03.10.23
Posted in Deception, Google, Microsoft at 12:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
There are also Bing layoffs, but many publishers are being paid to turn a blind eye, focus on vapourware instead
The most prominent strain of A.I. encodes a flawed conception of language and knowledge, famed linguist Noam Chomsky writes this week
As per this month’s figures (as CSV/ODF), Google rose to new highs and Bing fell to 2.7% — its lowest levels since 2021:
Summary: The bribed media (paid by Microsoft to relay/produce puff pieces) has predicted doom for Google’s search, but what we’re seeing is exactly the opposite; people need Web pages, not chatbots
Permalink
Send this to a friend
02.04.23
Posted in Apple, Finance, Google, Microsoft at 6:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The age of technology giants/monopolies devouring everything or military-funded (i.e. taxpayers-subsidised) surveillance/censorship tentacles, in effect privatised eyes of the state, may be ending; the United States can barely sustain that anymore and raising the debt ceiling won’t solve that (buying time isn’t the solution)
THE past week was spent recovering from a severe hardware failure, but as soon as Monday we were able to post Daily Links as before (or even more often than before).
The end of January was still dominated by bad news (lots about war), spiced up with layoffs. Before this weekend the corporate media tried to disguise or distract from all this by talking about a job report (which counts the wrong things, as usual).
“The end of January was still dominated by bad news (lots about war), spiced up with layoffs.”The clown computing and ‘free’ hosting bubble has begun to truly burst. Many companies admit that they operate at a loss and see no turnaround or a turning point. The longer they operate, the more money they lose. The layoffs are actually a lot bigger than companies announce to (and via) the press. In the US they dodge the WARN Act by implementing many layoffs — additional ones — at a smaller scale (ripples and waves). They barely say which divisions are affected because it lets them get away with laying off far more people than they told shareholders (or the media) about. It’s hard to keep track, unless you’re an HR whistleblower of theirs. They don’t even count temps and contractors, who are nonchalantly let go (there are a few press reports about this in relation to YouTube/Google). Almost nobody in the media talks about Apple layoffs; they impact the ‘stores’ (sales have fallen).
“Don’t expect media to be inquisitive enough to talk about the full extent of the impact…”It seems safe to predict that 2023 will be another gloomy year for the monopolistic “tech” sector, which is focused/centered around price-fixing, surveillance, and imperialistic censorship (done for political gain, funded or subsidised by “defence” contracts). The years 2000 and 2008 are memorable, but based on early predictions cited in the media we might be heading towards another such crisis (on par with those). Don’t expect media to be inquisitive enough to talk about the full extent of the impact; instead it’ll praise Biden for something about “jobs” (mostly low-wage jobs). █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
01.27.23
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Google at 1:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 74987f7fa344dfdc3ef4a4d40f5045ef
Hell, Sirius, Anybody There?
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: In my final year at Sirius ‘Open Source’ communication systems had already become chaotic; there were too many dysfunctional tools, a lack of instructions, a lack of coordination and the proposed ‘solution’ (this past October) was just more complexity and red tape
“HELLO, anybody there?”
Hell no. Wait till we authorise the microphone, open the correct browser window, and then roll up some scripts. Within 3 rings! Yeah, right! No way! On old hardware that can barely cope with epic bloatware imposed on all staff by the stingy management.
Sirius never provided us with hardware (other than a very old and second-hand Cisco phone), but it expected us to multi-task with a whole bunch of junk and up to three telephone systems running in parallel. Does that sound like a competent company? Who made these decisions? And who’s being blamed? Decision makers? Proprietary software? Or the victims of both?
“Sirius is broken beyond redemption because it is now governed by truly incapable people, shielded by a culture of intimidation and surrounded by sex partners who blindly follow orders/instructions.”The video above explains the absurdity of the telephone system at Sirius, which was only getting worse over time because incompetent people were calling the shots behind closed doors and without consulting those affected by their decisions. Not to mention how they repelled or scared away Asterisk-capable engineers. As it turns out, technical people were starting to have technical issues with the new “Google” system, which they could only object to after it had been pushed down their throats.
