Bonum Certa Men Certa

2023 Will be a Pivotal Year for Techrights

Summary: As we quickly approach the last month of the year, here's a look back at a wonderful year for Techrights (but not for the world in general) and a look at the year ahead

WE recently published the 35,000th blog post and celebrated 16 years.

This long weekend (owing to Thanksgiving) has given plenty of time for reflection and planning. It's not a secret that there are many changes afoot, but overall those are positive changes and they will make this site better. Not just a Web site, but so much more...

In-Depth Investigations



Site migrations are already underway, but it takes time as we still focus on publication of material too (we don't want to halt that). The GitHub/Microsoft series will go on next year; there's plenty of material we're eager to publish. There are several other "big stories" (or series) in the making, but they take time to properly prepare and fact-check. Stay tuned.

Tor, GNUnet, and More



If all goes according to plan, Tor/Onion will be supported next year. IPFS and Gemini have good resilience already and are robust to downtime (with spare nodes and hardware). GNUnet is still being considered. It's a promising project. It seems like Mumble too is gaining adoption (it's mentioned a lot online this year) and at the time of writing there are "514 known IRC networks" of significant size with a third of a million people online (counted across those networks).

Personal Life



As a researcher by training (and profession too; I was a postdoc for a few years) I like to examine the facts for myself and properly assess the evidence rather than blindly rely on what corporate press keeps saying. The media gets a lot of things wrong, but it tends to get away with it.

The way things are looking right now, this post-Brexit economy in a state of pandemic (that many are already in denial of) won't recover any time soon. Maybe there will be an upswing -- however small -- rather than ongoing downturn some time in the next 5 years. Maybe. In the meantime, for a lot of people there's a daily fight over necessities; it's about survival. The national health service (NHS) is under perpetual attacks (aside from privatisation), the press is rapidly collapsing (not many people are still willing to pay for news; some cannot afford such a "luxury"), so we're left with tabloids and oligarchs-owned "news" (sometimes the same as those tabloids).

Then there's the health crisis, aside from mental health crisis.

How Deaths Have Soared This Year (Compared to Pre-COVID-19 Levels)



A topic I typically write about in my personal site is worth echoing here, at least in passing. There's a mortality and morbidity crisis, which many are aware of while the media is suppressing or stonewalling or vainly gaslighting.

The relevant data is available from official (government) sources:

ONS data download

Recent weeks' total deaths in England and Wales:

Recent weeks

These numbers are very high, especially so in recent months.

This affects ALL age groups and has come to the point where some weeks have have more than 2,000 additional deaths compared to the 2015-2019 average (in week 20 it was more than 2,500 higher).

Here's 2022 (the unit in the X grid is week number):

Difference in deaths in 2022: 2022 deaths (England & Wales):  Above 2015-2019 average; Below 2015-2019 average

The high numbers (or very tall vertical bars) are number of deaths higher than pre-COVID-19 average number of deaths (for any given week).

Data: All deaths by week 45 versus pre-COVID-19 average (ODF)

That's just based on the data. No need to argue with the data, unlike interpretations of it. Stay cautious regardless.

With more time spent indoors, and with more time available in general, Techrights will grow and thrive.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete