JCM 1/15/2026 8:21:13 AM

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Trump leaves U.S. military action unclear as Iran says it won't execute protesters

Iran signaled it would not move ahead with executing protesters and reopened its airspace Thursday, as President Donald Trump left it unclear whether he would take military action over the regime's deadly crackdown.

The United States began evacuating key personnel from its largest military base in the Middle East on Wednesday as the prospect of an American strike loomed, and activists said the death toll in Iran had passed 2,500.

Mad Mullahs are trying to buy time. I doubt executions would be delayed for long, and denied when they happen.

JCM 1/15/2026 9:34:30 AM

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US seizes sixth sanctioned tanker it says has ties to Venezuela in Trump's effort to control its oil

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on social media that the U.S. Coast Guard had boarded the Motor Tanker Veronica early Thursday. She said the ship had previously passed through Venezuelan waters and was operating in defiance of President Donald Trump’s "established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean.”

vxbush 1/15/2026 9:55:07 AM

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Public Service Announcement: Some software vendors, in an attempt to make their product "easy to use", end up making it so laborious to do anything that you simply want to chuck the whole thing into the river. 

Unfortunately, I don't have access to that server, or else it would already be gone. 

Kosh's Shadow 1/15/2026 9:57:30 AM

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Reply to JCM in 1:

The Qatar-first branch of the Trump administration seems to have too much power

vxbush 1/15/2026 10:01:13 AM

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Kosh's Shadow 1/15/2026 10:02:31 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 3:

I worked for a company that produced software to test VOIP and IVR systems (Interactive Voice Response - the touch tone or speech rec manus)

It used a horrible scripting language, but was very powerful. One customer had over 4000 lines in an Excel file that this could import into a table to control testing, for example.

A competitor made a simple to use GUI, that customer went with it because "trained monkeys" could use it; laid off their expert. The company I worked for hired him. After a few months the customer realized their new system was just not going to do it, and had to pay my company's support team (including the person they laid off) to get their tests going again. And note some of this is necessary for regulatory reasons - certain legal boilerplate MUST be spoken before letting the caller proceed.

However, the company (which was cheap and outsourced a lot) is now a lot smaller under a different name after being bought by a private equity vampire whose initials are TB.

Kosh's Shadow 1/15/2026 10:03:39 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 3:

Also, mobile devices have ruined software interfaces, by making them all so minimal it is hard to find what you want to do.

Companies want "clean" interface design.

vxbush 1/15/2026 12:11:08 PM

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In #7 Kosh's Shadow said: Also, mobile devices have ruined software interfaces, by making them all so minimal it is hard to find what you want to do. Companies want "clean" interface design.

The one thing that drives me crazy supporting my coworkers are text fields that are actually buttons and clickable (and thus does something) but you can't tell it just by looking at it. Argh. 

Kosh's Shadow 1/15/2026 1:47:04 PM

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Reply to vxbush in 8:

String the designers up by their crappy style sheets.