Alexa, are you listening to me for the entertainment of Amazon employees?

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 122019
 

Looks like “yup.”

Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa

What’s particularly interesting is that Amazon employees aren’t just listening to you when you’re specifically engaged with Alexa… but just *whenever.* It’s ALWAYS ON. The people at Amazon have recordings of people singing in the shower, children screaming and, apparently, a sexual assault. Which they heard live but did nothing about.

 

When I was a kid in the Before Times when there was no Alexa, no YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat  and all the rest, people thought of their privacy as inviolate. “1984” included TVs that transmitted video of *you* to the government intelligence services, and we all shuddered at the idea. Now people livestream everything they do. People livestream themselves driving to work, eating their meals, doing the hunka-chunka, getting shooty at the local Mosqueateria. They share photos of their meals, their children, their vacations. People have effectively given away their privacy, but on their terms. Now we have intelligence gathering machines within our homes, and we *know* that these things are broadcasting what we do to strangers.

On one hand… creepy. On the other hand… this could have major influences on society. When I was seeking a security clearance going on 20 years ago, the FBI researched me up one side and down the other, looking for embarrassing stuff. Not – presumably – to hold over me, but to see if I had anything that somebody else might hold over me. If it turned out that I had some freaky weird preversion, the Russians or Chinese or somebody could theoretically find out about it and use that knowledge to blackmail me into providing them secrets. But let’s say that, rather than two decades ago, it was *today.* If I did indeed have freaky weird preversions… hell I might have my own for-profit webcam site. Rather than being embarrassed to the point of being blackmailed, I might try to sell a subscription to the service to the investigating FBI agent.

And so perhaps the fact that you have a device that gives you some small measure of convenience while utterly erasing traditional notions of privacy might become completely accepted. We do indeed live in Clown World, so maybe what seemed creepy as hell to me will be seen as perfectly normal and nothing to bother about.

 Posted by at 1:43 pm

They say it’s horrible, but they don’t say *why.*

 blather, Hmm..., news, politics  No Responses »
Apr 122019
 

News has broken that the White House briefly considered doing the blatantly obvious: sending the massive flood of refugees and migrants to cities that *want* massive numbers of illegal immigrants. Watching CNN, all the talking heads are yammering on about how horrible this is, how it’s an idea unworthy of the Presidency, blah, blah, blah. But if the US *has* to house these people, WHY NOT put them into sanctuary cities? Honestly, where better to put them?

There are regions that do not want hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals taking up resources, and then there are sanctuary cities, typically rich regions with electorates and politicians who think mass immigration is just awesome. How can it be that “sanctuary cities” and “massive influx of resource-free immigrants” isn;t a match made in Progressive Heaven?

 Posted by at 10:37 am

Clown World

 art, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Hmm..., humor, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 112019
 

So yesterday I blathered on about how trolls successfully used online SJW outrage culture to basically assassinate the “OK” hand sign by making the far left believe that it’s a white power symbol. I assumed that after that success, the same people would move on to try the same thing with another symbol or icon.

This is what I get for missing staff meetings: the process is already underway. This time: clowns are racist.

Short form: a couple months back 4chan began the process by whipping up “Honkler,” a modified Pepe the frog meme with a clown nose and a rainbow fro wig. Coupled with a clown  emoji and a globe emoji (thus “clown world”), this is used to show agreement with the idea that the world is so screwed up, so bizarre, so absurd that the only rational response is to just laugh as it all burns down. And, of course, racism, because *everything* is racism these days. The later videos down below show the history and “meaning” of Honk Honkler, but the one directly below amuses me to no friggen’ end. Absolute absurdism can be amusing, but when it’s basically a reaction to the sort of Lovecratian cosmic horror that the world seems to be drifting towards… well, that’s just *awesome.*

As far as it being an “alt right” or “white supremacist” meme, this is mostly driven by the outrage industry. In order to make money, they need clicks and donations; and in order to get those nice juicy donations, they need to convince people that they are dong something. And in order to do something, they have to have something to work *against* (part of the basic “perpetual war” tenet of fascism, one suspects). And since there really aren’t that many actual, factual threats coming from the right, the outrage industry grabs desperately at any straw they can find… and the trolls are content to throw straws at them.

For the lulz.

Learn you some stuff about Honkler:

Shorter form: people use outrage to try to make a buck. How dare they.

 


Tips


 

 

 Posted by at 5:19 pm

Beresheet has crashed on the moon

 AARRRGH, news, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Apr 112019
 

Israeli Lunar Spacecraft Loses Main Engine, Crashes on Surface of the Moon

It had successfully entered Lunar orbit, and had successfully de-orbited and was heading to the surface, when it “lost” the main engine around ten kilometers up.

While this is indeed unfortunate… if yer gonna crash, being able to say “I crashed ON THE MOON” certainly has a certain ring to it.

 Posted by at 3:21 pm

Assange Arrested

 blather, Hmm..., news, politics, secrets  No Responses »
Apr 112019
 

Julian Assange has spent the last seven years int he Ecuadorian embassy in London, hiding out from numerous nations wishing to arrest him. His man claim of asylum seems to be that he thinks that the US would execute him for publishing secrets provided to him by Bradley Manning. The Ecudarians withdrew asylum, and the British police frogmarched Assange out of the embassy in what can be safely described as a circus. The United States has no “official secrets act,” unlike police states like the United Kingdom. As a consequence, if you come into possession of secret documents through no illegal actions of your own, you should be able to go public with them, especially if the secrets do no encompass things like how to build a nuke or endanger ongoing activities (see: “The Pentagon Papers“).

But note the caveat there: “through no illegal actions of your own.” The US is alleging that Assange didn’t just receive Mannings data out of the blue, but engaged in “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.” That’s a *whole* different thing.

If you buy a secret document off ebay, you’re in the clear. If you find a secret document in the street or in the trash, you’re in the clear. If someone gives or mails you a secret document, you’re in the clear. However… if you *steal* a  secret document, you’re in trouble. Or if you bribe or blackmail someone with access to give you that document. Or if you aid them in the theft of that document. This should be pretty clear, and the First Amendment has nothing to do with it. Whether or not you are a journalist has nothing to do with it.

I have no idea what the sentencing rules are for “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.” It would be amusing as hell if he is tried, convicted and sentenced to something like six months.

 Posted by at 11:53 am

I know what this smells like…

 science, science fiction  No Responses »
Apr 112019
 

Researchers develop way to control speed of light, send it backward

Abouraddy and study co-author Esat Kondakci demonstrated they could speed a pulse of light up to 30 times the speed of light, slow it down to half the speed of light, and also make the pulse travel backward.

The researchers were able to develop the technique by using a special device known as a spatial light modulator to mix the space and time properties of light, thereby allowing them to control the velocity of the pulse of light.

Muh-huh.

I could maybe buy that they’ve found a way to make light go faster in a medium such as water or glass. But the claim seems to be that they can make light go 30 times faster in a vacuum.

It’s not clear if this is meant to be a faster pulse of light within the confines of their “spacial light modulator” machine, or if their notion is that they could sen a laser beam to Alpha Centauri in less than two months.

 Posted by at 1:04 am

Sollasina cthulhu

 Hmm..., news, paleo, science, science fiction  No Responses »
Apr 102019
 

I woulda gone for whatever the Latin is of “Elder Things” or maybe “face hugger,” but that’s just me. A new species has been described… the fossil of a 430 million year old sea cucumber-ish critter with more than forty “tentacles.” Not exactly a giant: the tentacles/legs/whatever seemed to reach a maximum length of about 14 mm.

A new ophiocistioid with soft-tissue preservation from the Silurian Herefordshire Lagerstätte, and the evolution of the holothurian body plan

 

 Posted by at 5:58 pm
 Older Entries  Newer Entries