Bonum Certa Men Certa

Life Will Never Be the Same Again

City stock photo



Summary: It seems probable that month after month things will deteriorate further (hunger, conflicts, partisanship) and even though Free software remains the most accessible technology for impoverished and frugal people we may have to face greater perils than 'software wars'

THE PANDEMIC was "long time coming" and probably inevitable; history shows that it happens in cycles -- like economic collapses -- and high-density populations are harmed the most (or proportionally). It might be nature's way of 'balancing' itself; it has not been "long in the making" (nobody made it; no need to), it's just "long time coming..."



Please kindly ignore people who claim Bill Gates started it; Gates does not control China and assuming it started somewhere in China, it's no different than many old plagues (some started in the US, some in Europe, several in China too). It's not a "Fake alarm" or "False flag" or whatever, either; Russia and nations that are EU/US-hostile take this very seriously too, based on their own experts. They don't even need WHO to lecture them about the severity and evidence to which they're direct eyewitnesses (like high death rates among patients in overcrowded hospitals) is enough to alarm them.

"Please kindly ignore people who claim Bill Gates started it..."I won't comment on COVID-19 as it's way outside my area of expertise (and unlike Bill Gates I'm not pretending to be an expert, either). I wrote about why it's unlikely to be a biological weapon (no nation benefits from it, not even China which relies on endless consumption, upon which manufacturing is dependent).

I am rather pissed off (to be brutally honest) seeing some people who link to Techrights claiming that it 'proves' Bill Gates is a paedophile (we never made such a claim and anyone who somehow infers/concludes that has a severe case of dishonesty or lacks reading comprehension skills). There's extensive evidence, however, including admission from Gates himself, that he closely associated -- for years -- with people whom he knew were large-scale, serial, practicing paedophiles. These details do matter as otherwise our adversaries can seek to discredit factual reporting, based on deliberate distortions of what we wrote and very carefully published.

People are stuck home, watching stupid YouTube channels (to pass time), losing their sanity without even realising it...

For me, personally, almost nothing has changed because my wife and I have worked from home for well over a decade and I still do my nighttime job from the same old workstations. The main difference, to us at least, is that we no longer travel to places and we cannot go to the gym. Instead we work out from home.

"Financially speaking, for a lot of people these are unbelievably scary times."That said, everybody I speak to has experienced very profound changes. Some lost their job, some work at very limited capacity or temporarily lost their job, not even knowing if that job will ever resume at all.

Financially speaking, for a lot of people these are unbelievably scary times. They never saw that coming. Some already worry they'd get kicked out of the place they call "home" (mortgage or rent payments) if they formally lost their job; finding a new job is almost impossible at this moment as face-to-face interviews are rare and difficult, not to mention public and private transport restrictions (still in place in London for instance).

I recently heard some gossip about GNU/Linux news sites and various Free software companies; it seems like they're mostly OK and judging by some recent reports, Free software is actually surging in popularity right now.

Life Will Never Be the Same Again... if you work for a proprietary software vendor. Uber has just announced (privately) thousands of layoffs, talking to its newly-canned employees about it over the Internet (and not even in person). All that 'digital-only' vision isn't meant to last after the outbreak. People still need to do manual tasks; this is particularly true for warehouse workers of Amazon and couriers that actually ship the stuff. High-profile Amazon staff quits in protest, Amazon employees blow the whistle en masses, and Jeff Bezos is coming under greater fire each day (there's a new scandal today).

"Expect some crazy times ahead, maybe even a war (we hope not)."In some particular aspects, this may be the demise of internationalism (especially as far as shipping and travel are concerned). As we said earlier this week, there's no "back to normal"; society will never go back to the same old normal. Now is the time to introspect, to adapt, to learn new things. Tell that to the Saudis and Gulf states whose economy was almost solely dependent on fossil fuels (and whose gamble on the airline 'industry' was a misguided one -- a deeply-linked contingency tied to oil). Few people have paid attention to news about the US Army withdrawing from some Saudis territories along with Patriot [sic] missiles and the latest big scandal is an FBI 'leak' of a Saudi official connection to the 9/11 attacks -- details long suppressed by both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Expect some crazy times ahead, maybe even a war (we hope not). The real unemployment rates are now officially worse than during the Great Depression, but the corporate media intentionally distracts from that (more on that in our latest Daily Links). There's growing debate about the next pandemic phases and the likely food crises which those phases entail. And no, Mr. Gates, Monsanto (now Bayer) won't save us with their 'foods' (patented seeds and cancer-causing pesticides) any more than Bayer's predecessors 'saved' people during the last major war (using chemicals and lethal gases).

Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries