Politics

[Tom Servo]

Even with incognito mode you can still come up against a paywall.

Chrome had a bug in the incognito mode a while back that caused it to give away whether the user was in that mode. Specifically, JavaScript could check whether the chrome.fileSystem API was available, it would be disabled in incognito mode since technically you can't write to the filesystem. They updated it a couple of months back to lie and say that it is available even though it isn't, which should have fixed that issue and definitely did for me, I no longer get that "We see you're browsing in incognito mode. Only paid subscribers can browse the site in incognito mode." From what I'm reading they did figure out a couple of ways to get around that fix, namely that Chrome will limit local storage to 120MB if it's doing in-memory storage in incognito, and also a timing attack in that trying to put something on the filesystem will be faster in incognito since it's writing to RAM and not to disk.

FWIW, I have good luck these days with Chrome, the Firefox still struggles with some sites.

I use Chrome at work but don't use incognito mode, since I figure the powers that be can see where I've been if they want to.

Unless you're using a VPN or something, they can tell what hosts you're connecting to but not what page on that host you're seeing (at least if the connection is https). E.g., if you're going to https://www.example.com/somepage, they could see that you connected to www.example.com but would have no idea that you were looking at "/somepage", as that part of the protocol would go through TLS and is encrypted. Notably, the GTX doesn't support SSL so presumably they could see anything if they were packet sniffing.

What's fun about that is I could drop a single-pixel image link on here to like pornhub or something and when you load this thread, the browser would try to go there to request whatever I put in the link and that'd show up in the network logs.

Anyway, getting off topic here.

[neanderthal]

My 2020 Presidential Platform (if I was running, theoretically)

- Term Limits to 3 terms in Congress- but make elections publicly funded
- Forgive ALL Student Loan Debt I'm ok with this up to a point. I'd rather eliminate the cost of an avg state college 4 year degree from the student loans. Anything more is on you.
- Create single payer healthcare. Abso fucken lutely. I'd keep the ability to buy private health insurance if you want.
- Tax stock trades heavily to help pay for it - All of the above need to be easily explained in detail with charts, etc. Tax ALL income. And eliminate corporate tax loopholes.
- Put a cap on military spending and put an oversight board for each company to ensure spending is done properly....that will not weaken our miilitary IMO, it will just make them be more careful about where they spend things and become more efficient. Giving unlimited amounts of cash just breeds overspending.Nuff said
- Restore the law about news channels having to report a certain level of accuracy (Can't recall what it was but I believe it was removed during the Reagan admin) Fairness doctrine. Nuff said
- Increase minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next 4 years, not immediately in order to give businesses time to adjust, however also have exemptions for businesses making less than $500,000 a year in profit or so Abso. Start in the high cost of living areas.
- Focus on infrastructure improvements to highways, schools, other essential services (ZOMG socialism) [/b]Bring it on.[/b]
- Put a national oversight board in charge of checking police forces and special re-training procedures to prevent further law enforcement problems Abso. But it goes beyond police brutality. It's the district attorneys choosing to file charges and the judges handing down harsher sentences. System wide overhaul.
- Put higher taxes on companies where the highest levels make over a certain % amount more than their employees. This is quite brilliant. This forces corporate boards to choose between paying more taxes to pay execs higher compensation, doing nothing, or paying their employees more. I love it. Bravo sir!
- Put major investment into environmental technologies which will globally reduce the need for oil and bring us out of the middle east entirely. We have enough wind, solar and sea shore to completely power ourselves with renewables.
- Make colleges a lot cheaper for people to attend And trade schools.


and finally put a major focus on ensuring that candidates for congress are also signed on to this agreement, because too often there's no consensus and not enough of a push to put other democrats in office that also support these polciies. I said a long time ago we need a "platform" of ten items that they should all campaign on. YES! It can be more than ten, but there needs to be a core ten that we all agree on.

I mostly agree. You missed a crucial one though (IMO)- eliminate the social security cap. And a minor one; legalise weed.

Now this is how I prioritise it.

Edit Make Puerto Rico a state Make the District of Columbia a State.
Cut Military spending. That frees up money in the budget.
Tax stock trades as suggested.
Tax ALL INCOME. Why should a wealthy person with multiple income streams be exempt from taxes on some of them. The tax needn't be that high (you want to encourage investment and entrepreneurship), but it needs to be taxed. That adds money to the budget as well.
Completely eliminate the SS income cap. This shores up the SS fund.
Increase taxes on companies where the pay disparity between the highest paid and lowest paid is more than 10X. Again money trickles into the budget, or workers have more disposable income.
Legalise weed. Free/cut the sentences of anybody in jail because of it. Tax the fuck out of it and research the fuck out of it too. I use a CBD ointment on my back that works wonders.
Pay incarcerated workers no less than the minimum wage. That's on the companies who source their labour from that pool of workers.

So far we've theoretically brought money into the budget. The spending part is tricky. You want to spend in a way that reaps rewards immediately and down the road.

Pay teachers more. Teaching should be an aspiration and a surefire way to climb up the economic ladder.
More extra curricular clubs/ classes/ activities in school. Bring back shop, art, dance, music, civics, nutrition classes. Make activity/ sports mandatory; you don't have to be on the volleyball team (insert any other sport,) but you do have to attend practise. Make the school day equivalent to the work day. This would be graduated with kindergarten only being there for five hours, or something like that. Now moms don't have to leave work early to go pick up kids. We've reduced the incidence of latchkey kids too.
Free daycare. This puts money in household budgets and time. Now you can pursue that extra accreditation to get that promotion.
Make state college and vocational training for 4 years free. If you finish in three you get one more year free, etc. If you go private school the difference in expense is on you. Free education and state college in jails too.
Environmental tech. Battery back ups in every home. Solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal, etc where applicable. Kinda goes hand in hand with ...
Infrastructure spending. There's too many ways to attack this, I won't bother putting it all here. This is just the order I would do things.
Justice system restructuring/ retraining. This doesn't really go in the back, but in the section with education.

