#uncategorized
DNA Lounge: Wherein Musicians Are Begging Fans to Mask Up at Concerts
"Yes SXSW was a superspreader event, and yes my entire band got COVID, as did many others," tweeted Canadian singer-songwriter Charlotte Cornfield. "We obviously knew there was a risk going in, but really feeling for everyone whose tours/lives have been derailed by this thing." Several other bands and radio DJs, music promoters, and record label employees have tweeted similar sentiments after testing positive. [...]
"Large swaths of the live music industry are overeager to pretend we're out of the pandemic. We're leaving behind many folks with disabilities and illnesses, which is not a new problem -- just a new way the ableism inherent in many venue spaces is being expressed since COVID," Speedy Ortiz singer-guitarist Sadie Dupuis tells Pitchfork. "When mask mandates first went away, the largest nurses' union in the country petitioned the CDC to reverse its decision and reinstate masking due to breakthrough cases. Because, vaccinated or not, masks are incredibly effective at preventing infection. With many of us having received boosters six-plus months ago, their efficacy is waning. A breakthrough case could wind up costing your favorite artist tens of thousands of dollars of expected income, the difference between a profitable tour and a tour in the red." [...]
Harpist Mary Lattimore says she still doesn't feel comfortable performing live, but knows it's an essential part of her job. "I link it to the lack of streaming revenue for artists," she explains. "Tour income is basically the only income. It was nonexistent for years so we have to get out there, but we're pretty vulnerable, going from place to place every night. One case of COVID and bands potentially lose thousands and thousands of dollars." [...]
For other touring artists, mask policies aren't necessarily up to them, but rather the headliners they're supporting. Wednesday are slated to open for Beach Bunny on a two-month-long tour, and their newfound discomfort around COVID-19 policy isn't reason enough to bail on such a big opportunity. "Because we're just openers on the tour, I don't feel like we have a ton of authority [to ask for that]," [...] The most I've felt comfortable asking people to wear masks so far is saying, 'Please wear your masks tonight; we have more dates we gotta play,' into the mic.
But "catching COVID might scuttle the tour" is only the start of it, as all of this completely ignores the specter of Long COVID. Wait until two years from now when you learn that your favorite band isn't a band any more, because the financial pressure to crowd into small rooms with antimaskers and antivaxxers means that now they have MS, or diabetes, or 20% lung function, and -- oh yeah -- no health insurance. (Are you kidding? They were in a band. )
Following the money
One thing that has long baffled me about our ongoing global clusterfuck has been the push to just pretend that it's not happening. Who benefits financially from that?
I think the answer is, commercial landlords and hotel financiers.
Backing up:
I don't think that the dropping of all mitigation measures happened just because "people" are "over it". I don't think it's some spontaneous groundswell. People have been given permission to say they're "over it", by misinformation campaigns that have been inflicted upon them.
Random individuals may be driven by infantile short-sightedness, but they are being encouraged in this by businesses, governments and state actors; they are being given cover to just pretend that it's not happening. Businesses are legendarily short-sighted, rarely able to see past the end of the quarter, but more than two years into this, shouldn't they have seen some patterns emerge? Even from the point of view of Capitalism Red in Tooth and Claw, how is it in their interest to have their employees dying by the thousands? To have them become saddled with life-long disabilities that will impact work and jack up the companies' own insurance costs for decades to come?
We've got stunts like this, where Maskless Mayor Breed gathers together a Rogue's Gallery of the world's worst businesses and pressures them into forcing their employees back into their cars and cubicles:
By committing to San Francisco, these businesses and many more are investing in this city and the people who live and work here. We are excited to welcome people back to downtown to work, dine, and experience our arts and culture. March is a new chapter for SF!
