Tag: technology

The God-Emperor is considering the wisdom of subjecting the social media giants to Inquisition:

The White House has drafted an executive order for President Donald Trump’s signature that would instruct federal antitrust and law enforcement agencies to open investigations into the business practices of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc. and other social media companies.

The order is in its preliminary stages and hasn’t yet been run past other government agencies, according to a White House official. Bloomberg News obtained a draft of the order. The document instructs U.S. antitrust authorities to “thoroughly investigate whether any online platform has acted in violation of the antitrust laws.” It instructs other government agencies to recommend within a month after it’s signed actions that could potentially “protect competition among online platforms and address online platform bias.”

The document doesn’t name any specific companies. If signed, the order would represent a significant escalation of Trump’s antipathy toward Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies, whom he has publicly accused of silencing conservative voices and news sources online. The possibility of an executive order emerged as Attorney General Jeff Sessions prepares for a Sept. 25 briefing by state attorneys general who are already investigating the tech firms’ practices.

This would be such a massively positive development. He really has to go through with this, in light of the way in which these companies are actively campaigning against him and his supporters.

Coraline Ada Ehmke@CoralineAda
40,000 open source projects, including Linux, Rails, Golang, and everything OSS produced by Google, Microsoft, and Apple have adopted my code of conduct. You can make me have a bad day, but it doesn’t change the fact that we have won and you have lost.

Wanna bet? I just wish xir could convince Marvel and DC and IDW and Dark Horse to adopt xir’s code of conduct too. The more completely an organization converges, the faster they will collapse.

This isn’t a defeat for us, this is a vast horizon of opportunity being handed to us on a platter.

Mark Kern@Grummz
I tweeted that Linux’s new code of conduct would be abused to witch hunt devs.

Right on cue, 3 or 5 devs tried to use my opposition of the code of conduct to try to accuse me of violating it.

All the while using behavior that was against the code of conduct.

I rest my case.

Mark Kern@Grummz
You can add one @ZDNet reporter to the list of witch hunters. Came after me just today.

Geoff@Geoffiam
I dunno man, I think having codes of conduct to allow mediocre programmers to police good programmers is precisely the way to move the industry into the direction of a giant bureaucracy. What could go wrong with that?

Corey @corey5135
I’ve been called out for “aggressive behavior” because I stated that I had already evaluated a suggested implementation & decided it was the wrong way to go (different project).  They were putting me in my place for daring to disagree. Last patch they got from me.

Tucker Goodrich@TuckerGoodrich
Yeah, there’s a lot Vox Day says that I don’t like, but I think his analysis of codes of conduct is spot on.

“…the Code of Conduct is working as designed when it chases off the productive members of the project”

Linus Torvalds finally surrenders to the SJWs:

Linux creator Linus Torvalds has apologized for years of rants, swearing, and general hostility directed at other Linux developers, saying he’s going to take a temporary break from his role as maintainer of the open source kernel to learn how to behave better.

For many years, Torvalds has been infamous for his expletive-filled, aggressive outbursts on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), chewing out developers who submit patches that he believes aren’t up to the standards necessary for the kernel. He’s defended this behavior in the face of pushback from other developers, insisting that people being nice to one another was an American ideology.

But that may be coming to an end. In a lengthy email posted to the LKML on Sunday night, Torvalds expressed a change of heart. Taken to task over attacks that he recognizes were “unprofessional and uncalled for,” he says he now recognizes that his behavior was “not OK” and he is “truly sorry.” He’s going to step back from kernel development for a while—something he’s done before while developing the Git source control system—so that he can “get help on how to behave differently.”

It’s not entirely clear what precipitated this change, though Torvalds did mention a little of the backstory. The Linux Maintainer Summit, an invitation-only gathering of around 30 core Linux developers, takes place each year to provide a venue for kernel maintainers to discuss issues around the kernel’s development process. This year’s summit was due to be in Vancouver but was moved earlier this month to Edinburgh after it turned out that Torvalds had mistakenly booked a vacation in Scotland that clashed with the Vancouver event.

