Tag: technology

The tech crackdown is weakness

As well as an opportunity to foxnews the f——- at Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, and the other social media giants.

This year, the world’s largest social network will see a decline among teen users in the U.S., according to a forecast by EMarketer. It’s the first time the research company has predicted a fall in Facebook usage for any age group.
EMarketer predicts 14.5 million people from the ages of 12 to 17 will use Facebook in 2017, a drop of 3.4 percent from the prior year. Teens are migrating instead to Snap Inc.’s Snapchat and Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook owns, the research company said Monday in a statement.
Facebook has continued to grow around the world, with more than 2 billion users this year, but younger people are finding it less compelling, said Oscar Orozco, a forecasting analyst at EMarketer.

The Facebook/Twitter business model is an intrinsically fraudulent one, propped up by debt and ideology. Which means, of course, that their decline will be unexpectedly fast once it begins. And it is coming soon. Twitter has already ceased to grow. Facebook will follow suit soon. All they will succeed in doing is fracturing and further decentralizing the Internet, which will serve us, not them.
The reason they are cracking down hard now is that they realize their window of opportunity to do so is closing. This is why there is no reason to panic when another deplatforming happens. All that a deplatforming accomplishes is to ensure that a new platform will come into being to replace it.
Remember, there was a time not all that long ago when SJW fans of John Scalzi bragged that his blog traffic was vastly bigger than mine. Now that mine is more than 5x his, he switched to bragging about his 111,329 followers and 178 million annual Twitter impressions… and I am now on pace to equal or exceed his 2016 monthly average of 14.8 million Twitter impressions this month.
The world is a dynamic place. It will knock you down, but when you get up again, hardened by the experience, the experience only makes you that much more formidable.
That being said, the next anti-Right tech strike will be more systematic and multiplatform. I expect that if I am targeted, my accounts will be vanished from Twitter, Blogger, and Gmail simultaneously,  (I don’t really use Facebook or Paypal) which is why I am already set up with more reliable alternatives for literally every social media and payment platform, and have arranged for direct email access to every VFM, Book Club, and Daily Meme Wars member. If you want to make sure that you’re immediately alerted and provided with the alternatives, I recommend signing up for either the Book Club or if you don’t mind daily emails, the Daily Meme Wars.

Don’t argue with Damore

You’d think a reporter would be aware that he was overmatched when he went to interview the author of the Google manifesto:

During an interview with Business Insider, Damore, who was fired from Google for publishing a viewpoint diversity manifesto, claimed he “was simply trying to fix the culture in many ways. And really help a lot of people who are currently marginalized at Google by pointing out these huge biases that we have in this monolithic culture where anyone with a dissenting view can’t even express themselves,” he continued, adding, “Really, it’s like being gay in the 1950s.”
“These conservatives have to stay in the closet and have to mask who they really are. And that’s a huge problem because there’s open discrimination against anyone who comes out of the closet as a conservative,” Damore explained. He sparred with Business Insider’s Steve Kovach, who tried to claim that Damore attacked women in his manifesto.
“I was simply talking about the population level distributions. And I specifically call out that we should never treat an individual differently based on this because there’s so much overlap,” stated Damore. “The document was simply trying to address why there may be fewer women in technology than men. And it never said anything about the women at Google being any different than the men at Google.”
This prompted Kovach to reply, “Not at Google. But broadly it made assumptions about women as a general population though, right?”
“It didn’t make assumptions. It stated scientific facts about the population level distribution,” Damore responded.
“OK. I mean, that’s obviously up for debate too,” Kovach claimed, forcing Damore to explain, “Not really. I mean, these are empirical facts.”
“The population level distributions are not up for debate,” he continued. “Those have been documented hundreds of times.”

Clearly Damore did not realize that Mr. Kovach did not like the population level distributions. Therefore, they were an assumption, ergo subjective, consequently wrong. You’d think these SJWs would, sooner or later, get suspicious about the statistical improbability of their being absolutely right every single time.
Of course, if they grasped statistics, they wouldn’t be SJWs blithely refuting empirical facts as one man’s assumptions.

Unintended consequences

This is why it never pays to overreact to what other people are doing. Be patient and observant, and you’ll see that there are usually silver linings and new opportunities that are exposed by every action, however ill-intended:

