‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years.

This really doesn’t surprise anyone, right? It shouldn’t — most of us have been talking about it on Twitter for at least four years.

“Then, in 1987, Trump visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time. Shvets said he was fed KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into politics.” 2/X

Shortly after, Trump began considering running for POTUS one day.

“For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery.” 3/X

I’ve often discussed how Trump was vulnerable to world leaders and intelligence agencies due to the fact that it’s so easy to get inside his bubble — you just have to satiate his ego and his personal sense of grandiosity.

Say nice things and spend money at his properties. 4/X

“This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day”

Putin is a master at this. 5/X

The Google Doc where the San Francisco school board did it's research for deciding which historical figures to cancel is public, and it's hilariously bad

The best part is the "Notes" tab, where someone lays out why the stated reasons are complete BS.

Case in point: "Lowell High School must be renamed because the namesake was a racist."

Notes: "Yeeeah, no, it wasn't named after that guy at all."

(they voted to rename anyway)

Another example: "Paul Revere led the Penobscot Expedition, which led to the colonization of the Penobscot."

Notes: "What? No. The Penobscot expedition was fought against the British, in Penobscot Bay. The natives weren't involved."

(voted to rename anyway)

"Dianne Feinstein was responsible for evicting an entire Filipino neighborhood!"

Notes: "That happened in 1977. She wasn't mayor until a year later."

(voted to rename anyway)

"Abraham Lincoln executed 38 Dakota Indians!"

Notes: "The Minnesota governor was going to execute *300*. Lincoln intervened when he had no obligation to, and saved the vast majority of them."

(voted to rename anyway)

Five years ago this week in a 6-3 decision, the United States Supreme Court declared that its prior 2012 ruling in Miller v. Alabama applied retroactively, thereby requiring that hundreds of former life-sentenced children like myself be resentenced.

I recall that day being one of subdued jubilation tempered by cautious optimism, having absolutely no confidence in how the sentencing judge or the parole board would respond to this High Court mandate. Would I be given an opportunity to live a meaningful life…

...or would I be condemned to prison for the rest of my life? Terrifying questions that had no immediate answers.

On June 27, 2017, I was resentenced to a term of 30-to-life. Following a successful parole hearing in August, on October 10, 2017, after being disappeared from society for over three decades, I walked out of prison on parole for life.

Sadly, in the four-year interim between the Miller and Montgomery decisions, my mother lost her battle with cancer. She was my last surviving (immediate) family member. For me, the Montgomery decision serves as a painfully cruel reminder that “justice delayed, is justice denied.”

[THREAD]

@azulfeehely describes Jules Koundé as one of Europe's most promising centre-backs. Let's take a look at why that might be.

#SquawkaScout x @LaLigaLowdown

@LaLigaLowdown "There’s few with as high a ceiling as the young Frenchman."

The full lowdown from @azulfeehely. 🔎

@LaLigaLowdown Koundé is an excellent defender, but when you consider the amount of space he has to cover due to the buccaneering Jesús Navas his work becomes even more impressive.

Just look at that coverage.

@LaLigaLowdown First and foremost, defenders should love defending. Koundé does.

Since the start of last season, he’s made more goal-line clearances (5) than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues - a testament to his awareness, anticipation & concentration.

A busy boy inside the box.

@LaLigaLowdown At 5’11, Koundé is relatively small for a centre-back. But it doesn’t seem to have an impact on his aerial ability:

He contests 5.7 aerial duels per 90 with a win rate of 61%.

So I've followed DFV's $GME journey from beginning and think it says a lot about what's going on here. How do u go from $50k to $40ml deep value screening in about a year which btw beats $nflx and $amzn growth return holding for decades? A

1)
As someone who tried the blockbuster rinse and repeat short (unsuccessfully btw) on $gme almost a decade ago I'm quite familiar with the name. Burry's re-emergence at the end of 2018 & roughly $5ml gme position disclosure then put the stock on the deep value radar.

2)
$gme dropped like 50% in h1 2019 and his q2 disclosure indicated he had exited the name. It was at this time DFV emerged onto WSB with an essentially i'll take this shot at half MB's cost basis with the console refresh a year out thesis.

3)
I don't recall him fully articulating the thesis then, but that really didn't matter as MB remerged with a 3-4% activist stake by the Aug 2019 about 70% lower than his year end 2018 cost basis. MB wanted a buyback immediately & criticized mgmt past capital alloc failures.

4)
To be clear the thesis did not provide deep dive analysis on $GME or the industry. MB simply seemed to be of the view that the console refresh meant things were not ending anytime soon, and that simply buying back stock in size was the right move for mgmt.

Conspiracy theories attempt to explain events as the secretive plots of powerful people. While conspiracy theories are not typically supported by evidence,
this doesn’t stop them from blossoming. Conspiracy theories damage society in a number of ways. /1 (THREAD) #TTP

Fellowship of the mystery: SALVATION FOR ALL

Ephesians 3:9 KJV
And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

The gospel (1 Cor 15:1-5) is preached to all..

because it is for all, God desiring all to see what Christ Jesus has already done for them, as God wants no man to be eternally lost (1 Tim 2:4). He wants as many as hear to participate intimately in this plan of redemption ("fellowship").

1 Timothy 2:4 KJV
Who will have all...

men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

This gospel is not just given to Israel only (law/prophets/kingdom) any longer but now to all, that none would perish. God beckons all to come to Christ (2 Pet 3:9) and to salvation, which has been His purpose..

from the moment Adam sinned (Gen 3:15; Isa 45:22), since God from ancient times has no pleasure in any being lost (Ezek 33:11)...

2 Peter 3:9 KJV
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that...

any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Isaiah 45:22 KJV
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.

Ezekiel 33:11 KJV
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death...

The stock market is not a neutral arbiter of real value.
The stock market is not a neutral arbiter of real value.
The stock market is not a neutral arbiter of real value.
The stock market is not a neutral arbiter of real value.
The stock market is not...

Most of the banks whining about Reddit would be more bankrupt than Gamestop if the government wasn't constantly propping them up with easy money.

It's all an artificial construct. Which is fine, as long as we stop pretending it's an objective marketplace governed by natural law.

We've set up a system where everyone depends on too big to fail finance companies, public policy doesn't work without them, but they're ALSO allowed to be predatory and they're never allowed to lose money.

Citigroup doesn't get to decide who lives and who dies.

We apparently aren't allowed to decide with our VOTES that hedge funds should die and brick and mortar companies should live if possible.

And now they're freaking out if we literally start deciding it with our *money* in their "free" market.

They don't get to decide! /3

Goldman Sachs, Citgroup and Manhattan hedge funds are not sober, responsible judges of who deserves to live or die according to real capitalist value.

If the rules were fairly and equally applied, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup would be bankrupt and stripped to the bone. /4

New — Trudeau announces Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing, and Air Transat are cancelling air service to all Caribbean destinations and Mexico starting this Sunday until April 30th.

"They will be making arrangements with their customers who are currently on a trip in these regions to organize their return flights," Trudeau says of the airlines.

"With the challenges we currently face with COVID-19, both here at home and abroad, we all agree that now is just not the time to be flying," Trudeau says.

In addition to the pre-boarding test that is already required, Trudeau says in the coming weeks the government will be introducing mandatory PCR testing at the airport for people returning to Canada.

Travellers will then have to wait for up to three days at an approved hotel for their test results, at their own expense which is expected to be more than $2000, Trudeau says.

In this thread, I will argue that the conventional wisdom that Shannon's information theory is all about syntax and not about semantics stems from superficial reading. On the contrary, even his 1948 BSTJ paper is already concerned with syntax, semantics, *and* pragmatics. 1/14

Of course, it does not help matters that Shannon himself states that "semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem" of communication on the first page of his paper. But you have to read the entire paper, not just the first page. 2/14

Let's first pin down the notions of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in the sense of Charles Morris: syntax is about relation of symbols to other symbols, semantics is about their relation to objects, and pragmatics is about their relation to subjects. 3/14

Let's start with pragmatics. The full formulation of Shannon's theory is concerned with the problem of reliable communication of some state of the world over a noisy medium, subject to a fidelity criterion. This is an operationalist, pragmatist concern. 4/14

We may envision the problem where we take an action U contingent on the state of the world X and incur the cost c(X,U). We cannot access the state of the world directly, but must mediate the act of selecting the action through transmission of symbols over a noisy channel. 5/14

.@GavinNewsom has made lots of showy announcements, vowing California would lead a smooth, equitable vaccine distribution plan across the state's 58 counties. He has propped up his administration as a leader & sought to reassure the public that he can handle it. Some comments:

Oct. 19: "We have long been in the vaccination business. Our experience with mass vaccinations makes us a unique partner with the CDC and DOD, based on the scale and scope of the vaccinations that occur on an annual basis here in the state of California."

Nov. 16: “Rather than criticizing the [Trump] administration, rather than lamenting about what could or should be done, we engaged proactively and continue to engage proactively to make sure we have a plan for safe and equitable distribution of the vaccine.”

Dec. 3: “There is light at the end of the tunnel. We are a few months away from truly seeing real progress with the vaccine, real distribution, real accessibility, real availability... You’ll be hearing good news on top of other good news."

Dec. 7: "Hope is on the horizon with a vaccination. We continue to accelerate our planning and preparedness for a safe, and equitable vaccine distribution," Newsom said. "I really believe this-you’re going to start hearing good news, and numbers that continue to significantly..."

#UX and #design friends, we need to talk about estimating. I'd like to share some advice that's come up 3 times this week, in hopes it's useful. And it's echoed, by the way, in the BUSINESS OF UX course @EliNatoli and I are teaching at my UX 365 Academy (link at the end).

(1/12)

Avoiding wars with clients is a matter of how you structure your engagements, along with how you spell out what you're doing in your proposals/contracts. That starts with estimating.

The biggest 2 rules I follow are these:

(2/12)

1. I do not EVER estimate a project in full from start-to-finish.

2. Once we're past initial Discovery (see below), I estimate in small chunks, e.g. "here's what will take us to the next iteration/review."

(3/12)

NEVER estimate past the point where you may get new information based on a build/test cycle.

Believe me when I say that you'll be wrong every time. Ask me how I know ;-)

(4/12)

So instead, first, I estimate a Consult/Discovery part that details what I think we need to do to get a handle on what's actually wrong here, and how long that will take.

For example...

(5/12)

1/ If you're new, here are some must-read resources on bitcoin, ethereum, defi, web 3.0, and the future of crypto.

Tools to join the revolution. 👇

2/ @case4bitcoin is the ultimate bitcoin beginners resource, with macro stats and charts, a deep library of curated content, and regular updates that put bitcoin's evolution in

3/ We've built the new @MessariCrypto to give users a "second screen" for navigating the markets.

+ ROI & fundamentals metrics by sector
+ Comprehensive asset profiles
+ Charting tools, screeners, watch lists

Free! (Though we have premium tools,

4/ Our crypto theses were downloaded 3x more than 2019's. At 134 pages, it seems daunting.

But it's a tight summary of all of our research team's epic work throughout the year.

Almost like 120 tear sheets or 12 sector research reports stapled

5/ Once you've been redpilled on BTC, and have an understanding of the overall crypto markets, the next rabbit hole to jump down is usually ETH.

@RyanWatkins_ and @WilsonWithiam wrote the must read primer on Ethereum, and its major new upgrade

well, the new york deadline is sunday so i am finally applying for health insurance today. (i wouldn't be able to use the insurance until february 1st anyway, so i put it off.) i played through demon's souls FOUR TIMES in the past month and i still don't understand this system

the psychopaths in charge talk about how valuable "choice" is, though literally all of the plans offered to me have a three out of five star rating. except the "new" plans, which i guess will be three stars next year. also notice a column for an attribute which is ALWAYS "no" lol

this baroque, bizarre, unreadable-on-a-mobile-phone website logs me out automatically seemingly every three minutes, always without warning, usually while i'm entering data. click "next," get an error. it took me two months of such trials to get all my info plugged in for today.

i don't understand the differences between any of these plans. i have been on the phone regularly with my doctors these past couple months, trying desperately to find a plan they all agree on. i narrowed it down to four plans. three are $1200 per month. one is $957

i have a higher IQ than any sitting US senator. more importantly, i have beaten BERWICK SAGA for playstation 2 more than twice. i still don't exactly understand what a deductible is lmao

i hate that the school/covid situation is framed as 'reopen schools.' schools ARE open. schools ARE meeting, daily. teachers are working their asses off to make online teaching work. schools. are. open.

the question is when can schools meet in person and start face to face learning.

when you frame it as 'face to face learning' or 'in person learning' it exposes what the REAL problem is. face to face/in person shit is NOT OK RIGHT NOW.

and with that we get the entire avalanche of real problems. some kids are NOT adjusting to online learning well. some kids need resources that online learning can't give. all human beings need to be around other human beings.

AND--it's not safe to be around other human beings in enclosed rooms right now. AND there's variants running rampant throughout our communities and those variants THRIVE in out of control rampant conditions. AND we're on our way to losing 500,000 people to this crap.

1. Most people are aware of the fail doxes posted by Jamilla Moor on @Snakeeater36 and myself. I'm going to go into the details (in layman terms) of exactly how a specific group of duhnonymous idiots came up with these fail doxes & I'll prove that they're wrong.

2. @Snakeeater36 posted this screenshot on his TL. He had exposed the page source code on tweet which included an image. Anyone can do this in Chrome by opening a tweet, clicking on the image, then right click on any open space on the screen, select "inspect", then "network".

3. In fact I did the same by pulling up a different tweet and image. You'll see the IP highlighted in yellow and the region Dallas TX. It's not my IP. It belongs to Akamai which is identified. Why is that important.......

4. Well Akamai is a Content Delivery Network also known as a CDN. A CDN, is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers (make note of the term "proxy" servers) and their data centers. More later on why this is important relative to the fail doxes.

5. CDNs allow companies like Twitter to provide better performance in uploading content, like images, by distributing the service spatially relative to end users. Rather than pushing content directly (left), Twitter uses CDN networks (right) to push/pull images from end users.