Tag: technology

Ron Unz learns the hard way which of the two Internet giants actually matters with regards to site traffic:

I don’t use Facebook or other social networks myself, and noticed little reduction in our daily traffic following that purge, which seemed to underscore our lack of reliance upon social media. But a week later, this abruptly changed, and our regular daily readership dropped by a significant 15-20{105b5945f2a7891a3dd860d3a09046b26c32f8a07d097b566642738deee8841e}, hardly a crippling blow but quite distressing, setting us back many months of previous growth.

This puzzled me. Why would the Facebook ban have had such limited initial impact but then suddenly become so much more serious? Eventually I discovered that a second even more powerful Internet giant had also banned us, which explained the sharp drop. Our entire website and all its many millions of pages of serious content had been silently deranked by Google, thus eliminating nearly all our incoming traffic from search results….

Google still does contains all these pages, and if the additional specifier “unz” is added to the search, the results come up, but for anyone not knowing where to look, our entire website and all its content has completely disappeared. This explained our sudden 15-20{105b5945f2a7891a3dd860d3a09046b26c32f8a07d097b566642738deee8841e} reduction in regular traffic.

I use DuckDuckGo myself, but one of the problems with it and the other alternative search engines is that they still seem to be tied into the Google system in various ways, so they don’t take proper advantage of Google’s self-hamstringing of their own technology.

Turnabout is fair play. And Big Tech is long overdue for taming:

‘The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google,’ Trump said in his tweet. ‘The Administration is working to remedy this illegal situation. Stay tuned, and send names & events.’

Trump’s tweet came after it emerged that federal and state regulators in the U.S. are preparing to file antitrust lawsuits alleging Google has abused its dominance of online search and advertising to stifle competition and and boost its profits.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google should all be shut down for their complete lawlessness. Facebook and Google, in particular, need to be broken up as a result of their illegal duopoly in the online advertising market.

For SJWs and their historical antecedents, it is always Year Zero and we have always been at war with Eastasia:

Last month, MIT Technology Review went after the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine – a service that preserves historical versions of webpages and allows users to access archives of these pages when they’re deleted.

MIT Technology Review complained that these archives were allowing coronavirus “misinformation” to evade moderators and fact-checkers and that these archived coronavirus articles had “better performance than most mainstream media news stories.”

Now, just a few weeks later, the Wayback Machine has started to add warning labels to some of its archives, while also forcing users to log in to view some of the archived content on the site.

The warning labels are bright yellow, appear at the top of some archived pages, and tell users when a post was removed for violating a site’s content policy.

Every institution and organization that is not dedicated to rooting out and keeping out the parasites will eventually be converged by them. No rational appeals to functionality, competence, merit, or profit will ever suffice to stop them.

As Arkhaven has embraced Webtoons – and if the backers want it, we are even considering our own custom site and app, which would be considerably simpler than SG2, UATV2, or Infogalactic – Marvel is retreating from web-based comics.

Thank you for being a loyal Marvel fan. As a fan of Marvel digital comics, we wanted to let you know that the Marvel Digital Comics Shop at comicstore.marvel.com will be closing on June 2, 2020.

After June 2nd, you will still be able to purchase Marvel digital comics and read your existing Marvel digital comics library via the Marvel Comics app and the comiXology store.

To purchase Marvel digital comics after June 2nd:

Download the Marvel Comics app on the App Store or Google Play Store, and/or Visit comixology.com.

To read your existing Marvel digital comics library after June 2nd:

View your past purchases in “My Books” when you log into your account on the Marvel Comics app, and/or

Sync your current Marvel Digital Comics Shop account with a comiXology account to continue to read your books on a web browser

I can only read digital comics on a web browser, how can I continue to do that?

Marvel won’t support a web reading experience after June 2, 2020.

Translation: Apps or Amazon. Comixology is Amazon’s platform and it is a suboptimal page-based approach. Vertical panels are the future since they display much better on smartphones. All of our comics are now being created and constructed with that in mind, even if they’re not designed specifically as panels for vertical digital display.

Bill Gates is rapidly giving George Soros and Disney Inc. a run for their devil money. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expounds upon the Microsoft billionaire’s weird obsession with injecting children with chemicals:

Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems to be fueled by a conviction to save the world with technology.

Promising his share of $450 million of $1.2 billion to eradicate Polio, Gates took control of India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) which mandated up to 50 doses (Table 1) of polio vaccines through overlapping immunization programs to children before the age of five. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) epidemic that paralyzed 490,000 children beyond expected rates between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and asked Gates and his vaccine policies to leave India. NPAFP rates dropped precipitously.

