Author: Kris Roley
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LINK: We Didn’t Mean Be Mean To Us, Though.
Watters took to the air on The Five to raise the case of his friend, a veteran of 20 years, who was months into a new role at the Pentagon and still under probation but discovered this week that his job was set to be terminated as part of DOGE’s initiatives.
“But, see, what I meant wuz…”
Nope. This is what you asked for.
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Could someone inform the Fanta Menace that it takes some wind out of his argument about returning to the office when he spent almost a full year of his first term on a golf course (307 days), and has spent about 8 days of his 29 days so far on the links.
Tell this idiot to have a Coke, a smile, and a fucking seat.
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Today In ‘Today I Learned…’
You’ll notice on the two previous posts that there is no title. I was going down a WordPress rabbit hole, and I ended up on Matt Mullenweg’s blog. Matt is a co-founder of WordPress, so I think he’s caught up on what it can do. I was surprised to see posts with no title there. So I tried it here, and damn. Had no idea. So, they’re tweets, more or less. I’m sure you could cross-post them that way. It got me thinking of all the half-baked things I could have put here instead of Elmo’s hellscape.
Go figure
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Virginia Beach is forecast to receive 6-10 inches of snow (fun size!), and with that we get a reminder of the dumbest fucking law ever.
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YouTube And Podcasts
The question is whether you should add your podcast to YouTube, especially if your podcast hasn’t embraced video. Here’s the post that got me thinking about it. I’ve added episodes of my podcast to YouTube as an audiogram previously, and while I’m not breaking any records I did see an increase in views and in time watched over the length of what I saw as an experiment. Since then, YouTube has fully embraced podcasts and has created features especially for podcasters. And yet…
Here’s an argument against having podcasts on YouTube: It’s something you actively consume. Yes, there are channels like Lofi Girl that you can have on in the background, but that is my point. A podcast is something you can listen to while you’re doing something else, like driving, walking, or doing the dishes. Most of the time on YouTube, you’re watching a screen, and as much as other people might like to watch Joe Rogan be a meathead live and in living color, it just doesn’t seem like that was the idea Dave and Adam were getting at.
That’s not to say that podcasts don’t belong on YouTube; I can think of at least one use case that works: Your Mom and Dad, who maybe wouldn’t know a podcast app if it slapped them, but they watch cat videos on YouTube. I’m only a little facetious here, but sometimes you lead people to new things through stuff people already know.
The original poster posted some graphs of audience retention for audiograms versus video, and he made the point that audiograms lose their audience much faster. I don’t dispute that, but here’s something to think about: At that point, is what you’re watching a podcast, or is it a show?
I think it’s a show. A show that CAN be a podcast, but it’s a show first. As always, your mileage may vary.
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LINK: White House Admits Musk And DOGE Violated The CFAA
…it’s a strategy that seems too cute by half and one that potentially creates more issues for Musk and DOGE than it purports to solve. Because the filing serves as a big neon sign saying that Musk had little authority.
So then what the hell was he doing demanding that anyone from DOGE get access to the nation’s most sensitive computer systems?
It certainly looks like it was access “without authorization” that the CFAA punishes because there was no authorization that this particular status as a White House employee could endow him with to entitle him, or his delegates, to the access they took.
As it was in 1.0, their maliciousness is severely limited by their incompetence. I wouldn’t count on that being our saving grace, but it certainly helps.
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A Small But Significant Site Update
As you can see, before this post, I wrote one post with the date of that day. While this was convenient for me, I couldn’t direct you to a particular part of that post without anchor tags, and I just couldn’t make that work to my liking. In addition, the posts themselves weren’t as visible in search as they could be. If I’m going to open up comments on this site, then I think I need to blog ‘correctly’, whatever that means. Going forward, there will be separate posts for each, uh, post.
Let us never speak of this again, we now return you to the clown show already in progress.
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Friday, February 7th, 2025
- It didn’t take long after opening comments on the blog for me to receive my first slice of spam. Sorry to disappoint you, my dude.
- I will be guesting on my friend Justin’s podcast Deprogrammed this evening. It’s just a recording session today; I don’t know when it will drop. If this sounds familiar, I guested on this show last year about The Tragically Hip, a Canadian band more people should know. This time, it’s another small band from Canada—you might have heard of them.
- Every so often I get the urge to give people some basic ideas on how to protect you and yours from fraud. Other more intelligent people have done so, I just see it a lot these days with my day job, and it’s sad sometimes. Today was one of those sad days. Please listen to those intelligent people when it comes to passwords, two-factor authentication, and not clicking on things from people you don’t know.
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Thursday, Feb 6th, 2025
- Overnight, I managed to catch the stomach bug that has brought down everyone else here. I don’t wish it on anyone. It does mean that I’ve spent most of today asleep under warm blankets, and irrigating myself like a TVA project when awake.
- I did catch some of the performative holding of the floor overnight to postpone Russell Vought being confirmed at OMB. I mentioned on Bluesky that they shouldn’t stop. Sign up like a potluck dinner and hold floor indefinitely. Grind everything to a halt.
