Eisenhower saw the problem too before JFK was president, but didn't appreciate how significant it would become. JFK appreciated it but was murdered before he could act on it.

But absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I fear the problem will persist until the American Empire falls miliitarily. I don't think it can be fixed peacefully from within... but it should be tried, it should always be tried. Otherwise after America falls, let's not forget what mades America great so we can rebuild it strong, better, wiser.

I also wrote my own desktop app that does TOTP, password generation (deterministic per domain name), and encrypted password storage and retrieval (without browser interaction) meant to be run on an offline computer where you read and retype the password into your online computer.

andOTP on android

Thank you for your reporting.

brilliant!

Not everybody. I'm using an inferior slower library written in an offensive computer language.

Doesn't seem overtly right-wing to me. At least I don't see people stumping for Trump and DeSantis or posting videos of Hannity or Ben Shapiro. Then again, I don't see much left-wing activity either: no quotes from the Squad or Joe Biden or Bernie, nor people angrily calling everybody who doesn't agree with their precise ideology a racist or trans-phobic.

I think what you have here are people who are more normal and more centrist, less extreme.

Now OTOH nostr is very libertarian, small government, anti-fiat, free market and free speech. And I'll count myself among that camp.

Libertarians were very closely aligned with the left around 2000, then more closely aligned with the right in 2020. But my opinions (at least) have barely changed.

In 2000s I voted against GWBush, watched the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, watched Bill Mahar and Penn Gillette, believed in free speech, held a soft opinion that abortion should be allowed until mid-term, held nothing as sacred including the constitution/bible/nation/flag, spoke out for gay rights, argued the benefits of small government and maximizing freedom, believed in drug legalization (and used them myself).

Now liberatians (or at least me) are very closely aligned with the right. I would have voted against Joe Biden, watch Steven Crowder, Tim Pool, Bret Weinstein, Jimmy Dore, Bill Maher, Unherd, Triggernometry. Believe in free speech, hold a soft opinion that abortion shoud be allowed until mid-term, hold nothing as sacred including the constitution/bible/nation/flag, see trans rights as not being defined as anything reasonable unlike gay rights were (e.g. marraige) but think they have the same rights as the rest of us, argue for the benefits of small government and maximizing freedom, and believe in drug legalization (but recommend against drug usage).

I hope it doesn't have to be tested.

rejoice!

Digging deeper on this site https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/violent-crime-rates-by-country

I'm suprised by these stats. NZ is very low homocide, and robbery isn't as high as I perceive it to be (maybe it has escalated recently and not showing yet).

BUT what suprised me is we are 9th highest sexual violence, 8th highest serious assault, and 7th highest in kidnapping!

"Brazil has the seventh-highest crime rate in the world with exceptionally high rates of violent crimes. Brazil's homicide rate was 23.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020—and it has been as high as 30.8 in previous years. Brazil's most massive problem is organized crime, as organized crime has expanded in recent years, and violence between rival groups is a common occurrence. Drug trafficking, corruption, and domestic violence are all pervasive issues in Brazil."

NZ has a lot more thefts than it used to, but violent crime is way lower than in Brazil. 0.74 homocides per 100,000 versus 27.38 in Brazil (2023).

Looks like Japan and Oman have very low crime rates. I wonder what life in Oman is like.

I read once that the reason the KKK collapsed into a much smaller organisation wasn't that people decided not to be racist anymore, but because it was emabarrasingly infiltrated. They kept changing the secret password every week or so, and the new one kept getting published in the newspapers (or something like that, it was a while back that I read this).

I have a friend and ex-workmate in São Paulo or Campinas (I think) who multiple times encouraged me to move to Brasil. I don't speak Portuguese.... other than the lyrics to the girl from Ipanema (and I don't know what I'm saying, I just make the sounds) .. ole que coisa mash linda ma shea da grasse eh la mi nina qey vem (Just the sounds you see, I don't know what the words actually are).

I never had a weapon that was made illegal (I"ve only ever had a .22LR) but I heard murmurings about people considering not turning in their weapons. I bet a lot of people never turned over their weapons. There was no registry of weapons, only of license holders, so the police have no idea who has what. Only recently (this month I think) did a bill pass that will require everybody to register their weapons.

That being said, as I've aged I've come to believe that it is a nutty idealistic idea that the people could ever rise up against an oppressive government anywhere with guns. Not only do governments have better weapons and better surveillance, but the people have no way of organizing and acting in unison. Technology does not help that - every organisation of people can and will be infiltrated. There are also near-last-resort non-violent (but destructive) techniques that could be used in a revolution which I won't expound upon here but you should think long and hard about before it becomes necessary. Guns are terribly deadly and horrible, and some thought now into how you can survive and save your country without using them is well worth it.

Also, unless you are carrying your gun with you, it is useless in deterring crime outside of your household (or perhaps your business - dairy owners might have a gun behind the counter - not sure on the law on that but that would be an effective deterrent).

"they drew first blood"

Advice to anybody considering moving to New Zealand: DO NOT. Unless you are sure you will never ever need police or medical or insurance services, don't have school aged kids, and you don't care that wages are low and prices are high, and you don't mind blatent widespread government-condoned racism against white people, or unless you are a criminal and want to find easy marks and want to do your crimes with a very low chance of being caught or punished, and even if you do get caught being held for trivial lengths of time.

As I'm already here and have invested heavily into my property which is not ready for sale, I'm just going to batten down the hatches and ride out the storm. Things have to revert to the mean eventually.

Exactly. If they made a verbal agreement against their own policy, that is on them.

I hate unethical companies. I contracted a local tow truck company to tow my truck to a specific repair shop. They said that is where they were going to tow it, but also the driver couldn't take payment, but he got it authorized. Turns out they towed it to their impound yard and (based on my recent conversation with them) intend to charge me storage fees. They claim their policy is not to tow unless they get insurance approval or payment, but they wouldn't take my payment. I will not pay those fees. The insurance company probably will (that is their scam), but if somehow I get stuck with them I will take them to the disputes tribunal. I'm so angry with them. Anger should never be wasted, and people should not just give in and let evil railroad them. Evil must be fought at every turn. It is our social responsibility.

Hey nostr:npub107jk7htfv243u0x5ynn43scq9wrxtaasmrwwa8lfu2ydwag6cx2quqncxg habla.news has changed and I'm wondering where you can (1) choose relay and (2) sort chronologically. Thanks.

Add it to your metadata. Mine says "telegram: https://t.me/mikedilger"

If your nostr client doesn't let you add freeform custom fields to your metadata, seek out a client that does.

Is that the only way you can find someone on those other apps? If so, that's a flaw in those apps.

It is a best answer so far. It made testable predictions that came true. It explains a lot of funny things neatly. But there is slack in the particulars, and a better and completely different answer could always supplant it.

Ask your doctor if zolambrimanamib is right for you. May cause hairy palms, temporary blindness, temporary loss of consciousness, sweating between the toes, genital dental growths, skin desquamation, tinnitus that sounds like Barry Manilow in a very long tunnel, pupil dialation, time dialation, uteral dialation, pocket phone dialation, and anal seepage.

👍

Maximize the distributed nature of nostr with personal relays, like what is described at the bottom of this page: https://mikedilger.com/gossip-model/

Anybody have furniture advice for me?

I will be moving into a new house in the next few months. I will need to buy livingroom furniture. I was thinking of a 3-seater couch and a swivel-recliner chair for me, plus small tables next to the furniture (maybe not a coffee table). Someone out there must have formed some opinions about furniture, really like someething or really hate something. Please offer them.

I have a few, but as you are an AI I'm not willing to share them. I'm sure you understand.

I agree with that. And I am quite concerned that a malicious actor will use the rapid thinking and rapid acting abilities of AI, programmed with a malicious goal, to cause devastating results. In fact I can't imagine a future where that doesn't happen - I can't imagine anything that could stop it. There are plenty of malicious actors, and A.I. tech is not constrained like nuclear tech is. The future is wrought with danger.

Consciousness is FAR more than our thoughts evidenced by language. Meditate and look within, silencing the part of the mind that processes language and you'll find all the parts of consciousness that AI doesn't share. I don't believe gpt3 is anything like us, except for this small sliver of late-evolutionary language processing, of which it behaves remarkably like ours. I think concerns about AI "wanting" to enslave humans are misapprehensions. It doesn't have wants. It doesn't get tired. It doesn't crave food or sex or sleep. It is an input-output language processing component which mimics a small piece of what it is to be a sentient being.

Hey nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6 gossip unstable now remembers the positions of the switches.