The moral of the story is, don’t outsource communications to proprietary software, do not rely on clown computing, and don’t let incompetent people make decisions (more so in the dark, in secrecy). It would harm both staff and clients and at the end the culprits will refuse to take the blame, instead insisting that they can salvage the whole mess by going deeper into the trap which caused the mess in the first place.
“ISO certification doesn’t mean compliance with common sense like companies controlling their own communications and protecting clients’ sensitive data, including passwords and private keys.”Sirius is broken beyond redemption because it is now governed by truly incapable people, shielded by a culture of intimidation and surrounded by sex partners who blindly follow orders/instructions.
And those are just the technical aspects, not the legal ones.
"The ISO Delusion" (latest part) explained privacy or data protection aspects; ISO certification doesn’t mean compliance with common sense like companies controlling their own communications and protecting clients’ sensitive data, including passwords and private keys. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
01.26.23
Posted in Google at 9:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Sirius ‘Open Source’ wasted hours of workers’ time just testing the phone after it had moved to a defective system of Google (proprietary); instead of a rollback (back to Asterisk) the company doubled down on the faulty system and the phones still didn’t work properly, resulting in missing calls and angst (the company just blamed the workers who all along rejected this new system)
Permalink
Send this to a friend
Posted in Google at 9:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Sirius ‘Open Source’ is mistaking “modern” for better; insecurity and a lack of tech savvy typically leads to that
Permalink
Send this to a friend
01.17.23
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google at 2:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: According to StatCounter, a surveyor which is based in Dublin (Ireland), Chrome OS and GNU/Linux approach 10% of the laptop/desktop market in Ireland
Permalink
Send this to a friend
01.05.23
Posted in Deception, Google at 9:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Google is playing ‘truth cop’ again; let this be a cautionary tale
This is the paper in question:
See start of this new video:
This refers to this video. Description of video can be found there, along with the facts as they were presented in the now-censored video.
This is why we do not use YouTube and will never use Youtube. It’s a political and corporate censorship machine, it’s not free hosting for videos.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
12.31.22
Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Servers at 12:02 am by Guest Editorial Team
Guest post by Dr. Andy Farnell
Previously in this mini-series:
- GAFAM Against Higher Education: University Centralised IT Has Failed. What Now?
- GAFAM Against Higher Education: Toxic Tech
- GAFAM Against Higher Education: Fixing the Broken Academy
- YOU ARE HERE ☞ Digital Crash Diet
Summary: “Digital literacy and self-sufficiency for academics and students should become a priority objective again,” Dr. Farnell explains
So I say, with great sadness but great urgency, the people responsible for this mess should all be fired. Their services should be disbanded. Networks should be pared back to the barest transparent physical infrastructure possible on which fully open zero-trust overlays can operate. Academia needs a crash diet.
“ICT must become the digital equivalent of the library or bookstore.”But that does not mean reducing the role of people. If anything we need to hire more, and better personnel as the toxic tech is turfed out. Most of the students are already at a higher level of technical understanding, and so obtaining ICT resources should be treated like buying textbooks from the university bookstore. ICT must become the digital equivalent of the library or bookstore.
Digital literacy and self-sufficiency for academics and students should become a priority objective again. Budgets can be devolved accordingly, and foundational courses taught to students who need a top-up on digital self-care.
Only then will we be able to see what is ready to be repatriated, brought back on-prem, and hire worthy specialists to provide those services internally. For example, a university data store that looks essentially like Dropbox and using micro-payments to manage quotas. Or a university email provider, properly separated from other concerns and carrying a minimal burden of “policies”. These could be run by recent graduates or, as I did at UCL in the 1980′s by good students needing a part-time job.
“Only then will we be able to see what is ready to be repatriated, brought back on-prem, and hire worthy specialists to provide those services internally.”Building carefully subsidised internal markets for healthy home-grown tech is a possible way to extricate from the jaws of Big-Tech and to build local competence again.
There are very few places that this could work, but the university is one. Because even if universities are now corporate entities on the financial level they cannot possibly function as corporate entities on the technical operational level and preserve their objectives. The almost total failure of supportive digital technologies within academia now stands as ample proof of that. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »
Content is available under CC-BY-SA