Which, due to character limits, she followed up with a second twit containing nothing but a list of the various companies' twitter handles. Ideally she'd be forced to wear their logos on her blazer like a NASCAR jacket, but she probably wouldn't even be embarrassed by that. Scarlet letter my ass.
tbreisacher: If the @SFPride parade was a tweet:
London Breed:
>
>> @BankofAmerica @BlackRock @sffed @FibroGenInc @GapInc @warriors @Google @HOKNetwork @Invitae @jpmorganchase @Meta @salesforce @united @Kilroyrealty @Mastercard @Microsoft @Orrick @SFGiants @SFSymphony @SPUR_Urbanist @Uber @usfca @Visa @WellsFargo
If a CEO wanted their employees back in the office for whatever reason (they think they're more productive, more controllable, whatever) they would just DO it. they don't need permission. They don't need the mayor campaigning for it. It's literally their call, and theirs alone. So why is the mayor campaigning for this? On whose behalf? We know it's not the CEOs, those are the targets of the campaign.
Part of the party line on this has been about the financial pain suffered by other downtown businesses, so is this on behalf of the hot dog cart on the corner? The food truck, the pizzeria, the upscale lunchtime businessman steakhouse?
No. Those businesses have no lobbying muscle at all. And more to the point, the various mayors and governors gave zero fucks about those businesses during the decades when the tech companies were building their own "free" cafeterias and restaurants directly into their office towers. Those companies did the math and figured out that if they served their employee a $6 meal in-house, they'd get an extra 2 hours work out of them every day. And all they had to do was shank that hot dog cart, that food truck, that pizzeria. The mayor gave zero fucks while that was happening.
So who's left?
Commercial landlords. They see the spectre of the Googles of the world deciding that they need half as much floor space, and strong-arming their way into smaller leases, or just defaulting on it and daring them to fight it out in court. "We're Google, what are you gonna do?"
I think that those are the donors on whose behalf Breed is lobbying. That's why she wants us to believe the pandemic is over. So that when the CEOs tell everyone to get back to work, to justify those downtown tower leases, that the drones don't just quit. She, and the landlords, require the consent of the abused.
Notably, it will not be the employees of the commercial real-estate holding companies whose lives will be put at risk by these back-to-the-cubicle policies.
Who else, though? Here's another clue:
Breed is currently on a corporate-funded tour of the Great Houses of Europe, glad-handing movers and shakers in the capital cities, putting on her dog-and-pony show about how San Francisco is still a great tourist destination. Hitting all the talking points countering the Fox News stories about blood in the streets, telling everyone the Tenderloin is still a safe and welcoming place for High End Retail.
So who benefits from that? Which lobbyists will be pulling those strings? Airlines, obviously, but more importantly, hotel financiers, and the money-laundering oligarchs who love them.
As we learned from Scooby Doo, Donald Trump and Lex Luthor, it's always a real estate scam.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
#uncategorized #bigbrother #conspiracies #corporations #doomed #firstperson #plague #sf
Y2038
Your periodic reminder that we are closer to the Y2038 bug than the Y2K bug:
SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP("2038-01-18 19:14:07") -> **2147483647;**
SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP("2038-01-18 19:14:08") -> **NULL;**
SELECT VERSION() -> 10.4.22-MariaDB-log
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
#uncategorized #computers #doomed #firstperson #linux #time_t
Robot war dogs hunting migrants now
Dystopian robot dogs are the latest in a long history of US-Mexico border surveillance:
Each is embedded with different types of cameras (thermal, night vision, long-range) and sensors (chemical, weapons detection). DHS praised the device's ability to cross multiple terrains -- including sand, rocks and hills -- and its durability in high heat and cramped spaces.
DHS' choice of vendor sparked additional concern. While most police departments leased their pups from Boston Dynamics, which forbids customers weaponizing any of their tech, DHS chose Philadelphia-based Ghost Robotics. Late last year, the company debuted a version of its robot dogs equipped with long-range guns capable of hitting targets at a reported 1,200 meters.
DHS's oddly cheery blogpost also implied the robots would be used beyond the border itself, including "towns, cities, or ports'' where DHS agents might encounter dangerous conditions. Federal officials have increased authority to stop and search civilians within 100 miles of the border, despite fourth amendment protections against arbitrary or excessive stops and seizures.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
#uncategorized #bigbrother #computers #corporations #doomed #grimmeathookfuture #killdozer #madscience #robots #security #stormtroopers
Cheese Caves
This cheese is not a cheese of honor.
No highly esteemed cheese is commemorated here.
No valued cheese is here.
