11/20/19

My Mom's Birthday, Getting Ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas

My mother's birthday is today. We celebrated last week, going to our favorite mexican restaurant for their special taco salad.
It's to this date, the tastiest thing I've ever had.
She ordered herself a kindle, because she said the light of her phone has been bothering her eyes, and she now wears bifocals.
But anyhow, thanksgiving is coming up soon, and next of all, Christmas.
We got my sisters girls christmas gifts ready, and we're readying the fake snow-frosted christmas tree in the corner to make the house a little
more presentable for them when they come over for thanksgiving.
"its pretty, so they won't notice the house is in shambles" my mom had said. Yeesh.
I'm really excited for thanksgiving, though.
It's the one time of year we save up to get a really nice meal.
We're roasting turkey in bacon, making a cream cheese and cracker dip covered in cranberry sauce, pecan pies....yum...
The most I'm excited for of all is the jalapeno cheese dip and the pecan pie!
I hope whoever's reading this has a nice thanksgiving too. Stay strong.
-logan

11/20/19

The Sondland Testimony

Today had been long awaited for those who have been tuning in on the impeachment hearings, because this is the first
testimony by someone who has actually been known to be in direct contact with trump.
Back in October, Trump actually expressed that he wished for Sondland to testify.

However, when Sondland came forward today, with a rather cheeky demeanor, he told a different story.
Sondland is famously known for offering a one million dollar donation to the trump inaugeration party, and shortly afterwards,
was appointed an ambassador.

As I watched the testimony today, though, Sondland reported that him, and a group of others, worked under Rudy Giuliani, and through him, direct orders from Trump.
In his opening statement, he had said "Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky."
“Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma.
Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the president.”
He also said that everyone knew about it, everyone was very involved. "Everybody was in the loop," he repeated.
He made it appear that several people were in on the "Quid Pro Quo" with Ukraine, shattering any sense of doubt from republicans.
Having such a personal, close position with the Trump administration, his testimony was the most truthful told so far, and much more dramatic.
Soldmon was directly involved, and seemed intent on dragging everyone else down with him.

He had evidence of emails exchanged with others involved regarding Ukraine, including names of others who refused to testify in his place,
and he named names of the others involved, some of which were White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Pence.
A reference to a previous testimony was also brought up, in which Bill Taylor told of an "Irregular Channel."
When asked about this Irregular Channel, Ambassador Sondland had said that the channel included people like the chief of staff and the secretary of state, making it hardly the "irregular" one.
This implied that the corrupt channel may have been the main channel in Ukraine from the beginning.
Sondland essentially claimed that all the accusations of Trump was true, and it not only included him, it included many others in high positions of the White House,
leading to the White House being more corrupt than we all first though.

His testimony caused and uproar.
The republicans were sure that he was going to stay true to defending Trump, but his entire testimony was brutally open and honest.
He seemed completely unbiased, he didn't seem to care about the argument between who was right and wrong.
His demeanor was more on the lines of "I was a part of this, and I am taking them down with me."

During the five minute break, the republicans looked horrified.

If what Sondland says is true, this is no win. This isn't a success. This is a failure of the American Government, and it is terrifying.
If we can let things go this far, what kind of country are we?
Who is the government protecting?
If the president can get away with firing whoever questions and has suspicions over him, who is to stop him?
If he continues to replace them with people who will conspire with him, who wants to stop him?
The government no longer is there to protect the United States' People.
The Republicans claim there is no tie to Biden with the Quid Pro Quo scheme, and that this is all based on "presumptions",
despite evidence of Trump mentioning him by name himself in the transcript
of the one and only call on July 25th.


They also used Trump denying Quid Pro Quo as evidence that he didn't do it at all...
until Sondland reveals that he said this completely unprompted.
Would an innocent person shoud "I didn't do it!" before even asked, as soon as investigations start?
Be sure to watch the testimonies on your own time, and don't just get all of your information from summaries.
-logan

11/20/19

Alternatives to Youtube

In consideration of the recent COPPA restrictions announced for youtube,
I asked some users what some alternatives would be for the websites.
Those mentioned:

DTube

DTube is a community powered video sharing platform where users vote on videos to reward creators, curators, influencers and viewers in cryptocurrency.

Dailymotion

"Dailymotion is a French video-sharing technology platform primarily owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included BBC News,
VICE, Bloomberg, and Hearst Digital Media. Dailymotion is available worldwide in 25 languages and 43 localised versions featuring local home pages
and local content."

Bitchute

"BitChute is a video hosting service that uses peer-to-peer WebTorrent technology.
It was founded as a way to avoid content rules that are enforced on platforms like YouTube,
and some creators who have been banned or had their channels "demonetized" on YouTube have migrated to BitChute."
Bitchute however is under extreme scrutiny, being a cesspool for scum like people with Nazism idealations and White Supremacy,
and conspiracy theorists spreading false information, because these users aren't allowed on most other sites.

Truutube

Truutube seems to be a sort of youtube clone, a video sharing website with a darker color scheme that also allows streaming.

Peertube

"PeerTube is a free, decentralized, federated video platform powered by ActivityPub and WebTorrent,
that uses peer-to-peer technology to reduce load on individual servers when viewing videos."
-logan

Scuttlebutt: The Peer 2 Peer Social Media

11/20/19

Are you a fan of peer 2 peer networks? The closed internet? Going off the grid? The decentralised internet? The Offline Online?
Scuttlebutt is a social network that works through peer 2 peer networks. Not through your broadband, but through your home network and the networks
you connect to. Scuttlebutt connexts you to other people you share a network with on your device.
It's more useable when you travel frequently, like with a laptop.
When Scuttlebutt connects to your peers on your network, and you follow them, every time that person is connected to your network again, your feed with them
is updated. But you don't have to come into contact directly with them again, it's enough just to run into someone else who also follows them and has come
into contact with them in order to update all of your feeds.
It's a very creative and neat way to network if the method is convenient for you.
Scuttlebutt also offers an online network, hosted by "Pubs" that you can connect to if you can't connect to anybody in person.
To get started, go here.
-logan