This situation presented two options: stay in Vancouver without Torvalds or move to Edinburgh with Torvalds. Torvalds himself preferred the first option, but this idea was met with resistance, suggesting that Torvalds’ behavior, which is known to have driven some developers away from kernel development entirely, was one of the issues that the maintainers wanted to discuss. Accordingly, the decision was made to move to Edinburgh to fit in with his vacation. That such a disruptive change of venue should occur indicates there’s considerable strength of feeling about Torvalds’ presence.

Simultaneously with this, the Linux project now has a code of conduct. Previously, the project had a “code of conflict”: a short document that asserts that the code quality is the only thing that matters and implores developers to “be excellent to each other.” The new code of conduct is more extensive and sets explicit standards for behavior, requiring it to be positive, professional, welcoming, and inclusive.

So much for Linux, then. If I didn’t already have my hands full, I’d fork the damn thing myself.

But what will he say?

The Trump administration will send a message to all US mobile phones on Thursday, as it tests an unused alert system that warns the public about national emergencies.

Phones will make a loud tone and have a special vibration according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which will send the alert.

The test message will be headlined “Presidential Alert” and will go on to read “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”

US mobile phone users will not be able to opt out of the test.

As for me, I’m hoping for it will look like this:

THE STORM HAS BEGUN. THE SWAMP IS BEING DRAINED. HILLARY CLINTON HAS BEEN ARRESTED. GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Or something to that effect. That would be good.

A warning of what is to come from Neon Revolt in the aftermath of Reddit disappearing /r/GreatAwakening despite its 300,000 subscribers.

The simple fact is that /r/GreatAwakening was one of the most vital and important hubs of Q-related activity to date. And now it is gone.

Part of the reason for its popularity was that it allowed relevant info to travel along a vector with tremendous velocity, carried along by a stream of upvotes. This mechanism, while not perfect (and while also exploitable) worked well enough most of the time for our purposes – and make no mistake; we were on target to surpass a million subscribers in short order – which is why they shut us down. We were a direct threat to their hegemony, so they had to shut it down.

Another reason it proved so popular was, unlike the chans (which are anarchic, at best) it also allowed for “Offensive content” to be filtered out – either by mods, or by the users through the use of downvotes. And if you’ve spent any time on the chans, you know that they’re often filled with porn, gore, and all sorts of offensive material.

Yes, even Q’s board.

It’s important to realize that not all this is organic. A lot of this noise is actually produced by bots attempting to derail the discussion.

That doesn’t make it any easier to pick through, but it’s an essential understanding to have.

So, roughly speaking, autists would be working on the official research boards, compiling all their knowledge, hashing things out – and then someone would repost the most vital pieces of info to /r/GreatAwakening, and usually, it would be upvoted very quickly – often within a half hour of it first appearing on the chans – because people generally recognize and spread valuable content.

UNDERSTAND – EVERYTHING is going to go offline at some point, save 8ch.

You won’t be able to find news outside of it, very soon. And when you’re there, there’s not going to be any vote tallies, or recognizable names to tell you how to think, or what’s important to pay attention to. You can’t see u/NeonRevolt, or u/SerialBrain2 or u/Whoever, because we will all ultimately be #Anons.

UNDERSTAND – There’s not going to be a Reddit, or a Voat, or a Gab, possibly even a Neon Revolt in the coming months.

There’s only going to be 8ch. Don’t get me wrong, I have backups of everything – but I’m anticipating the entire Internet going down for a bit, as per Q.

There is no telling to what extent the Internet is going to go down, but I can assure you that you won’t have any warning. You’ll just go to a site and it won’t be there. Just this morning, for example, I discovered that all four Gun Ghoul KDP titles are being blocked by Amazon. We’re working to sort that out. We briefly took down the Dark Legion Direct listing ourselves this weekend, but only to permit a faster change over to the Dark Legion-branded print edition that is now complete. As we were also informed that Corrosion aka The Corroding Empire will no longer be sold on Amazon because it has been deemed “misleading” to Amazon’s customers, this may indicate an all-too-familiar hand at work.