Healthcare is the 800lb gorilla in the room. It won't be instant. Maybe a phasing in of everybody into Medicare and a gradual phasing out of private insurance? Start by lowering the age requirement. And increasing the wage level at which you qualify. Sum like dat. I'd let experts on healthcare like Charles Gabba (sp) run it.

[neanderthal]

Chrome had a bug in the incognito mode a while back that caused it to give away whether the user was in that mode. Specifically, JavaScript could check whether the chrome.fileSystem API was available, it would be disabled in incognito mode since technically you can't write to the filesystem. They updated it a couple of months back to lie and say that it is available even though it isn't, which should have fixed that issue and definitely did for me, I no longer get that "We see you're browsing in incognito mode. Only paid subscribers can browse the site in incognito mode." From what I'm reading they did figure out a couple of ways to get around that fix, namely that Chrome will limit local storage to 120MB if it's doing in-memory storage in incognito, and also a timing attack in that trying to put something on the filesystem will be faster in incognito since it's writing to RAM and not to disk.

FWIW, I have good luck these days with Chrome, the Firefox still struggles with some sites.



Unless you're using a VPN or something, they can tell what hosts you're connecting to but not what page on that host you're seeing (at least if the connection is https). E.g., if you're going to https://www.example.com/somepage, they could see that you connected to www.example.com but would have no idea that you were looking at "/somepage", as that part of the protocol would go through TLS and is encrypted. Notably, the GTX doesn't support SSL so presumably they could see anything if they were packet sniffing.

What's fun about that is I could drop a single-pixel image link on here to like pornhub or something and when you load this thread, the browser would try to go there to request whatever I put in the link and that'd show up in the network logs.

Anyway, getting off topic here.

I've been using Opera for a few years now so i didn't know they'd fixed Chrome. I used chrome as soon as they came out with it, even when I was using a Mac. I hated Internet Explorer.

[FaultyMario]

I'd like to respond to each, eventually, but this one caught my eye:

My 2020 Presidential Platform (if I was running, theoretically)
- Restore the law about news channels having to report a certain level of accuracy (Can't recall what it was but I believe it was removed during the Reagan admin).

I think a media ombudsperson has worked well where it has been implemented. Basically an independent supervisor who acts upon a complaint by a member of the audience, it reviews the complaint and makes a recommendation to the organization, if the observations are not corrected in time or form, then it turns the case file to a court for a ruling.

For example, it could recommend to a cable "news" channel to make it explicit to its audience that 'Show X' is an entertainment production and not an information or journalistic service.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I think easiest way is to probably fine a news channel whenever they report something that’s demonstratively false and the amount of fines would increase exponentially after each occurrence so a news outlet would go bankrupt quickly if they’re not careful with their journalistic integrity. Of course they could be off the hook for breaking news...

[Crazed_Insanity]

Since everyone is pretending to run, I’ll play the same game!

1) universal basic healthcare. Covers everyone. If you want fancier healthcare paying higher premiums, that’d be your choice. Just like one could attend a more prestigious private university if you can afford it.

2) speaking of higher education, that should be affordable too. I think graduates should be on the hook for maybe 10yrs paying at most 10% of their income. Banks/government will then write off the amount never recovered. Also, if a degree/certificate can’t help you land a job within 2yrs, entire loan can be forgiven... so based on these defaults data, we can quickly realize which schools and which degrees are high risk and stop financing them in the future. We also need more technical schools. Roofers, plumbers, mechanics, artists, designers are the kind of jobs that can’t be shipped out and difficult to automate...

3) UBI, but not guaranteed $1k/mon, may fluctuate based on how the economy is doing and # of qualifying persons of course. However, it will be capped so that it won’t be paying full living wages. Welfare will be slowly phased out. Social security + ubi should be at living wages for those too old or too physically impaired to work.

4) phase out wars and increase R&D for green tech to save the planet and space tech to colonize moon/Mars in case earth is doomed.

5) hand back war declaration powers back to congress and ask congress to pass laws to disclose tax returns of all public servants and disqualify those who have conflict of interest issues.

6) election dollar allowance for voters to designate to whoever candidates that they like. So that politicians don’t need to depend on big corporate money.

7) ban robo calls.

8) legalize all drugs

9) every time there’s a mass shooting, we gotta do some thing more concrete than praying.

10) allow foreign terrorists or rebels to be able to take legal actions against the US(better this than having them fly into our buildings) need to treat foreign nationals as human beings!

[FaultyMario]

When I'm emperor of the universe, people have guaranteed housing, nutrition, healthcare, education and leisure. People pay their taxes with labor, because equalizer.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Wow. Ok, you win.

[neanderthal]

When I'm emperor of the universe, people have guaranteed housing, nutrition, healthcare, education and leisure. People pay their taxes with labor, because equalizer.

That's noble, but a bit simplistic and ableist. What if someone is handicapped and can't labor?

It's definitely a worthy goal. If you can give people the basic needs from Maslows table of needs, you really only need give them disposable income and time to spend it in order to have a thriving economy.

[neanderthal]

i'm super glad that Instagram chic was able to raise $1 million for charitable agencies in Australia. She's doing the same now for Puerto Rico; donate at least $10 to one of the charities listed, follow her in twitter and send proof of your donation, and she'll send you a nude. Or someone in her team will.

And, since it needs to be said in light of the response to Hurricane Maria, and probably what will happen with these earthquakes, FUCK DONALD TRUMP and errbody that voted for him.