Earlier this week, internet hosting provider, GoDaddy, announced it had cancelled US neo-Nazi website, Daily Stormer, for posting an attack on Heather Heyer, the protester who was murdered at the Klan rally in Charlottesville last week. Google and CloudFlare likewise cancelled its registration after the site tried to move its hosting over to their respective services.
But while these hosting services are being congratulated by some – and condemned by others on free-speech grounds – for ensuring that those looking to commit violence have to work slightly harder to get access to their like-minded Nazi communities, those who own the means of transmission – namely Google, Facebook and Twitter – are still preventing the rest of us from accessing information that allows people to make sense of the world around us.
Earlier this month, Google altered its algorithm – allegedly in an attempt to address the ‘fake news’ problem – and in doing so, a broad array of anti-establishment news organisations, whistleblower, civil-rights and anti-war websites were censored from its search listings. But most people were too distracted by the opinions of some low-level engineer on Google’s diversity hiring policies and its intolerance of conservative views in the workplace to take notice.
The data released by WSWS shows that since Google altered its algorithm, Wikileaks experienced a 30% decline in traffic from Google searches. Democracy Now fell by 36%. Truthout dropped by 25%. Its own traffic dropped by 67% percent over the same period. Alternet saw a 63% decline in traffic. Media Matters saw a 36% drop in traffic. Counterpunch.org fell by 21%. The Intercept fell by 19%.
In May, WSWS was ranked 5th in Google searches for the keyword ‘socialism’. Today the WSWS is nowhere to be found in the top 200 searches for the same keyword. In addition, Google blocked every one of WSW’s top 45 search terms.
Aaron Kaufman, director of development at progressive news outlet, Common Dreams said that Google Search as a percentage of total traffic to the Common Dreams website has decreased nearly 50 percent since May.

Of course, this really shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, as I have conclusively demonstrated, if you shoot at Nazis, you’re mostly going to hit leftists.

Google is not the only player in this censorship game. Earlier last year, anti-establishment information services – Renegade Inc included – experienced a 20% drop in traffic to its Facebook pages, after the social-network altered its algorithm, again, allegedly in an attempt to crack down on ‘fake news’.
Perhaps these leftist sites should stop attempting to push Fake News. It’s interesting to note that since this crackdown on Fake News, the traffic here has observably risen. I doubt there is any actual connection, but it is an amusingly timed coincidence.

Red Ice hacked

This is not surprising. Castalia House has been under continuous assault since the day we came out in support of GamerGate almost two years ago:

Henrik Palmgren  ?‏ @Henrik_Palmgren
http://redice.tv   #TANGODOWN #HACKED @YourAnonNews @IGD_News Fuck all you nazi scum!!!!!
Henrik Palmgren  ?‏ @Henrik_Palmgren
Replying to @Henrik_Palmgren @YourAnonNews @IGD_News
Red Ice TV is #TangoDown All servers/backups wiped. 23,000 member database stolen. MAJOR DOX INCOMING!!! @NYCAntifa @YourAnonNews @IGD_News

If you’re Alt-Right, or even Alt-Lite, better get in the habit of practicing proper operational security. 16-digit randomized passwords on everything, different passwords for everything, and so forth. I doubt this is an accident given that it is just one day after Lana Loktoff was featured in a Harper’s piece on the women of the Alt-Right.
It looks like both their Twitter account and their main site was hacked, which suggests the same password was used for both.

The underperformers of Google

Further evidence that the Ivy League’s affirmative action is rewarding the undeserving and the underperforming:

A Google Research project indicating that underrepresented minorities and Ivy League graduates were more likely to receive softball interviews at the company was shut down by Google’s human resources department upon seeing the results, according to an insider.
The Google insider (alias “Chuck”), who worked at the company for several years, was part of a team tasked with determining which Google employees were most likely to succeed at the company based on their interview feedback.
According to Chuck, the predictive model they created determined that employees who received mixed feedback at the interview stage performed far better than those who received only good feedback.
Those who were most likely to receive only good feedback (“inflated interview scores,” in the words of Chuck) tended to be Ivy League graduates or underrepresented minorities. Those who were most likely to receive mixed feedback (and, according to the model, go on to achieve the most success at Google) were more likely to be white and Asian men who did not go to Ivy League schools.
The insider’s team had been tasked with the project by Google’s HR department, but according to him, they promptly shut it down once they realized its results would not serve their goals.

Google is an SJW-converged organization at war with reality. That is why it is doomed.

Diversity in tech

A 5-time IT manager with 26 years of experience explains the reality of diversity in technology

Large Tech Company – Team of 11
Diversity policy that caused me a lot of problems. I didn’t have the proper control over who I could interview and my main problem was finding competent engineers regardless of race or sex. I did end up interviewing a very diverse set of candidates which made the process extra grueling as I wasted time with so many under-qualified diversity candidates.
Some of these diversity interviews were my most memorable for how bad the candidates were. As an example an Indian woman with a very impressive resume and monster SQL background. Only interview I ended after 10 minutes because the candidate asked me what SELECT meant in an example statement I white boarded and asked her to correct. Turns out the recruiting company had rewritten her resume for her and she was just a blatant diversity candidate. I complained to my manager about this as a waste of my time and was reminded my team was all white and with only one female.
I did so many interviews I knew were I waste of my time that I started just trying a few new techniques on the candidates as interview practice for myself. It was such a waste of time for myself and the candidate and I felt bad wasting time but I had no choice. There was no chance I would hire them but HR’s method of forcing diversity just kept tossing bad candidates at me.
I eventually worked around the process by finding my own candidates and secretly pushing them through the screening process. I could have been fired for this but my resource problem was so bad I didn’t have a choice.
For unrelated reasons I left that position. The single female on my team was promoted to take my place, against my recommendation. She was a pretty good engineer but had no experience managing and the team fell apart less then a year after I left. All my former team members all told me it was due to the ruthless micromanagement by my replacement. In my experience, micromanagement is the behavior of a lot of new managers thrust into a job that is too big for them to handle regardless of sex/race. Also, I never filled the SQL dev position but my replacement did hire a different Indian women as the SQL dev. I did hear she was incompetent and fired after 6 months.
I learned from this to always have full hiring control of my team or be doomed to fail.

Contra this, Google’s CEO, Pichai Sundararajan doubled down and claimed Google “really need to have people internally who represent the world in its totality. And yet, the company has yet to implement a policy of aggressively hiring Nazis, Eskimos, Christians, or Mbenga bushmen from Cameroon.

“To the girls who dream of being an engineer or an entrepreneur, and who dream of creating amazing things, I want you to know that there’s a place for you in this industry, there’s a place for you at Google,” he told the crowd gathered at a company recreation field. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” he said to cheers and applause. “You belong here and we need you.”
Pichai told the audience, which included about 50 contest finalists from seven countries including the U.S., that seeing the girls gave him hope for the future.
“At Google we are very committed to building products for everyone in the world,” Pichai said. “To do that well, we really need to have people internally who represent the world in totality. It’s really important that more women and girls have the opportunity to participate in technology, to learn how to code, create and innovate.”

Both perspectives can’t be correct.

Google has feminism

And feminism is cancer. More inside information in Allum Bokhari’s latest Rebels of Google series:

“The worst part isn’t the ‘diversity.’” says Gordon “It’s the “inclusion” – the banner under which they justify dangerous pseudosciences like unconscious bias and microaggressions, and try to make them company policy.”
Ideological conformity at Google, says Gordon, is “far worse” than James Damore’s viewpoint diversity memo indicates.
“Google is run like a religious cult. Conform and carry out the rituals, and you’ll be rewarded and praised; ask any uncomfortable questions or offend the wrong people, and the threats and public shaming will be swift and ruthless. The religion in this case is a kind of intersectional feminism, its central tenets are Diversity and Inclusion, its demonic enemy is Bias, and its purifying rituals include humiliating forms of “training” that resemble Maoist struggle sessions.”
“This might sound crazy to a lot of your readers, but college students should understand, since it’s a similar culture.”
According to Gordon, efforts to terrorize employees over identity politics come from both managers and rank-and-file Googlers.
“The agitation ranges from very subtle (“it’s not OK,” “we cannot stand for this,” “these are shitty opinions”) to quite overt (“this is violently offensive,” “I will not tolerate,” “I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you”).”
“I’ve seen around 20-30 managers agitating this way, each of whom is in charge of anywhere from a few dozen to over a thousand employees. There are some very high-level people who consider the progressive agenda to be more important than the success and mental health of their teams.”
“I can’t categorically say that it goes up to “the very top”. However, as you now already know from James’s unceremoniously quick firing, the top brass are either sympathetic to or afraid of the mob.”

 

Back early

Google’s CEO returns home early from vacation and sends a message:

From: Sundar
Subject: Our words matter
This has been a very difficult few days. I wanted to provide an update on the memo that was circulated over this past week.
First, let me say that we strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it. However, portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct, which expects “each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.”
The memo has clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting and feel judged based on their gender. Our co-workers shouldn’t have to worry that each time they open their mouths to speak in a meeting, they have to prove that they are not like the memo states, being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.”
At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint). They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo — such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all — are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics — we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions.
The past few days have been very difficult for many at the company, and we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree — while doing so in line with our Code of Conduct. I’d encourage each of you to make an effort over the coming days to reach out to those who might have different perspectives from your own. I will be doing the same.
I have been on work related travel in Africa and Europe the past couple of weeks and had just started my family vacation here this week. I have decided to return tomorrow as clearly there’s a lot more to discuss as a group — including how we create a more inclusive environment for all.
So please join me, along with members of the leadership team at a town hall on Thursday. Check your calendar soon for details.
— Sundar

Translation: you can go ahead and fire him, because Code of Conduct, but we’ve got a problem here and we really need to figure out how to keep the whackjobs from getting completely out of hand.
But it’s always harder to get off the tiger without it eating you.

Convergence at AirBNB

I don’t use AirBNB. But if I did, I would stop.

This Saturday, Virginia’s Lee Park is slated to be the meeting place of the Unite The Right rally, a much-publicized gathering of far-right personalities and their sycophants. With less than a week to go, Airbnb has taken active measures to delete the accounts of some members the company believes to be staying in Charlottesville for the rally… According to screenshots shared on Twitter, the users have apparently been banned for violating Airbnb’s Terms of Service.

“Violating Terms of Service” is SJW speak for banning badthinkers and thought criminals. And their list of badthinkers and thought criminals is growing every single day.

Meanwhile, at Google, you can expect to discuss diversity, and nothing but diversity, should you happen to interview there. The middle managers want to make sure they hire nothing but SJWs. At this rate, Google’s eventual crash-and-burn promises to rival Yahoo’s.