Anyhow, to maximize your chances of being alerted to the relevant backup location of this blog, be sure to subscribe to either the Castalia Book Club mailing list or the Daily Meme Wars list. To follow Qanons without the noise and grotesqueries, go here. And while you’re at it, consider getting on board with the AH:Q campaign.

UPDATE: Curiouser and curiouser. Corrosion was restored without us even having to register a complaint.

Allum Bokhari breaks the news of a video showing the reaction of Google’s executives to the ascension of the God-Emperor:

A video recorded by Google shortly after the 2016 presidential election reveals an atmosphere of panic and dismay amongst the tech giant’s leadership, coupled with a determination to thwart both the Trump agenda and the broader populist movement emerging around the globe.

The video is a full recording of Google’s first all-hands meeting following the 2016 election (these weekly meetings are known inside the company as “TGIF” or “Thank God It’s Friday” meetings). Sent to Breitbart News by an anonymous source, it features co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, VPs Kent Walker and Eileen Naughton, CFO Ruth Porat, and CEO Sundar Pichai. It can be watched in full above. It can and should be watched in full above in order to get the full context of the meeting and the statements made.

It was reported earlier this week that Google tried to boost turnout among the Latino population to help Hillary Clinton, only to be dismayed as the usually solid Democratic voting bloc switched to the GOP in record numbers. This video shows a similar level of dismay among Google’s most high-profile figures.

These individuals, who preside over a company with unrivaled influence over the flow of information, can be seen disparaging the motivations of Trump voters and plotting ways to use their vast resources to thwart the Trump agenda.

Co-founder Sergey Brin can be heard comparing Trump supporters to fascists and extremists. Brin argues that like other extremists, Trump voters were motivated by “boredom,” which he says in the past led to fascism and communism.

The Google co-founder then asks his company to consider what it can do to ensure a “better quality of governance and decision-making.”

VP for Global Affairs Kent Walker argues that supporters of populist causes like the Trump campaign are motivated by “fear, xenophobia, hatred, and a desire for answers that may or may not be there.”

Later, Walker says that Google should fight to ensure the populist movement – not just in the U.S. but around the world – is merely a “blip” and a “hiccup” in a historical arc that “bends toward progress.”

CEO Sundar Pichai states that the company will develop machine learning and A.I. to combat what an employee described as “misinformation” shared by “low-information voters.”

Well, it’s hardly as if we didn’t know these people were openly and avowedly against the duly-elected President of the United States. But to see it, and hear it, confirmed so shamelessly is still rather shocking. They clearly cannot be trusted with even a modicum of monopoly power over the American people; AT&T was broken up for less.

/anon alerts us to how expanded convergence is destroying the utility of open source:

This project is driven mainly by Facebook staff. Nothing out of the ordinary in Silicon Valley these days though. Business as usual in crazyland.

These same people are involved in other pieces of open source infrastructure that originates from Facebook and is now used very widely across the web. There would be a lot of pain if this pattern persists. Projects possibly in the firing line include: React, Babel, Yarn. At least one of which, any active web frontend or backend programmer would be familiar with. Greater investment by Facebook corporate in these higher profile projects may prevent a slippery slope. But then again, these tender snowflakes rule the roost at all of the big tech companies. Talent is too precious and must be looked after, regardless of how unhinged they may be.

I tend to doubt they are actually concerned about talent. If they actually cared about talent, they wouldn’t seek out and disemploy everyone to the right of Chairman Mao. But regardless, SJW convergence really is a cancer that destroys everything.

Add text to MIT License banning ICE collaborators #1616

In this PR, the following text has been added to the existing MIT license:

The following license shall not be granted to the following entities or any subsidiary thereof due to their collaboration with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”):

– “Microsoft Corporation”
– “Palantir Technologies”
– “Amazon.com, Inc.”
– “Northeastern University”
– “Ernst & Young”
– “Thomson Reuters”
– “Motorola Solutions”
– “Deloitte Consulting LLP”
– “Johns Hopkins University”
– “Dell Inc”
– “Xerox Corporation”
– “Canon Inc”
– “Vermont State Colleges”
– “Charter Communications”
– “LinkedIn Corporation”
– “United Parcel Service Co”