Tony A.I get the shield up, but in the process Steve basically locks the Ultimates out of Earth.

The Unity Squad touches down by the Defenders, where Rogue mentions something about guessing they’re Avengers again.

[I know this team got rocked recently, but I forget why.  Do they know that Steve is Hydra..?  Or just don’t trust him??  I gotta read up on them again.]

For a minute it looks like they all won.  [But as I said.  Steve locked the Ultimates out of Earth and, he makes this betrayal apparent soon after.]

He even allowed his own Hellicarrier to be brought down by Hydra Agents who invade the place.

They all arrive before Steve and Sharon and aim their guns at her.  He orders them not to shoot and to stand down, which confuses Sharon.

...This thing gets all over the place after that.  With Carol and the Ultimates finding out that they’re officially screwed and left for dead as more and more Chitauri waves come for them, we’re given an interesting caption.  “Stage One. Alpha Flight Space Station.”

Then we see that Zemo is outside of New York on a speedboat with Blackoutm as he holds the Darkholde book.  [Ah come on man.  That’s just pandering to casual S.H.I.E.L.D. TV fans...]

Zemo and/or Blackout initiate Stage Two, which is putting New York City in darkness, isolating it via a Darkforce Dimension.

We see Doctor Strange try to stop it, but it is unknown to us at this time if it did anything.

Then, we get to see our ‘Actual’ Avengers, the Champions and Spider-man move into action, as everyone starts to notice that something is up.

Tony A.I. calls “All Avengers” into action.

“If you can hear this, your services are required immediately-- We are under attack....  This is threat level red, Defcon Infinity Stuff here, people--  We need you to get to Washington D.C.!!!”

On the last page, we see Hellicarriers hover above the White House and a caption read, “Stage Three. Washington D.C. Objective: Hydra takeover. Mission: Underway.”

-To Be Continued!-

So yes.  A lot is going on.

And the end was very exciting.

But what the Hell am I reading Spencer??

And why did Marvel think this was the direction we needed to take???

Now.  I’m not gonna complain until I get more of a feel for what’s going on here.

So far this is definitely different.

But, I feel like Marvel is definitely throwing all of the wrenches in the cogs at this point, because they’ve promised apparently that this will be the Last Event for a while.  Thank God.

[I never thought I’d say that, because I love events.  It’s what got me into collecting in the first place.  But at this point, it’s clear that they’re a cash grab and not a story enhancer.  And not for nothing, but none of these Universe-changing events hold any weight when we know they’re just gonna get changed again in 3 months.]

So yeah.  In that regard, I am looking forward to wherever this event goes.

Because if Marvel inevitably hits the Reset Button again?  It’d be nice to see them stick to a plan this time...  And maybe.. Stop with the damn New #1′s.

...Until Secret Empire #1!

[This issue definitely felt like a #1...]