February 6, 2020

This Trump "press conference" makes me think of Hitler congratulating his cronies....

1945: In an alternate universe, Hitler wins the war. He congratulates his cronies.

That's what this Trump "press conference" makes me think of.

Substitute Mussolini or any other authoritarian.

February 6, 2020

Romney explained impeachment vote in note to colleagues

https://www.axios.com/mitt-romney-trump-impeachment-vote-note-c09e8704-0196-41e9-8d7a-5d640f06c7f7.html


A photo of the letter provided to Axios. The letter has sections covered to conceal identifying info.

Mitt Romney explained his vote to convict President Trump in a note to his Republican colleagues, hand-signed “Mitt” in blue ink and delivered Wednesday to their individual boxes in the Senate cloakroom.

Why it matters: The Utah senator and 2012 presidential nominee was the only Republican to go against Trump during impeachment. His notes reflect how much pressure he'll be under to justify himself to a party that's pledged loyalty ahead of Trump's re-election bid.

Donald Trump Jr. has called for Romney's expulsion from the party and Romney's niece, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, has publicly criticized him.

Romney, who once contemplated serving as Trump's secretary of state, has knowingly set himself up for extended backlash with his vote.

February 5, 2020

Technical article about Iowa caucus app problems

I'm the host of Computer Help and Support, and I don't usually post super-geeky articles about software. However... this concerns the Iowa caucus app. Enjoy!

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/04/iowa_caucus_software/

It’s all so painfully familiar: with a crunch date of February 3, the Democratic Party in Iowa decided to charge ahead with an IT rollout that comprised an entirely new software system spread out across thousands of sites to record the result of the Democratic caucus for its presidential nominee.

It was, inevitably, a complete failure. The results from the Iowa caucus were supposed to come in nearly 24 hours ago. Instead, it has become a rolling news cycle of tech catastrophe.

We’re not even going to bother to dig into lessons learned because they are the same ones that every sysadmin since the dawn of time has dealt with – and spends their entire career warning the suits about, to greater and lesser degrees of success.

Let’s start with the app. It was produced by a bunch of IT hotshots who have advised previous Democratic campaigns, including those used by Obama and Hillary Clinton, and set up a for-profit company called, for some reason, “Shadow.” The biz won the contract to create an app that would do a simple task: allow people on the ground to type in the result of headcounts in town halls and gymnasiums across Iowa and send them to a central processing point.

(4 paragraphs only allowed, more at link)

February 3, 2020

Dog sledding down a hill, all by himself/herself

https://twitter.com/akkitwts/status/1223961944006119424