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Wednesday, Feb 5th, 2025
- I’m seeing a lot of Fanboi talk about iOS 19 getting a redesign because of some leaked images of the (alleged) camera app, and a new Invites app. I think that’s only common sense. The Vision Pro was a $3500 proof of concept, but more than that it was a test for new UI. Those elements were bound to make it to the other devices. Not the first time Apple’s done this. One of the later versions of the iPod Nano was square. Like a watch. The 3rd party market saw an opportunity, and created watch bands. Apple may be a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them. They either saw that and decided a watch was possible, or they knew a watch was possible, and let the market skate to where the puck was all by itself.
- I see that they’re going to hold the Senate Floor all night to protest one of the nominees. I can’t remember which one, these assholes all kind of blur together after a while. I just have one question: Why are you just holding the floor for one night. There are 46 or 47 Dems in the Senate, sign up like it’s a goddamn potluck dinner and shut it the fuck down. Shut it ALL down. Hold the floor as long as you can, and rotate your folded asses in and out. This is the moment Mr. Smith fucking trained you for,
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Tuesday, Feb 4th, 2025
- I recently purchased a new iPad Mini. I still use my 2018 iPad Pro (I’m writing this post on it), but I had some use cases that the iPad Pro would not accommodate. I wanted to be able to throw this in a sling bag and still have room for other stuff, I wanted to use it instead of my phone, and I wanted to be able to have something light and not bulky to use as an e-reader. Turns out that I can use Lightroom on this for photo editing. It’s also possible I can use it for light video editing with something like Premiere Rush, or DaVinci Resolve.
- I’m sitting here watching as much as I can stomach of the protests outside today’s Takeover. You are watching the consolidation of power by the executive. As I said yesterday, no one could have voted for this. Unfortunately, all that’s going to happen is a lot of talk from the Dems. They haven’t the slightest idea how to fight this, because the party elders still believe you can play by the rules against an adversary who wipes their ass with them.
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Monday, February 3rd, 2025
- Short but sweet today, I only have one question: This can’t possibly be what people voted for, can it?
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The Verbs, February 2025
Watching: Silo, Apple TV+
Reading: A Theater for Dreamers, by Polly Samson
Jamming: The Ocean Blue, Self-Titled (1989)
Podding: Transmissions, the definitive story of Joy Division/New Order
Working: I am still working on consistency on this page, slowly renovating the studio, and weeding out my photo library of approximately 4,000 pictures, which includes duplicates and trash photos that should not be there.
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PODCAST: Roley Podcast for 1/31/2025
A Love Letter to Gitmo
Royal Rumble 2025. Yeah, I like wrestling. Sue me.
Automating the whole podcast process?
AI and my external hard drive full of photos
Against my better judgment, I’ve opened comments on the site.
Hero Syndrome: I still think that 2.0 will be similar to 1.0 when it comes to astonishing incompetence. Don’t be surprised if they tank everything trying to solve a problem they created. I just wish they could do that without getting people killed.
Why even have confirmation hearings if they’re just going to perjure themselves with no consequence? End the hearing if you catch them in a lie. End the hearing if they dodge questions, or don’t answer. End the hearing the first time someone doesn’t answer a yes or no question with a yes or no. Just adjourn, clear the room, and let the nominee sit there. As always, this will not happen. Ever. Wouldn’t it be awesome, though?
Do we point and laugh at the clown show?
Samsung announced they are working on a non-invasive blood sugar monitor for a wearable.
Jim Acosta, Journ-A Lister? I hope not.
“I did that” stickers—Biden’s on gas pumps, Trump’s on eggs. How original. Please jump off a cliff into a pit of rusty razor blades.
T.F.E. The F@@king Experts. There’s not a thing they don’t know, just ask them.
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Wednesday, Jan 29th, 2025
- I don’t know if this exists in the wild, but here’s a half-baked idea. Develop something that can examine a drive, and organize the pictures, I know that Photos on the Mac can do this to some extent, I’m talking about photos you have stored on, say, an external hard drive and NOT in Photos or the equivalent. Study the photos and organize them into subfolders, or tag them with something that can be searched for easily. I have a series of photos on a drive from my trip to Machias, Maine in October 2004. Herbert (or whatever) looks at the picture or it’s metadata and tags them #machias102004. Or create a folder called “Machias Oct 2004” and dump those photos in there. And for all the photos that have nothing to go on, call them misc, or orphan photos, or something, and tag or subfolder them as well. Yes, that would require manual work, but it would be way less than a folder of thousands of pictures to go through manually. Now, let me admit the obvious: I’m stupid, and I don’t get out much. This may exist and I don’t know it. I’ll go looking around, which is probably what I should have done before I started writing this half-baked, meaningless babble
- I have a preset in Adobe Audition that foods (that’s a technical term) my voice files for the podcast, and then I export it to a folder for finished files. When I go to Captivate to publish, I drag and drop that file, add some notes, and hit publish. I’d love to automate the whole thing. Not sure that Automator would do all of it, but there’s a mad scientist thing to do…
- I recently went through a re-watch of a British sci-fi show that’s a little less known than Doctor Who, but still worth your time. Blake’s 7. I have just two words for you: Kerr Avon. Well worth your time, and why this character isn’t widely known on the internet is beyond me.