What cheese is here is dangerous and repulsive to us.
Cheese Caves and Food Surpluses: Why the U.S. Government currently stores 1.4 billion lbs of cheese:
Hundreds of feet below the ground in Missouri, there are hundreds of thousands of pounds of American cheese. Deep in converted limestone mines, caves kept perfectly at 36 degrees Fahrenheit store stockpiles of government-owned cheese comprising the country's 1.4 billion pounds of surplus cheese. [...]
The government set a new policy to subsidize dairy, providing two billion dollars to the industry over the next four years. While this plan was welcome to dairy farmers, it also primed them for overproduction.
Farmers who had been struggling were motivated to produce as much dairy as they could, knowing that whatever was not sold on the market could likely be purchased by the government, and it was. By the early 1980s, the government owned over 500 million pounds of cheese. The reason the dairy product was converted to cheese was because it has a longer shelf life than other dairy products as the government searched for solutions to the problem it had created. [...]
Though demand is declining, production is not. It has risen 13% since 2010. In 2016, the American dairy industry dumped a whopping 43 million gallons of milk into fields, animal feed, and anaerobic lagoons. Though this waste is staggering, it is also not representative of the size of the surpluses being run by dairy farms. The dairy industry received 43 billion and 36.3 billion dollars in 2016 and 2017, respectively, from the federal government. In 2018, 42% of revenue for U.S. dairy producers came from some kind of government support.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Apartheid Emerald Mine Space Karen has a new gig: Monkey Vivisectionist
15 of 23 Monkeys with Elon Musk's Neuralink Brain Chips Died:
"Pretty much every single monkey that had had implants put in their head suffered from debilitating health effects," said the PCRM's research advocacy director Jeremy Beckham. "They were, frankly, maiming and killing the animals."
Neuralink chips were implanted by drilling holes into the monkeys' skulls. One primate developed a bloody skin infection and had to be euthanized. Another was discovered missing fingers and toes, "possibly from self-mutilation or some other unspecified trauma," and had to be put down. A third began uncontrollably vomiting shortly after surgery, and days later "appeared to collapse from exhaustion/fatigue." An autopsy revealed the animal suffered from a brain hemorrhage.
The PCRM filed a complaint with the the US Department of Agriculture on Thursday, accusing UC Davis and Neuralink of nine violations of the Animal Welfare Act. "Many, if not all, of the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments, which were performed in pursuit of developing what Neuralink and Elon Musk have publicly described as a 'brain-machine interface,'" the group wrote in the complaint. [...]
Musk said in December that Neuralink hoped to start human testing this year.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
#uncategorized #computers #doomed #madscience #monkeys #parts #tasp
Neoliberal John Snow
This whole account is pure gold.
Broad street businesses were complaining so I reinstalled the pump handle.
There is no parliamentary solution to the 1854 cholera epidemic. Cholera will be circulating in our community for hundreds of years and we must realize a new normal of life.
I'm relieved to let you know that most people dying from cholera in the 1854 epidemic have multiple comorbidities.
I respect the individual choices of all Londoners in this 1854 cholera epidemic. If you have cholera and want to defecate in the drinking water, that is your individual freedom. If you are afraid of getting cholera yourself, simply don't drink, cook, clean, or bathe with water.
We've been struggling with the 1854 cholera epidemic for so long. Zero Cholera isn't a realistic goal. The parliament simply cannot allocate the necessary funds to upgrade the London sewage system.
Look at that! The Royal Navy received a larger budget increase than requested.
The cholera epidemic of 1854 has split Londoners into two adversarial groups: Those who will defecate in the drinking water and those who won't. Can't we find middle ground to heal this rift, and simply drink the feces-contaminated water?
The 1854 cholera epidemic has disproportionately burdened the destitute. Calls for Queen Victoria to provide support for this group have not gone unheard, and she now recommends that these people stop being poor.
The Supreme court ruling means companies can now take down their burdensome "Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work" signs. Great news for businesses in this 1854 cholera epidemic.
Our restaurant industry is ready to serve you in this 1854 cholera epidemic! If you are having uncontrollable diarrhea when you arrive at the restaurant, please be sure to hold it in until you are seated at your table.
