Tag Archives: Twitter

March 24, 2023 · 22:49

A nice surprise

It started early this morning, the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65057809) gives me ‘Jack Dorsey business target of Hindenburg report’, so someone is finally asking questions of this person? With the byline “Tech billionaire Jack Dorsey is facing scrutiny, after a report accuses the payments company he leads of inflating user numbers and catering to criminals” one part some people noticed that about Twitter, which is why Elon Musk paid well over twice the price and no one in the media was willing to ask questions. I know nothing about the payment company, as such I have no view. The catering to criminals is new, not sure where I stand on it. As such when I see “Block, which former Twitter boss Mr Dorsey co-founded in 2009 and leads as chief executive, said it was exploring legal action against Hindenburg for the “factually inaccurate and misleading report”.” I stopped my response as I did not want to give more ammunition to Jack Dorsey, but the statement ‘factually inaccurate’ requires investigation and data. So as we are given “Now worth more than $30bn (£24.4bn), it was renamed Block in 2021, to reflect another, fast growing side of its business: Cash App, a payments app that was the focus of Hindenburg’s report.” No one seemingly reacts and that is fine, these places happen. Yet the setting is that it grew by well close to 1,000% over the period of less than 8 years. That implies a 125% year on year growth, that is a bit much and the accusation seemingly makes sense. And the criminals (or organised crime) would see the benefit of a cash app. There would be all kinds of benefits for them. This does not make Jack Dorsey guilty, but after the Twitter debacle it makes sense that a deeper look is given to this event. I reckon that I would be able to find a few more items if I had access to all that data, but that is the second stage. Not merely the data, the income streams would be invaluable for a player like China (or Russia for that matter). So as the BBC gives us “While conducting its research, Hindenburg claimed it had easily created obviously fake Cash App accounts in the names of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and made public records requests, which allegedly showed that Cash App was used to facilitate millions in fraudulent pandemic relief payments from the government.” Which leads to “that reflected “key lapses” in compliance processes” and there is one of the elements I warned for for well over two years. The BBC calls (or quotes) key lapses, but I see another fintech app lacking checks, balances and the ability to vet the correctness of information. And the added ““Former employees described how Cash App suppressed internal concerns and ignored user pleas for help as criminal activity and fraud ran rampant on its platform,” Hindenburg said. “This appeared to be an effort to grow Cash App’s user base by strategically disregarding Anti Money Laundering (AML) rules”” merely gives rise to my thoughts. And the world seems to be stagnant to act to any FinTech when needed. Yes, we see it at the BBC now, but how many more will look into this? How many media will give Jack Dorsey another free pass? I cannot tell at present, but over the last 11 hours the media did not go nuts over this, yet jokes like the ICIJ with their Pandora papers, their Pickwick papers and their cups of tea are seemingly in the dark on too much of this. So whilst some will wonder why Charles Dickens comes into play. Consider “A great hokey-cokey of eccentrics, conmen, phony politicians, amorous widows and wily, witty servants, somehow catching an essence of what it is to be English, celebrating companionship, generosity, good nature, in the figure of Samuel Pickwick, Esq, one of the great embodiments in literature of benevolence.” Now consider that view whilst I edit that part into “A view of FinTech solutions, conmen, phony media, and, silly exploiters, somehow catching an essence of what it is to be a wannabe, celebrating greed, need, and exploiters, in the figure of an unknown person at present, one of the worst instigations of hardship creators” it took less than a minute to get to that part of the equation and the crumbles of the media pie were all over the table for well over a year. So it is good to see the BBC make mention of this, but I wonder who will follow and will there be a real investigation? And I have to make one alteration, the Australian Financial Review got there about an hour ago, so they were on the ball. Yet who else was? Not that many for sure. 

This situation is still fluidic and I will take more looks, because I think I owe people like Elon Musk to take a larger look into this person, merely for the reason that the media refused to do so and that ain’t right. So will Jack Dorsey join the flock containing people like Elisabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried? I do not know, that is for a court to decide, at present it is an accusation. But in this the BBC has for the most been a righteous party, so for now they are getting the benefit of the doubt and the fact that the AFR is supporting that view is not a bad thing either. Perhaps the twist and dance of Jack Dorsey is in its last stage Time will tell. 