The most frightening [polio] epidemics in Congo, Afghanistan, and the Philippines, are all linked to vaccines.

In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) reluctantly admitted that the global explosion in polio is predominantly vaccine strain. The most frightening epidemics in Congo, Afghanistan, and the Philippines, are all linked to vaccines. In fact, by 2018, 70{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} of global polio cases were vaccine strain.

My suspicion is that this can all be traced back to Isaac Asimov and Bill Gates reading Foundation at an impressionable age. That book appears to have convinced a certain type of Boomer nerd that they are destined to micromanage the world. Paul Krugman freely admits it was his inspiration.

According to CDAN, Tom Hanks and four professional athletes, presumably NBA stars, will be at the forefront of trying to push Gates’s lethal vaccines on the world:

I wrote about the A+ list actor and what he is doing so the general public will get on board when the time comes. Apparently this pro sports organization is not even being shy about why they are going to put four players, front and center. They flat out said it was to get acceptance from the general public when the time comes. They are only identifying one player publicly. The other three will be revealed later by the organization one by one as they keep boosting awareness.

Proto-marks of the Beast pushed by the Gates of Hell.

And, allegedly, did so by violating the EU’s General Data Privacy Regulations in connivance with Twitter and Facebook:

A leaked internal Labour Party report has hit the headlines because of lurid statements allegedly made by staff. What has been missed however, receiving barely any coverage, is an apparent admission that, using a secret deal with Facebook and Twitter, the Labour Party has been running automated surveillance on its own members. If true, this is manifestly unlawful – each member affected would almost certainly have a valid claim in damages under Data Protection legislation.

In the furore about the leaked Labour report, many commentators have focused on the supposedly racist, sexist, and / or ableist remarks. There is also the apparent dishonest treacherous plotting. It is important to remember of course that this report was produced by a bitterly infighting party and its contents are disputed. Former staff who were criticised claim that accusations about their conduct were never put to them.

Labour had automated software that reconciled its privileged access to Twitter and Facebook data with their membership database to identify and monitor member accounts.

It is worth turning to the Data Protection Principles set out in the Data Protection Act 1998, which was in force at the time (replaced by the EU General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 in May 2018). The principles were set out in section 4 (archive) and Schedule 1 (archive).

Of especial relevance, these principles included processing data, “fairly”, holding data that was “not excessive”. Fairness usually means notifying members of the way their data will be used. A quick glance at Labour’s current terms on its, ‘Join’ page does say that email addresses will be used to contact members. It says nothing about consenting to Orwellian real time monitoring for wrongthink.

Furthermore, on the topic of fairness, it is alleged that the Governance and Legal Unit deliberately hid aspects of the project from the Labour Party’s supreme body, the NEC. It is alleged that Sam Matthews, a Compliance Officer, stated – “we don’t want the NEC to have much of an idea how many there are to review (we’re worried they’ll get scared)”.

Volunteers were used to review the data produced by the automated scan, including 10 Labour Students. Two were from pro-remain group, “Britain Stronger in Europe”. The program would scan for juxtapositions of wrong or abusive terms and the Twitter handles of Labour MPs. That is, for tweets likely to be rude tweets directed at Labour MPs. However, it only included a subset of Labour MPs. Some MPs were not included for protection. Whilst the report alleges that this was factional, the reason does not really matter. Personal data linked to members and MPs was apparently processed in a manifestly unfair way, with oversight and disclosure intentionally thwarted….

This is probably the most sinister thing I have ever seen ever out of Big Tech. A major political Party, conspiring with the world’s two largest social media companies, to scan its members feeds and expel or suspend them for “incorrect” views. I would say it should be against the law but of course it is.

It’s long past time for European countries to follow the wise lead of China and Russia by banning systematically lawless technology companies like Twitter and Facebook. And the allegation that Twitter is guilty of violating the GDPR is strongly supported by the fact that it responded almost immediately to the author’s email, in contrast to the smug silence with which it greets most emails from its users.

“Twitter disputes the factual characterizations and legal conclusions in your email and your draft blog post. We reserve all rights and defenses.”

Ooh, they reserved their rights and defenses? So intimidating! As if Twitter wants to get within one thousand miles of a European court investigating their GDPR violations and data security practices. And Twitter is very far from the only US-based tech company to be suspected of serially and systematically violating GDPR as well as other data privacy laws.

But they’ll have their chance to defend their practices, as they have already been reported to the Information Commissioner by the author.

Unfortunately, our Swedish friends at IDKA were unable to make a go of their social-media-with-privacy service. They sent out this email this morning. It’s a reminder that starting a new business is always very difficult, and every genuine success is hard-won.

