Bonum Certa Men Certa

Taking Back Control or Seizing Autonomy Over the News Cycle (Informing People, Culling the Marketing)



Video download link | md5sum 6c1484d9bde38cacb2e9a0c3351de662 What Lies Ahead for Us Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: The World Wide Web has become so utterly full of trash and classic plagiarism/egregious spam that separating the wheat from the chaff is fast becoming a truly challenging task (not just due to machine-generated spew disguised as 'articles' because it's grammatically solid -- hardly a new thing by the way!)

THIS past weekend, and more so yesterday (Sunday), we hardly published anything other than Daily Links. Instead we were developing various tools, for means of gradual improvement, in order to extend our scope of coverage, investing in a chain of commands that can better serve the site's audience.



"We try to cite more and more sources over time."Unlike s***GPT, which I discuss in the video above, a set of tools can rely on human understanding and curation, with actual sources to be cited. We try to cite more and more sources over time. Seeing that the Web is getting smaller and search engines keep getting worse (for a number of reasons), we need to more properly assess what's published and where. Some former news sites became spamfarms and some automatically generate their "content". Some of the media just blindly parrots lies that come from any random company, more so if it becomes a paying "media partner". We need to respond to that, not relay that.

With the EPO coverage slowing down a bit in recent years, and given that I'm not writing much about the company I left (anymore), we want to place greater focus on tech issues, including mobile phones, "apps", and their impact on society. At the core we're still all about Free software, but we must look ahead at other challenges such as software patents and various malicious companies other than Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft is becoming less relevant each year (ignore the s***GPT noise machine; it is a paid-for PR campaign, not journalism) and we're exceedingly worried about openwashing. It's basically extinguishing a brand long associated with Software Freedom as the "business world" wants to do things secretly, in a proprietary fashion, while calling itself "open" (I should know; I left such a company 2 months ago after it had changed for the worse).

"At the core we're still all about Free software..."At the moment we're in a bit of a "flux", as we abandoned graphical RSS readers and are instead processing OPML files "by hand"*; over time, we believe, this will pay off. _____ * Mostly parsing, editing in a text editor, and joining; nothing over-engineered or overly complex, as those would be harder to maintain in the long run.

Recent Techrights' Posts

BetaNews is Now Officially a Spamfarm With Phantom Authors and Fake Text (SPAM and Linkspam Made With LLM Slop)
That's it, the site is virtually dead now (maybe that was the plan all along)
Hazem Abbas of medevel is Ruining His Site With LLM Slop
Some of his articles are original, but now everything is suspect
Free Software Foundation: Anchoring the FSF in its values
Original by Free Software Foundation
GNU/Linux Surges to All-Time Highs in Greenland, Windows Sinks to All-Time Lows
a lot of GNU/Linux gets detected there lately
Microsoft in Trouble as Azure Breaks and Only Days After Promising Investment in "Datacentres" Construction of Actual Datacentres Paused (Expect More Azure Layoffs Very Soon)
No wonder many people who got trapped inside Azure quit Azure, which keeps bleeding (losses and layoffs)
Using a Popular Ponzi Scheme to Sell Expensive Hardware Mislabelled as "Hey Hi" (AI)
Selling shovels in an age of "gold rush"
Search Engine-Optimised (SEO) Googlebombs Target "Linux", "Ubuntu", and "RISC-V", Still Composed by Bots
the way to defeat LLM slop (trash) is to call out serial sloppers or "repeat plagiarists"
Unix Men (or UnixMen) Has Turned Into LLM Slop With Embedded Linkspam, Piggybacking "Linux" for SEO
Welcome to 2025 and the "new" Web
 
