Bonum Certa Men Certa

It's Going to be a Long, Long Winter

Lamps in winter



Summary: Today we revert back to lock-down mode; we're reflecting and pondering what comes next

THE "TIER 3" restrictions are in effect here in Manchester as of 2 hours ago (expect national debt to soar even further). The problem isn't uniquely Mancunian or British; 1,796 COVID-19 (linked or caused) deaths were registered across Europe yesterday, including 290 in Russia (Eurasia). That's quite a lot. With 474,412 new cases at the time of writing (the number will continue to grow a little while I type this), we're also talking about all-time highs all across the board (the US has registered the highest number of new cases since July).



"The economic impacts of the pandemic are far-reaching."People who believe that COVID is "nothing" or "no worse than the flu" might want to skip this article altogether and reassess where they get their "news". We won't waste time on COVID denialists/deniers. Hardly worth the effort (and by the way, we have vaccination for the flu... since ages ago, so we don't need to lock down during 'flu seasons').

The economic impacts of the pandemic are far-reaching. We try hard to focus on ramifications that are limited to technology and tech-rights-type issues. Because there's plenty of good journalism about COVID in general (lots included in our Daily Links), as well as poor coverage, which extends to surveillance jingoism. Look what Russia is doing...

Beach in winterThe way things stand, no vaccination is expected any time soon (just as real experts predicted, unlike vaccine profiteers such as Bill Gates). This means that people generally need to get accustomed to it, not work towards some imaginary deadline where COVID just sort of 'vanishes' and becomes a thing of the past. By the way, don't for a second believe the figures from China (which are as dubious as North Korea's for a number of rather obvious reasons). A lot of dictatorships want their country to be seen as "doing a good job" regarding COVID; so distorting the statistics is seen as "OK" (it's not like there's press freedom to hold the regime accountable and question "official" messages). Considering what Donald Trump did to the CDC and FDA some months ago, the American reporting is suspect as well. See "Amid Trump's Politicization of FDA, California Joins New York in Vowing to Independently Review Coronavirus Vaccines" (the same should be true in Russia, whose dictator refuses to even consider another lock-down as infection rates increase).

The leader of Germany (a doctor herself) once predicted, based on informed experts, that by the time it all 'ends' about 2/3 of the population will have had COVID-19 and the goal was to improve survival (recovery) rates, e.g. by lowering the spread of the virus. Well, yesterday Germany blasted through infection records (12,519 cases in a day) and registered its 10,000th COVID-linked death. Even countries that were regarded as very good at dealing with COVID-19 are struggling. Switzerland, with a population estimated at 8.6 million, registered 5,256 new cases yesterday alone. Death rates across Eastern Europe, not just Western Europe (Spain, France, Belgium, UK etc.), are rapidly increasing. There's no "herd immunity" and other such malarkey; if it sweeps across 90% of the world's population, we're looking at many millions of deaths and no access to hospitals (with ventilators/respirators). Forget about going to hospitals for cancer screenings and other mundane issues, including easily preventable and trivially treatable conditions. Foreseeing the borderline collapse of the existing system and the capacity to treat patients, back in March I completed a series of routine tests. It might take another year or two before anything resembling normalcy. That's the medical aspect, put apart.

Winter FashionNow, what about technology? The 'tech' monopolists like to pretend that it's business as usual, but they silently lay off a lot of staff, shut off units (sometimes reassigning existing stuff to other projects), and take government bailouts (i.e. more more from the taxpayers). Things are always worse (much, much grimmer) than what corporations tell the public about themselves. I know about Microsoft, for instance, based on what insiders told me. They're bleeding. Law firms are also bleeding -- to the point of nowadays resorting to totally frivolous actions that are aggressive in nature and illogical in practice (they don't expect to win, they just want a fight).

2-3 months of worldwide lock-downs (with few exceptions) may have given a false sense of calm or the craved-for idea that COVID-19 was 'contained' and brought "under control" (yes, good luck doing that when a lot of the population still believes it's merely a "hoax", based on social control media posts from 'influencers' like Donald Trump).

Winter SnowmanIt's hard to tell when Manchester (and Lancashire at large) will exit "Tier 3", seeing that Wales is "joining the club" and more places shut down than re-open (as of minutes ago we have headlines such as "Wales lockdown: Supermarkets told to sell only essential items"). Get ready for a long, cold winter with little access to health and certainly no celebrations (Halloween already looks doomed, not just Christmas and New Year celebrations). The upside for us is that we'll likely have even more time to research and publish articles. It's not entirely clear yet what in Manchester will shut down and which places exactly remain open (some have not decided).

Recent Techrights' Posts

At the Root of the SLAPPs There Are Matters of GitHub Corruption and Microsoft Competition Crimes
Keep both eyes on the ball; this is about monopoly abuse and attempts to muzzle critics
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: More on the Complaint, Which Also Points the Finger at Stefano Mafulli and Deb Nicholson
Focus on what they are attempting to distract from
"Linux" Foundation, Besieged by Microsoft, Isn't About Science But Against Science and Against Facts
(and for Microsoft Dogma, Microsoft Domination, Microsoft Money)
IBM Pays IDG's IDC to Market Proprietary Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Under the Guise of "Research"
Proprietary RHEL promoted by FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt or just plain fear-mongering)
Gemini Links 10/04/2025: "Secret of Happiness" and Overthinking POSSE
Links for the day
 
Gemini Links 11/04/2025: Microcosmographia Academica and Ada Language
Links for the day
Links 11/04/2025: "Getting Screamed At" and LLM Crawlers as Vandals Online
Links for the day
Links 11/04/2025: Microsoft Mass Layoffs Again, Zelensky Doubles Down on Claim That Many Chinese Are Fighting for Russia
Links for the day
Slopwatch: A Sea of LLM Slop About SparkyLinux, Kubernetes, Ubuntu, and Linux Kernel
Welcome to the future? The future of the Web?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 10, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 10, 2025
Links 10/04/2025: NNCPNET Email Network, RSS Readers, and IRS as 'Immigration Enforcer'
Links for the day
IBM Layoffs in Markham (Canada) Apparently Still Happening
"Still going on... Got laid off today. TEL Canada, Band 9, 19 years with IBM."
Links 10/04/2025: Fentanylware (TikTok) Perils and Internet Shutdown
Links for the day
Microsoft's "Linux" Foundation Pays Writers to Publish Propaganda and Then LLM Slop Sites (Slopfarms) Repeat the Propaganda, Using Microsoft LLMs
consider the latest LLM slop
Once You Slop You Can't Stop and If You're a Serial Slopper Nobody Will Believe You Really Wrote an Article (Even If You Did)
It's a lot like, "if you're a serial liar people won't believe you even when you say some truth" (or "once a cheater, always a cheater")
Pressing Against SLAPPs (From Americans Who Strangle Women While Microsoft Pays Their Salaries) is a High Priority for Us
We also need to ensure that greedy firms/people that facilitate the SLAPPs get "disbarred" or "struck off"
Mozilla Firefox Already Down to 1% in Brazil
Don't people crave the surveillance and the slop?
Links 10/04/2025: Hardware, Politics, and Internet
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/04/2025: Creativity and Agitation, Life in the USA, CSS Naked Day 2025
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 09, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 09, 2025
Alleged Layoffs at IBM Consulting in Australia
IBM loses many government contracts these days
The Rumours Were Likely True: Sixth Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in 2025 (Days After "50" Anniversary and About 5,000 Layoffs)
5 hours ago, by Ashley Stewart
Malware in Proprietary Software - Latest Additions
Original by Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Links 09/04/2025: More Trade Wars and Wars, Chinese Army Troops Found Fighting in Ukraine
Links for the day
Linux Clickbait by Slop
Give it up for Brian Fagioli, the Serial Slopper
IBM and MCC: Layoffs Coming Again to Metro Connect Company Limited (MCC) as Tariffs Bite and IBM's Shares Fall
Blacklists applicable to Chinese suppliers also mean that IBM can no longer cooperate with key partners in Asia
Microsoft's Entire Premise for Its Future Existence Goes Up in Flames
32 minutes ago
GNU/Linux on a High in Colombia
Stereotypes much?
Go Static
Please don't Go(lang) or JavaScript or PHP or...
Techrights Be Like...
K.I.S.S.
Gemini Links 09/04/2025: Autism, Cybersecurity, and LLMs Attacking Services Online
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Would be Measured at Over 5% Globally (by statCounter) Had the Data in India Not Been Changed
GNU/Linux grew a lot in many countries and has expanded since then
Keeping Track of Microsoft Layoffs in 2025
So here's a quick roundup of 2025
The Sixth Anniversary of the Lightweight Alternative to the Web (Gemini Protocol)
Now 11 short of 3,000 active capsules. 65 short of 4,500 total.
Links 09/04/2025: Quartz Fires All Writers (Shutdown, LLM Slop or Slopfarm Instead), "Bitcoin Is Crashing Hard"
Links for the day
People Are Sick of LLM Slop. Offer Them Alternatives.
We never used LLM slop for anything and we never will
Web Surveyor statCounter Sees Apple's macOS Falling From 5.6% to 3.6% in Two Months, It Might Soon be Smaller Than GNU/Linux
Apple's "value" (faked, exaggerated) is back to "pandemic times"
UK House of Lords Recognises the SLAPP Issue in the UK and EFF Pursues "Bill (That) Could Put A Stop To Censorship By Lawsuit" in the US
"A House of Lords inquiry into how the news industry can survive into the future has accused the government of “failing to prioritise” action on strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)."
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: Seeking Class Action Against the OSI
"LETTER SEEKING CLASS ACTION REPRESENTATION"
The Value of Slop, by Alexandre Oliva
Original by Alexandre Oliva
Gemini Links 09/04/2025: Neocities, Tinylogs, and Inter-community Protocols
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 08, 2025
You Can Be an A--hole to Women (Even Strangle Women) as Long as You Work for Microsoft
Recalling the Mark Shuttleworth origin story
Canonical is a Proprietary Software Reseller With a 'Debian Base'
"Canonical Ubuntu" is just Debian with some proprietary things sold on top of it