Dear enthusiast and Idka user

As you know, Idka was started by a small group of inspired, driven and sincere privacy enthusiasts and activists, a group which has since been joined by other similarly driven people, staff, consultants, investors and other supporters. We are all very proud of the idea and the ‘designed bottom up for privacy’ cooperation and social media platform that Idka has become. We sincerely thank all the present and past staff and consultants who have contributed to this fantastic achievement.

We thank you, the enthusiast user, for your support as well. We also thank the contributors to our blog and videocast channel, who have kept the very important dialogue around privacy alive, motivating people to act – to Idka.

However, we have not managed to grow the user bases as fast as we would have hoped for, in spite of the tsunami we are experiencing in terms of interest around privacy. This has led to a need for more growth capital. The board of Idka have for some time been in close contact with funds, either existing or under establishment, which specialize in funding purpose driven companies and business ideas with a particularly focus on privacy. This is a new trend within VC funding that Idka has contributed to and which time now have come.

The board of Idka has planned for, and had gotten positive indications from prospective investors (new and existing), to raise further bridge financing, in order to the company through the Corona-pandemic and then raise growth capital from one or more of these very exciting new funds. However, due in large part to the Corona-pandemic, some of the support for the share issue was withdrawn.

As a result of this, and in spite of our hard work and your support, Idka may not be able to attract necessary short-term funding. We are still working hard at it, but due to the grave financial situation Idka is in and the implications of the pandemic lock-down, the board have taken the decision to inform you that the Idka service may discontinue at any time; and that you as a matter of priority should download any material you have uploaded to the cloud storage.

We are indeed very sorry to have to write this message, and still hope that we would manage to secure future funding. However, no-one should rely on this, so please save your digital assets as soon as possible (see below).

Stay safe, take care of yourself, your family and your friends in these difficult times.

All the best from the Idka team.

Conventional classroom education is expensive, unhealthy, and unethical:

The recent coronavirus pandemic has forced students to take to virtual online classrooms to complete their coursework. Even though it may take time for students to adjust to this new format, their education might not suffer, especially if they are in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields.

A new study led by Cornell University researchers shows that STEM students learn just as much in online classrooms as they do in traditional in-person classes. Online courses might be less satisfying than in-person classes, but many more students can access them and they are much cheaper to facilitate.

STEM students in Russia participated in this study in the 2017-18 academic year. Researchers divided 325 students into one of three classroom styles for two of their courses: a fully online class through a program called OpenEdu; an in-person course as their local university or a blended course with online course lectures; and in-person discussion sessions.

Results of the study show that students in all three groups scored pretty similarly on their final exams. Students in the online course scored 7.2{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} higher on their regular coursework, but this is probably because they were allowed to make up to three attempts on their weekly assignments, allowing them to boost their scores.

The analyses show that there is one drawback to the online classroom style: students in the online group were less-satisfied with their class experience than students in the in-person or blended learning groups.

There really isn’t any reason to maintain the conventional school system anymore, except for the global elite’s interest in imposing its centralized propaganda.

A lab technician emails and reminds of the important efforts that are taking place behind the scenes.

I work in a medical testing lab and have been involved in reporting out COVID lab results. From my experience, the negative result to positive result ratio is roughly between 5:1 to 10:1. Only the positives are being reported to public health agencies, and that’s what eventually makes its way to the Hopkins page and other pages.

As an aside, there is probably a 2-to-3-day delay in what happens in the lab, and what shows up on the internet. The latest numbers of new cases reported in the US for today are about 8,000. So this probably represents 40,000 to 80,000 new test results reported in a day. If you understand the work involved to produce a single test result, that is an astounding amount of test results for a test that no clinical labs had just one month ago.

The point is that the private sector industry has done an amazing job responding to this demand in a short amount of time. They are doing much better than any government effort could muster.

France fines Apple more than $1 billion:

France’s national competition regulator announced on Monday it has fined American tech giant Apple a record €1.1 billion ($1.23bn) for anti-competitive practices after nearly a decade of investigations. The decision comes over Apple’s alleged anti-competitive behavior in its distribution and sales networks.

The authority said that two of Apple’s wholesalers, Tech Data and Ingram Micro, were fined €63 million and €76 million respectively for unlawfully agreeing on prices.

According to the French regulator, “Apple and its two wholesalers have agreed not to compete with each other and to prevent distributors from competing with each other, thereby sterilising the wholesale market for Apple products.”

Expect other European countries to follow suit soon. Pretty much everyone around the world is utterly sick of the unethical and anti-competitive behavior of the US-based tech giants. Their rising competitors are going to clean their clocks over the next decade.