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

When People Call a Best/Close Friend of Bill Gates a "Serial Rapist"
Good thing that the Linux Foundation keeps the "Linux" trademark ("Linux Mark") clean
Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia, Shutdown in Pakistan, What Next?
It seems possible that in 2025 alone Microsoft will have laid off over 50,000 workers
What Matters More Than "Market Share"
The goal is freedom, not "market share"
Credit Suisse collapse obfuscated Parreaux, Thiébaud & Partners scandal
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
UK Media Under Threat: Cannot Report on Data Breach, Cannot Report on Microsoft Staff Strangling Women
The story of super injunction (in the British media this week, years late)
Under the Guise of "MIT Technology Review Insights" the Site MIT Technology Review Posts Corporate Spam as 'Articles'
Some of the articles aren't even articles but 'hit pieces' against Free software and some are paid advertisements
Brett Wilson LLP Has Track Record in Scam Coin Cases (e.g. Craig Wright and More), Now It Works for 'Crypto' Scam Purveyors
But wait, it gets worse
Will Brett Wilson LLP Handle Its Own Winding Up Petition or be Struck Off for Overt Abuse of Process?
Today we sue not only the first Microsofter
 
CALEA / CALEA2 is the Real Problem, Not Chinese Operatives Exploiting CALEA / CALEA2 (as Any Other Nation Can)
CALEA / CALEA2 is more of a front door than a back door
99.99% Uptime in First Half of 2025
Since January there was only one noticeable outage
Nils Torvalds and Anna "Mikke" Torvalds (née Törnqvis) Hopefully Use GNU/Linux by Now
"Torvalds Family Uses Windows, Not Linus’ Linux"
Attack of the Slopfarms
FUD-amplifying bots with slop images, slop text (LLM slop)
Not My Problem, I Don't Care
Context/inspiration: Martin Niemöller
Honest Journalism About the European Patent Office Ceased to Exist After SLAPPs and Bribes to the Media
The EPO is basically a Mafia
Life Became Simpler When I Stopped Driving and I Don't Miss Driving When I See "Modern" Cars
Gee, wonder why car sales have plummeted...
Why I Believe Brett Wilson LLP and Its Microsoft Clients Are All Toast
So far our legal strategy has worked perfectly
EPO Jobs Are Very Toxic and Bad for One's Health
Health first, not monopolies
Response to Ryo Suwito Regarding the Four Freedoms
the point of life isn't to make more money
Microsoft's Morale Circling Down the Drain
Or gutter, toilet etc.
Tech Used to be Fun. To Many of Us It's Still Fun.
You can just watch it from afar and make fun of it all
Links 17/07/2025: "Blog Identity Crisis" and Openwashing by Nvidia
Links for the day
Greffiers and the US Attorney of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
The lawsuit can help expose extensive corruption in the American court system as well
The People Who Promoted systemd in Debian Also Promote Wayland
This is not politics
Victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, Wanted to Sue Him But Lacked the Funds (He Attacked Their Finances)
Having spoken to victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
Links 17/07/2025: Science, Hardware, and Censorship
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Gemini Links 17/07/2025: Staying in the "Small Web" and Back on ICQ
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC logs for Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Exclusive: corruption in Tribunals, Greffiers, from protection rackets to cat whisperers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/07/2025: Chip Bans and Microsoft’s “Digital Escort” Program
Links for the day
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
Revolving Doors: One Day You're a Judge, the Next Day You're an Attorney Paying Public Officials and Working for Violent and Dangerous Microsoft Employees
how the US justice system works
Sharing Code and Recipes
It helps explain the triviality of software freedom
Slopwatch: Noise, Plagiarism and Even Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation
What are we meant to do to prevent a false association or misleading connotations? Game the LLMs? No. Boycott slopfarms.
How Many Women Has Microsoft's Alex Balabhadra Graveley Already Strangled and Where Does That End?
If you too are a victim of this man and wish to share information, contact us
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Links 16/07/2025: Fascist Slop Takes "Intelligence" Clothing, New Criminal Case Against MElon
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I follow the example of my father
Why I am Suing the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, in the UK High Court This Week
Out of respect to the process and to the Court, I shall not share any pertinent details about the case
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
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Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
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Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
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The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
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It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
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Over at Tux Machines...
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