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March 20, 2023 · 15:44

Brain in overdrive

That happens and It just happened to me, the reason being this tweet. Now, that does not me the given facts are true, but I am willing to go on faith here and the setting becomes a weirdly unsettling one.

So here we see the setting that 4 out of 5 women had a miscarriage. That’s 80% and that number should scare anyone. Is it true? We want to reject it, just like we want to reject “What was in the water” but in all honesty we cannot dismiss either, unless you can prove that the 80% statement is wrong. One untested source gives me “For women who know they’re pregnant, about 10 to 20 in 100 pregnancies (10 to 20 percent) end in miscarriage. Most miscarriages – 8 out of 10 (80 percent) – happen in the first trimester before the 12th week of pregnancy”, this is for the USA. Not sure what other nations are and there is no telling how bad it gets, but the statement is there. To take a little trip in my memory lane, I have known hundreds of women and I am aware of only 3 cases. This does not mean that there were only three, I reckon that most women will not talk about things like that other than to another woman and I get that. But from less than 2% to 80% is a jump and that gives validity to “What was in the water?” You see when these numbers add up to 80% something is driving this and the water is an option. We only need to look back to the Erin Brockovich story to see that things end up in the water and that was BEFORE Shale gas drilling became a fact. Now? I have no way of telling, but in the US big business tends to make policy, not the actual policy makers. 

The second statistic comes into play now. I cannot tell if that number is normal, but it wasn’t and now we see “Most miscarriages – 8 out of 10 (80 percent) – happen in the first trimester before the 12th week of pregnancy” this does not seem natural, something drives this and water makes sense, but the environment is a lot bigger than water and as I understand it pregnancy is a setting of checks and balances and the balances is where it is at. So what is causing that level of imbalance? I do not know but the data puzzler in me is going into overdrive. In this age of overpopulation I shouldn’t be, but consider that the next two generations are lost to us, what will we be left with? If 35% is entering the ‘old fart’ stage, and we lost the bulk of 2 generations. This implies that our population will dwindle down to a little over 5 billion before 2070, not a bad setting as the planet could use a breather, but what we neglect is that any environmental impact on us could remain for the next 5 generations, and in this who remains? That is a much larger question and a much larger issue to deal with. So is this over-hyped? Perhaps, but can we afford to ignore this setting? I don’t think so. This planet needs relief and I am not willing to set it up a species that has destroyed its own balance to procreate. I do not have any answers and any answer I uncover only needs to more questions. For one, the ‘official’ number is debatable, but there is nothing countering it. One answer was “Most pregnancy losses are due to factors that the person cannot control”, I understand the answer, I merely refuse to accept it. The environment (and the water) is something we do not control, but someone is allowing it to contain toxins. I also see that several ‘official’ sources have EXACTLY the same text, so there is a common source there. Yet In Australia I saw “One study that tracked women’s hormone levels daily to detect very early pregnancy determined a miscarriage rate of 31 per cent.” 31% is a long way of 80% and that should have led to a lot more questions, but I do not see them, do you?

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March 17, 2023 · 05:23

Confirmation and standards

That is what I was confronted with over the last 5 hours. I got a message a little before that and we will talk about it. I mentioned it in my previous article. It connects to more, but that is not important right now. What set me off was the article (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2268696/saudi-arabia) where we are given ‘Saudi energy minister: Kingdom will not sell oil to any country that imposes a price cap’. In this I agree, even if it hurts me badly. You see the US has been crying on expensive oil, but the price is set as well by Brent oil, an American firm. One that has the BIGGEST production of oil on the planet.

So when we are given “Spare capacity and global emergency stocks are the ultimate safety net for the oil market in face of potential shocks. I have repeatedly warned that global demand growth will outpace current global spare capacity, while emergency reserves are at a historic low.” I have no other thought but to agree. This has been going on for the better part of 2 decades. No one was complaining when oil was $40, but the setting differs. The US will not buy from Russia (which makes sense) and neither is Venezuela an option. The Arab nations are united in getting the best deal FOR THEM, which is done on a global scale in many commodities, but oil is not the US point of trade, it is THEIR anchor, yet no one looks at Brent oil and what it does, weird, isn’t it? We have seen the massive need to drop dependency on oil and in 2 decades nothing was done. The blame is all on governments for not acting, then 5 years ago an optional sidestep could be made, but the US government pissed of Elon Musk, whilst giving a free ride to that previous Twitter owner, that Dorsey thingamajig. But the Media on a global level REFUSED to ask him the hard questions. And now that it is too late, now that we see that a battery change was required 3-4 years ago, the Governments (especially America) start crying like little bitches. 

When a well can pump 10 cups of water an hour, and there are at any given moment 25 people needing water, some will go thirsty and that setting has been clearly there for over 2 decades. Why was nothing done? So when I see “NOPEC refers to a No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels bill, proposed US legislation that could leave members of OPEC+ open to prosecution under American antitrust laws. The bill, which has been periodically proposed for several years, was revived this month by a bipartisan group of senators in Washington amid ongoing concern about high energy prices.” And here the thought “Are you insane?” pops up. In the first why is Brent Oil not mentioned? And it is so easily fixed. Saudi Arabia (Aramco) could deliver 20% less oil to the US and Europe and sell that to China, everyone happy, or not? It is not a concern for high energy prices, it is the bloody mess of inaction which can be clearly shown for well over a decade and when there was a solution, you pissed off the industrial that could have aided you. So how is that for stupidity?

The second reel
The second reel is different, it is not connected to oil, but optionally to stupidity (as I personally see it). I have seen now confirmation on two of the branches that this will work and due to a few changes, there would be a growing need for the third branch as well. For me it could be good, and could is the operative word as Google was asleep at the wheel and let it pass and Amazon doesn’t seen to be waking up to the billions they can get in this. At present my hope lies with Kingdom Holdings and one other party. That one might not give me the full price, but it is better than nothing, in addition, keeping Microsoft away from there is prime concern, they can only screw up the IP, blame others, point fingers and then refer to miscommunications. I can do without that. There is a small option that Apple might pick it up, but it is not really their turf, so I feel uncertain about that thought. So it is in some regard inverted from oil. Oil everyone wants, and seemingly my IP no one wants. I reckon that the first one that buys it and see what they stand to gain, at that point everyone will come calling, like a Credit Suisse banker with an empty wallet, but that is my weird sense of humour.

The idea that I am right is nice, but I have seen enough confirmations in several directions to know I am right, but that is just me. I still check all forms of verifications, not merely to proof that I am right, but to confirm I was never wrong. That too matters, because I am where banks and oil consumers needed to be, in a place of checks and balances, something both parties require very very fast.

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March 11, 2023 · 23:00

One bowl of speculation please

Yup, we all do it, we all like to taste from the bowl of speculation. I am no different, in my case that bowl can be as yummy as a leek potato soup, on other days it is like a thick soup of peas, potato with beef sausages. It tends to depend on the side of the speculation (science, engineering or Business Intelligence) today is Business Intelligence, which tends to be a deep tomato soup with croutons, almost like a thick minestra pomodore. I saw two articles today. The first one is seen (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64917397) and comes from the BBC giving us ‘Meta exploring plans for Twitter rival’, no matter that we are given “It could rival both Twitter and its decentralised competitor, Mastodon. A spokesperson told the BBC: “We’re exploring a standalone decentralised social network for sharing text updates. “We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”” Whatever they are spinning here, make no mistake. This is about DATA, this is about AGGREGATION and about linking people, links that too often Twitter has and LinkedIn and Facebook does not. A stage where the people needs clustering to see how to profiles can be linked with minimum connectivity. It is what SPSS used to call PLANCARDS (conjoint module). In this by keeping the links as simple as possible, their deeper machine learning will learn new stage of connectivity. That is my speculated view. You see this is the age where those without exceptional deeper machine learning, new models need to be designed to catch up with players like Google and Amazon, so the larger speculation is that somehow Microsoft is involved, but I tell you now that this speculation is based on very thin and very slippery ice, it merely makes sense that these to will find some kind of partnership. The speculation is not based on pure logic, if that were true Microsoft would not be a factor at all.

But the second article (from a less reliable source is giving us (at https://newsroomodisha.com/meta-to-begin-laying-off-another-11k-employees-in-multiple-waves-next-week/) so they are investigating a new technology all whilst shedding 11% of their workforce. A workforce that is already strained to say the least and this new project will not rely on a dozen people, that project will involve a lot more people, especially if my PLANCARDS speculation is correct. That being said, if Microsoft is indeed a factor, the double stump might make more sense, hence the larger speculative side. Even as the second source gives us ““We’re continuing to look across the company, across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs, and really evaluate whether we are deploying our resources toward the highest leverage opportunities,” Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said at an Morgan Stanley conference on Thursday. “This is going to result in us making some tough decisions to wind down projects in some places, to shift resources away from some teams,” Li added.” Now when we consider the words of Susan Li, the combination does not make too much sense. The chance of shedding the wrong people would give the game away, yes Twitter is in a bind, but it will add full steam in this case and they will find their own solutions (not sure where they will look), a stage that is coming and the two messages make very little sense. Another side might be pushing it if Meta is shedding jobs to desperately reduce cost, which is possible. I cannot tell at present, their CFO is not handing me their books for some weird reason.

Still, the speculation is real as the setting seems unnatural, but in IT that is nothing new, we have seen enough examples of that. So, enjoy your Saturday and feel free to speculate yourself, we all need that at times to TLC our own ego’s.

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March 8, 2023 · 22:24

As media proves itself useless

Yes., I have been on this horse a few times, but I never expected this to happen, well, not a first tier media outlet. Yet, lets not give away the game just yet. Lets first look at the evidence. It started with one person correcting another. 

The correcting party is a Dutch man named Ties Joosten (@TiesJoosten). We get the information that the retweeted man was not a farmer, more importantly the man was not from Frisia (a province in the north of the Netherlands), we also get that this story was copied from Facebook, from a man who is a Frisian farmer. The man who retweeted it was from Zeeland (a province in the south west of the Netherlands). Yet, that message is also incorrect. They made reference that they were peak loader as such there were troubles. 

Ties found out that the Frisian province (@provfryslan) had not designated anyone as peak loaders, none of the provinces of the Netherlands apparently had named anyone a peak loader. The statement is that they are forced to close. More importantly Ties learned from @provfryslan and @FTM_nl that there were no forced closings. More important, this farmer volunteered to be bought out. So there was no forced closing, more important, even as the buy out numbers would be confidential.

What is public is that this farmer received for hundreds of thousands of euros subsidised payments which was found through @provfryslan. 

Which gets us to the final image which gives us the alleged disinformation bringer @Evavlaar brought a message from a farmer who is not a farmer, gives a setting whilst the real farmer in question volunteered to be bought out.

And that is the end of the intro. You see, this problem is a lot larger than you think. It is Forbes who have seemingly lost the settings. With the article (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/dianafurchtgott-roth/2023/03/06/climate-driven-technology-forces-out-europes-farmers/) we get “Thousands of Belgian and Dutch farmers are being sacrificed on the altar of climate change. They are losing their livelihoods as their governments crack down on emissions of nitrogen oxide (from manure) and the use of ammonia in fertilisation.” So which Dutch farmers are losing their jobs? Who was sacrificed? This is on the editor of Forbes Randall Lane. Even as the article comes from Diana Furchtgott-Roth, the editor is responsible. So can we get a list of these thousands of farmers? Can we get a top-line write-out of the numbers? As I personally see it Randall Lane has three options remaining, he fixes the mess we see here, he becomes an uber driver or a barber. That is more options than I ever had. 

The media is showing themselves to be every bit as useless as they always were. With this one event Forbes moved from the shelf of top tier magazines to a mere third tier. We always has issues with materials published, but now we have additional pressures on the quality of the magazines and newspapers. Too lazy to vet the information, to lazy to check numbers. It is all about deadlines and having the juiciest story, accuracy be damned. If it wasn’t for a man named Ties Joosten, we would think that the Dutch government is the big evil, instead we now see that the media is allegedly the big stupid.

Have a great Wednesday!

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March 7, 2023 · 23:04

That awesome moment

These moments happen to us all, some we see the moment we see them, some we see after a while when things sink in and there is a third option, but we need not think of that. This afternoon I was confronted with the first one by no one else by Arnold Schwarzenegger. That terminator, the Governator and he became so much more over time to so many of us. The man is a legend in his own time, optionally one of the most amazing governors in the history of the USA. And a lot of these actions were done before and after he was governor of California. To call him an actor is like referring to a Rolls Royce, a Bugatti, a Ferrari, a Aston Martin or a Bentley as a simple automobile. Some things cannot be defined, cannot be dimensionalised and we are all good with that, some exceptions break the consideration of any shape. We all get that (if not you need to brush up on things). 

So it all started with a Tweet (at https://t.co/P0VCDqPeb6) there we see the governator, slightly posh with all that silver in his beard. He gives us an interesting approach to stop hate, it takes 12 minutes and listening will be the best 12 minutes of this month, no exceptions (unless you got lucky with Laura Vandervoort). He talks about giving into hate and it was amazing. The man is so eloquent that he should be the US ambassador to the United Nations. Let me emphasise here that this is no reflection on Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. I do not know her and I mean no disrespect to her. When you hear the words of Arnold they will hit you deep, much deeper than you think and that is the effect of a person like this. This is why he is so rare and legendary unique. 

So my Monday involved an amazing moment that I never saw coming. I do not give into hate, but the reminder that not doing so is not the easy path felt good, very good. You see, I had been noticing Islamaphobia to the larger extent in the US, Europe, and commonwealth nations. It is higher now then it was during the first crusades in 1095 and that is saying something. We were actively trying to kill one another. Christians as invaders and Muslims as defenders, all due to Pope Urban II and his posse of greed driven exploiters. Something needed to be done and I created IP for that approach. The fact that it impacts Facebook, Google and optionally Amazon is merely a side effect. For me that video was in part learning, in part confirming that I was right all along and in part in awe as I saw yet another side of Arnold Schwarzenegger. So be clever and watch those 12 minutes, the link is also given by YouTube (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsETTn7DehI). Even as he focusses on anti-semitism he actually addresses all kinds of hate and he does it well. So watch and learn, optionally a lot. Those 12 minutes were truly an awesome moment.

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March 3, 2023 · 01:18

The blocking question

That is what CB left me with. The article (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/alphabet-google-committee-block-summon-1.6762908) gives us “A parliamentary committee is calling four of Google’s top executives to appear before it after the company began testing ways it could block news content from searches if Parliament passes the Online News Act.” And this MP Julian, perhaps MP Julian Assange? No, my bad. It was MP Peter Julian. You see, we do not get the proper setting. And it is not on Google. We are given “Google’s actions have been irresponsible. Google’s actions amount to censorship and Google’s actions are disrespectful of Canadians.” I do not think this is true and because some politicians are trying to remain as vague as possible, issues and question remain, but the people who are pushing this are the remnants of William Randolph Hearst and they all should become as obsolete and buried as Hearst is now. 

They lost credibility and they lost integrity, but that is not how we need to proceed. You see the article gives us “All types of news content are being affected by the test, which will run for about five weeks, the company said. That includes content created by Canadian broadcasters and newspapers. An Australian law similar to C-18 took effect in March 2021 after talks with the big tech firms led to a brief shutdown of Facebook news feeds in the country. The law has largely worked, a government report said.” Well, not exactly, has it?

You see, we are given one line, but it is not one line, it is a document with many paragraphs, many facetted paragraphs. But the politicians do not want to go there, do they? 

This is the first example. It comes from Twitter. The LA Times gives us the heads up, but it is not that, when we click on it it becomes a block. An advertisement block and the LA Times is not alone. So, did we accept that FREE advertisement by the LA Times? That is the question and it is not a simple one line answer. 

The second example is Google search, I wanted something on Bundaberg (where the good rum comes from) and I looked at the news, the top part is what I saw and there is nothing wrong with reading about youthful enthusiasm in medicine, so I clicked on the article, but was I informed? No! I got an invitation to PAY for the article. Lets be clear, it might be OK for newspapers to allow this approach, but is it up to Google Search to cater to free advertisement? These two examples are the tip of a mountain a lot bigger than the ice-block that sank the Titanic, but the article as well as PM Julian are keeping us in the dark about it. There are others like the Guardian, the Dutch NOS, BBC, CBC and many others that do not use this approach, but for news outlets that cater to this approach we see a different catering and I think that Facebook and Google get to block these players. They newspapers are making claims of loss of revenue, but they advertise in this way, so is blocking all the question? I do not think so, but I am not on the board of directors of Google (even after I was able to hand them close to $20,000,000,000 in revenue). Ah well, another day, another dollar.

The block setting is not that simple and these politicians are nowhere neat ready to properly look at this. They want their cowboy story and Google is the nasty evil, but that is not true, it was never true. But then the politicians involved could never figure this out, but that is how I see it, and I accept that others have a different point of view. That is fair, I can only give you my point of view and perhaps it will stir questions, perhaps it will not.

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January 13, 2023 · 11:54

Inactivity by the overpaid

The Dutch NOS is opening a storm-gate with the article (at https://nos.nl/l/2459559) stating that there will be a power shortage by 2030. Personally I think that he is overly optimistic. I would reckon that clear shortages will be visible no later than 2027 in the Netherlands. The UK will start showing these shortages no later than Q3 2024 and there are several nations in that same setting. The US was already showing them last year, not to a large degree, but enough to get noticed in California and Texas. It will get worse soon enough. I reckon that it will be horrid to live in these places the coming summer. With millions of AC units draining whatever power there is, the stage for these two places will not be a joyous one. I stated that danger in ‘Time as a factor’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/05/15/time-as-a-factor/) in may last year and several other articles over the two years preceding that. There was (optionally is) a solution and for that they all needed Elon Musk, but governments are not that intelligent. Instead of catering to Elon Musk, they catered to his anger and now the solution will come at premium price. His battery would have been able to decrease the pressure by well over 10%-20% in 2018 when I first made mention of it. But the overpaid civil servants kept on being inactive and that saving is now lost to them. 

There still is an option for several places, but it will take immediate action, places like Texas and California, as well as the UK, France and Italy will have to act NOW to get something done, because Elon is not storing these batteries and when they have to produce 15-35 million batteries, they can sell at a premium but that will set you back so many billions, that the loss of Twitter is nothing more than a little blip on the radar. And there was a solution, but you all had to make fun of him, cater to fake news and cater to BS settings all whilst Jack Dorsey was given a ‘do not touch’ voucher. So how much can Jack Dorsey add? I’ll tell you nothing and now that you need Elon Musk, what will you do? Bully him a bit more? Consider that when these batteries go to India, Saudi Arabia, UAE and a few other places BEFORE they go to Texas and California. And when you realise that a place like Texas will need close to 1,000,000 Power walls at $17,000 each, the math becomes increasingly easy and it might not be enough. In that California would need in access of 3,000,000 walls. And that is before the added wind and solar collectors are added. One simple setting to overcome the loss of Twitter. And lets be clear, he has no obligation to any of you. He can charge premium prices, it is HIS right to do so. Sucks to be you now, does it not?

And in that setting Texans might still forgo power for 16% of the day when they need power for their AC, a stage that was clear in play since BEFORE 2018. All this before some might realise that a place like London will need well over 1,000,000 power-walls. The numbers start adding up and Tesla has the IP everyone needs. So how will you cater to that? Like a bully or will you realise that some people were overpaid by a fair amount and they did NOTHING. If I saw this almost 5 years ago, they should have been on that hobby horse a lot longer, but they were not. Why was that? 

And the shortage will get worse for the UK soon enough. You see, Sweden (Vattenfal) is already showing shortages for winter, as such less and less can be delivered to the UK who will now feel the brunt a lot sooner and the solution I offered in ‘Will you feel frisky?’ On June 28th 2022  (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/28/will-you-feel-frisky/) now feels a lot more on point, does it not? So how many documents can the UK produce of efforts they made from 2018 onwards to cater to this need? And that is the setting now, but this pressure keeps on growing, so the worm that hesitates will get eaten in this setting, because the shortage is global and now that the pressures are showing will some ask, why did we do nothing? People have been BS’ing on power independence since the 90’s and when the moment comes, we see inaction. Don’t take my word, check and you will see I am right. The overpaid were inactive for far too long, let them explain why. Oh, and they come with something like ‘It was a complex issue’ feel free to dock their pay for over 40%, it was why they were there and even if that doesn’t solve the issue, it will feel good to see the worm squirm for his lost 40%. Do it, you’ll see you’ll feel better. 

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January 6, 2023 · 11:03

It is the same coin

I got alerted to something via Twitter. It has two sides and a friend of mine had one side, as such I give you the tweet below. This of course made me look at the YouTube by Simon Pegg (the Hot Fuzz man). 

He was emotional and he has a point, but so does my friend. Optionally they do not realise that they are both a side of the same coin, one cannot exist without the other. It is a flaw in those heralding science as the one solution, it never is. It merely becomes some Theranos creation, all science and too much of it debatable. You see my friend had the answer in her tweet. Alan Turing created something from nothing. A setting that is utterly impossible. He got there through an artsy side in him. Alan Turing created the foundations of computers and AI, both required an art element to get there. You see, even when we realise it was all science, his brain had to make some leap of faith and that requires art, science alone will not let you do that. He created these two and his foundation of AI is still used today, over half a century later, with all the elements of evolved science, his artsy side overcame what did not yet exist. It is one of the reasons that (even if I was not eligible), I would have voted for Brian Blessed to become Chancellor of Cambridge in 2011, but I was not eligible. It became Lord Sainsbury of Turville, my issue here is that science was taking too big a chunk of what was almost an even Steven setting. I personally believe that Science without art is pointless, art without science is useless. It is not completely true, but as an axiom it often works. Science without art cannot grow because science for the most relies on previous data and as such NEW technologies cannot evolve. Alan Turing created (for the most) the foundations of electronics. It required investigations into the electron as well, but when you see that Alan Turing created AI half a century before we had any partial foundation of that is optionally evidence enough. 

The other side needs to be illuminated as well. Simon Pegg did this (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHEpywFCtwA) in his own emotional way and he does have a point, but so did my friend. The artsy people tend to ignore that science is their friend. Take any movie, the lights are set up to maximise the effect, it is not art, that foundation is science, science created the camera and a lot of other parts. They use that technology and they use it well. But it supports art and that is forgotten. That being said that children need maths, but they need art too and the science pushers are all about ‘forgetting’ the art and that power. You see, if you have all science and no art, you end up creating Theranos minded creators. The ones that are convicted for fraud and end up well over 11 years in prison. Art might have prevented this (and created an actual solution). In that same setting it might be the flaw that created FTX and the $33,000,000,000 losses it ensued. 

I myself tend to grasp back to an old Market research credo. “The scientist, or mathematician will show you the course of best margins of profit, or best results. The presenter, or politician makes sure that you look forward to the attached invoice” it is a bit artsy but therefor not any less true. We need to realise that art and science are to sides of the same coin. Science made it circular and the artsy people gave it a nice image. We need another and there is one part we should all agree to, if Rishi Sunak wants to imbue a sense of science, he better be ready to imbue an equal measure of art in these people, because Simon Pegg is right about that part. Science without the art will have far reaching negative impacts. We need one another to see it, one shows us, one presents it and that has been the case from before that writer William Shakespeare became a reality. It goes back all the way to the outdoor Theatre of Dionysius where in 500BC Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes performed, but we forget that science created the stage for over 15,000 people to enjoy, that part was science, not art. And it was there centuries before Christianity became reality.

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January 1, 2023 · 20:12

BBC to the whatever

There was an issue from the start. I had reported on it before, so I initially decided to let it go. Yet then I remembered something. It is time to hold the BBC like other papers accountable for their fuck ups, and that includes the BBC as a media outlet. So lets take a look at the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64109777) giving us ‘Twitter in data-protection probe after ‘400 million’ user details up for sale’. You see, it might be about Twitter but it is larger then Twitter. The first instance is “Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) says it “will examine Twitter’s compliance with data-protection law in relation to that security issue”. Twitter has not commented on the claim.” The second part is “The data is said to include phone numbers and emails, including those belonging to celebrities and politicians, but the purported size of the haul is not confirmed. Only a small “sample” has so far been made public.” Wo far it is very neat, the extent of lack of mentions is also a lot more clear. You see there are two issues. When it was gotten and how it was gotten (the how is given to some extent later on). There is a setting emerging, but I will mention it soon. Then we get “data of US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was included in the sample of data published by the hacker. The data of broadcaster Piers Morgan, who recently had his Twitter account hacked, is also reported to be included. Twitter has so far not responded to press inquiries about the claimed breach. Chief executive Elon Musk did not reply to a tweeted request for comment from leading cyber-security reporter Brian Krebs – though the breach, as Mr Krebs notes, probably occurred before the Tesla boss took over.” The first gem is here. It is “probably occurred before the Tesla boss took over” and another stage where the media should have held Jack Dorsey to account, but it could not be bothered to do their bloody jobs. The media is showing to be as useless as a silent politician without the limelights. Then we get “While acknowledging the amount of data taken had not been verified, the firm’s chief technology officer, Alon Gal, told the BBC a number of clues appeared to support the hacker’s claim. The data did not appear to have been copied from an earlier breach in which details were published from 5.4 million Twitter accounts, Mr Gal said. Only 60 emails out of the sample of 1,000 provided by the hacker in the earlier incident appeared, “so we are confident that this breach is different and significantly bigger”, he said.”

There are all kinds of issues here, but the fact that there is an earlier breach gives a larger rise that the media should have looked at the fares of Jack Dorsey, but they ignore that part. I wonder what Jack Dorsey has on the media, because that is the only part that makes sense to me. And there is no reliability with ‘Only 60 emails out of the sample of 1,000 provided by the hacker in the earlier incident appeared’ which is at best merely an alleged side of the matter. There are heaps of other sides (like alternative email address) but there remains an issue. Was it the same hack? There might not be reliable information there, so Jack Dorsey is back in the frame. But the media keeps him intentionally out, on at least 5 events and that is worrisome. That they report now makes sense, but the earlier absence of reporting does not and they pushed for a stage where Elon Musk paid well over twice the amount he should have, and the media is no longer a trustworthy institution, no matter what they claim on their websites. 

So when we see ““Ryushi” has said that it exploited a problem with a system that lets computer programmes connect with Twitter to compile the data. Twitter fixed the weakness in the system in 2022. But the flaw is also believed to have been used in the earlier breach affecting more than five million accounts.” There are several issues here, but the fact that it was fixed in 2022 indicates that he became the owner on October 27, 2022. That gives the hack 8 weeks at best and even shorter if it was fixed, as such there is another issue and the BBC is not clean on mentioning it and even less on the responsibilities by Jack Dorsey and that too is on the BBC (and other media). 

My issue with the article is that is was so cleanly written, to keep names out of it and to make sure that nothing hits Jack Dorsey, why not? They never had that issue before, so something is up and it is time the media is seen as the untrustworthy source it has been for too long. But I reckon they will decide not to do so and make claims to IPSO that they can police themselves. In the meantime there is now a too large an issue with the media. Perhaps it is whoring for digital dollars, perhaps it is something more and the course of the media to avoid Jack Dorsey all over the field makes me believe that there is more. I wonder when we get that part, if ever.

For me, I am having another beer, the first 5G IP went public on 4Chan 20 hours ago and I wonder who finds it and who registers it. I hate waiting, but that I all I can do at present. Such is life.

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