An Important Lesson About Patents and Patent Maximalism (They Drive People and Companies Away)
This previously happened in Texas, where companies perceived their presence (in any form) to be a liability as patent trolls could drag them to friendly courts and win "damages"
When It Comes to Fentanylware (TikTok), a Digital Weapon of a Hostile Entity, Common Dreams is Jumping the Shark Again (Years After It Ran Out of Steam or Money)
Or maybe it likes the agenda promoted (curated) by Fentanylware (TikTok) and its parent company, Bytedance or Chinese Community Party (CPP)
[Meme] Real and Fake (or "several influential "open source" organizations [which] have come to be dominated by large companies")
The Free Software Foundation has not sold out
Microsoft's "Donald Trump First" Doctrine
national deficits growing
Gemini Links 11/01/2025: Wildfire, Militia and the Mole, IRC vs Social Control Media
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 10, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, January 10, 2025
Links 10/01/2025: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Shrinking, "Not every user owns an iPhone"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/01/2025: Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Linux Desktop Setup
Links for the day
[Meme] Donald Trump Will Pay Microsoft Back
bribery administration is 10 days away
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Tripling in Share in 3 Years in Iran
ChromeOS adoption is low, but then again, nobody buys a Chromebooks with the expectation of better privacy
Guardian Digital, Inc (linuxsecurity.com) is Again Spamming or Googlebombing "Linux" and "Security" Using LLM Slop
Guardian Digital is basically a dodgy company. Don't trust Guardian Digital with your security.
Computers as a Heat Source
suppose you have over a dozen activated monitors in a room or two
Social Control Media and 'Linux' Foundation Accelerate the Death of the Web
Social Control Media is basically a dying business
Links 10/01/2025: Disinformation Sold as "Artificial Intelligence (AI)" and as "Social Media" Now Facing Growing Scrutiny
Links for the day
Linux Foundation Increasingly Reliant on Paid Press Releases, Paid-for Stenography, and Even LLM Slop (Fake 'Articles')
This LLM slop is a big problem both for Linux and for Google
Links 10/01/2025: Scam Altman’s Younger Sister Files Lawsuit Claiming He Sexually Abused Her, Apple Faces Embargo
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/01/2025: Internet Archive Gopher Search Interface and Falling "in Love With the Small Web"
Links for the day
Starting 2025 on a Strong Note
we ought to find more time to produce our own stories
Entire News Sites Have Become Just the Output of Bots (or Chatbots Disguised as "Authors")
the Web is screwed
Colombian Trends Help Explain Why Microsoft Rushes to Start the Year With Mass Layoffs (Before Some Staff is Even Back to Work!)
No wonder there are mass layoffs (first of GAFAM) as early as week 1 of 2025
LLM Slop and Bot-Generated Marketing for the Linux Foundation and Its Openwashing
Of course it's chaff
Microsoft Gives Money to Trump, Poor or Even Sluggish Adoption of "Hey Hi" (AI) Reported Amid Mass Layoffs
Microsoft now uses its media moles to downplay layoffs and bribes
More IBM Layoffs (2025)
IBM is being scattered away, yet the media barely covers it. It'll just happen "silently" over time.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, January 09, 2025
Using Microsoft Chatbot to Generate Microsoft FUD Against SSH/OpenSSH
It's from the "prime suspect"
Free Software Cannot Rely on Politicians, They Don't Even Care About Software, They Only or Mostly Care About Money
There's no simple solution to this situation short of revolutionising the political system
No, There's No "Age Of AI" or "Era Of AI" or "AI Revolution" or "AI Arms Race", It's Just a Dying Tech Industry Looking to Prop Up Its Valuation Using Hype and False Marketing of Mostly Dysfunctional Tools
Please, enough with this nonsense
[Meme] Just a Draft, Nothing Professional Like GNU
the FSF is ~40,000 dollars short of its goal
Draft About Drafts
The static site generator (SSG) is improving
When They Insist That Getting Rid of Paper Receipts and Paper Trail of All Kinds is Better (Manchester City Council and the "Smart" or "App" Mindset)
just classic greenwashing
Gemini Links 09/01/2025: Domain Changes, Dirty Links, and OpenWRT
Links for the day
Links 09/01/2025: X-Book (Facebook) Follows the MElon (Musk) Model and X Comes Under EU Investigation for Inciting
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft's Scam Altman, Bigger Scammer Than 'Crypto' 'Currency' 'Exchanges'
More pollution, too
Interest in Microsoft Waning, Company Deep in Debt and Mass Layoffs Implemented Every Month Since 2023
As fewer people still use Windows (over time many move to Android or whatever) that site, microsoft.com, will likely languish some more
Microsoft Says Scale of Layoffs in January 2025 is Several Thousands
Microsoft is the first of GAFAM to announce layoffs in 2025
Microsoft Windows Continues to Sink in India
The consistent and almost linear decrease will continue because Microsoft has nothing in store other than vapourware and mass layoffs
statCounter Has Outdated and Unfit-for-Purpose User-Agent Parsers
poor recognition or parsing or classification of User-Agent strings
Microsoft Starts 2025 Like 2024: Mass Layoffs Every Month!
It's a company in tailspin
[Meme] GAFAM Buying Shares in NYSE:EFF
To the ordinary person, today's EFF isn't a go-to protector, it's just meant to look like one
Sometimes the EFF Prefers to Talk About Sex, Not Tech (or Unnecessarily Conflate the Two Things)
The old name (or brand) remains; the goals? Not so much...
Beta'News' Still a Spamfarm Run by Bots
It's a source of Web pollution
Links 09/01/2025: Software Patents Squashed, Meta Becomes "MAGA" Booster
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/01/2025: Chants of Sennaar and Security Theater
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, January 08, 2025