- There’s something darkly humorous about having a cardiology appointment rescheduled.
- Today’s minor annoyance: “I did that” stickers—Biden’s on gas pumps, Trump’s on eggs. How original. Please jump off a cliff into a pit of rusty razor blades.
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Monday, January 27th, 2025
- I swear I am nowhere near Maine, this is not my fault.
- Since eggs are the low-hanging fruit du jour, I suppose this is funny. I’d argue that you can make this about most ‘experts’ about anything on the internet. There’s a joke that goes along the lines of “So, all the folks that were experts about contagious disease are all First Amendment scholars now? Cool, cool.”
- I can’t express to you how much this won’t happen, but there are certain situations where the only real response should be “You are not a serious person, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Tell me when the adults show up, sit down, and shut the fuck up.” It should be repeated like a mantra—no one will.
- I was just reminded of an episode of some crime procedural I’ve watched where someone was setting fires, and it turned out that it was a fireman, or ex-fireman, or a wanna-be fireman. They create the disaster, solve it, and get called a hero before everything is revealed. I think we’d do well to remember this storyline for a while. It may be useful. That said, I still think that 2.0 will be similar to 1.0 when it comes to astonishing incompetence. Don’t be surprised if they tank everything trying to solve a problem they created.
- I realize that I am in a position to do this more easily than others, but laughing at the clusterfuck seems to be the best option for me. It reeks of privilege, I know. All I can tell you is that I’m laughing at them, and waiting for what I think is the inevitable conclusion of this shitshow. I don’t think he lasts the term. Bookmark this so you can laugh at me when I’m proven wrong, but something physical or mental is going to do what no one else has been able to do, and if that’s the only way this ends, I’ll take it. The only downside is what’s on the other side of that ending: A very sticky couch.
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PODCAST: Roley Podcast for Jan 26th, 2025
This is a continuation of last week’s rant about Walled Gardens like Facebook and open source. H/T to heathcliffnull for explaining like I’m five.
Link:
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech
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PHOTO: Dumbsicle, Jan 20th, 2025
Your intrepid idiot standing on the deck under the Lesner Bridge in Virginia Beach, taking pics with his iPhone on a tripod, in 18-degree weather.
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Thursday, Jan 16th, 2025
- I’d have liked to have been a fly on the wall during the meeting that led to Biden and Co.’s attempt to reverse the TikTok ban. There are a lot of theories about why people wanted TikTok to go, but I’m pretty sure national security isn’t the real reason. The two I think are more likely is that A) The PTB doesn’t like the fact that TikTokers speak a lot of truth to bullshit, and have done very well at that. Look no further than the pandemic for examples of TikTok creators smacking that down on the quick. B) TikTok allows more people than ever to make a living from content creation instead of being in the office. RTO has been a priority for the status quo since the pandemic ‘ended’, and they’d like to take that option away. What wasn’t taken into account is how much the TikTok economy contributes to the overall economy, and they shit a brick when they crunched those numbers. So, no, barring SCOTUS upholding the ban, TikTok isn’t going away on Sunday. Once this is all over, I think we should focus on all social media, not just the ones ‘we don’t like’. It’s all been weaponized in one form or another, and while I’d really like to see it all thrown into the sun, we need to rethink social media. Period.
- On a related note, I’ve signed up for a micro.blog account. I’m watching a playlist made by Numeric Citizen on how to use micro.blog. One thing I might find useful. I can subscribe to the RSS feeds for my accounts elsewhere, cross-post them to my micro blog, and then they will post to the other accounts I select. So, I could subscribe to my YT feed, which will post to my micro.blog, and then post to my Bluesky. The same could be done for this post on WP. It looks like you have to be on the $5/ month plan, but that’s MUCH less than the services like Buffer that charge at least 15 a month to do the same thing. I haven’t seen if there’s a way to schedule native posts (ones that are made in micro.blog as opposed to another feed), but if most of what’s getting posted is from another source, it may be a feature where the post originated. Of course, this may not matter to you at all. Not sure it matters to me, honestly. Food for thought.
- Winter has come for the first time in five years or so around here. There’s a reason I tell people I’m FROM Maine. I was BORN there, that’s about it. Thanks to the US Navy, before the age of 13 I spent half of that in Hawaii and a good chunk of the other half in Gitmo. Winter was never on the dance card. The middle of next week the lows are going to be in the teens, and I am going to be miserable. They say we’ll have a pattern flip in February, and I am just counting the days. Hat Tip to Ryan Hall, who has become my go-to guy on the weather.