The 1854 cholera epidemic has been difficult for Londoners. To alleviate this burden, Queen Victoria is proud to announce that each household in London can register to receive 4 entire squares of toilet paper! Please avoid contracting cholera during the 7-10 day shipping window.
As I watch excrement dribble down the pantleg of the grocery clerk and expand the puddle on the floor of the produce department, I smile. Our 'Get to Work' policies allowed this boy with the sunken eyes to meaningly contribute to the economy, despite the 1854 cholera epidemic.
It's not an 'anti-clean-water' protest, they just oppose any mandate for the installation of sewers during the 1854 cholera epidemic.
You orphans have nothing to complain about. Your parents died WITH cholera, not FROM cholera. They really died from hypovolemic shock.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Hacker Takes Over Numbers Station For Rickrolls And Memes
Buzzer is a Russian military station currently haunted by radio pirates:
Mysterious Russian shortwave radio station UVB-76, known as The Buzzer, normally broadcasts nothing but indecipherable beeps and numbers. But recently it has started to take music requests and post memes, after hackers seemingly took control of the channel for their own purposes. "Aboba" a voice repeatedly said over the station earlier today, before proceeding to blast Russian rave music.
The Buzzer, a Russian numbers station in use since the Cold War, became a sensation on the internet in the late 2000s thanks to 4Chan, and ever since people have wondered about the channel's origins and purpose. It's been especially good fodder for online creepypasta and paranormal enthusiasts because of the mysterious voices that occasionally read out nonsensical chains of numbers and words.
This week, however, it was home to Guy Fawkes masks, Discord pings, and Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," as listeners gathered around YouTube streams for The Buzzer to witness the ghostly mashup.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
#uncategorized #bigbrother #computers #conspiracies #glitch #madscience #mpegs #music #pranks #retrocomputing #space #zalgo
Instagram: How not to do messaging
Though Facebook is really good at a few things -- being a rage amplifier; providing a clean, well-lit space for fascists; and allowing unmedicated schizophrenics to find each other and thereby elevate their delusions into national movements -- it's important to remember that they are actually stultifyingly incompetent at just about everything that comprises what most people think their business is.
Sadly, my businesses still have a presence on Facebook and Instagram because choosing not to use those services essentially means choosing not to advertise , and that's not really a stand we can afford to take during this pandemic apocalypse.
And since I still have to manage this shitshow, here's me pissing in the wind again about how terrible it is to try and actualy use it.
I've written before about the mind-boggling unusability of Instagram's inbox-management for business accounts: that the messages are partitioned into four different places with four different interfaces with no rhyme or reason. It's just unfathomable how anyone is able to communicate with their customers through this disaster. [Narrator: "They cannot. They mostly don't try."]
Well, a couple years ago, Facebook integrated Instagram into this "Facebook Inbox For Business Suits" thing or whatever they're calling it today. In theory, now you can use a Facebook web page instead of the postage-stamp-sized Instagram app to manage your messages while typing with your thumbs like an animal.
Take a look at the image to the right. Zoom in. Let the hate wash over you. I'll wait.
First indignity: you have to make the window be basically full screen width or none of those icons on the right show up, because it's got 3 different sidebars (not shown). And even then, sometimes the message author's profile picture appears on top of the buttons , making them unclickable.
The "All Messages" tab is not all messages. So the very first words on the page are already a lie. You still have to click through to the four other tabs to see everything.
When it shows you an Instagram "story", you almost never get to actually see it. Stories usually expire after 24 hours, but I look at this page once a day and I can't remember the last time a story actually showed up as something other than a broken-image box.
When it does actually show you the contents of an Instagram story or post, it is 240 pixels wide. You can't resize it. You can't click on it to open it in a new window. You can't copy its URL. Hope your eyesight is good!
When it shows you Facebook messages or replies, it doesn't show you the actual message. It shows you the post on which the messages were made. And it is always set to "Most relevant comments", meaning it's showing you the top-rated 5-of-30 or whatever, in bogosort-order. Because that's what you want to see in your "Facebook Connect Businessy Direct Comments Suite". Not the most recent message, but one that was popular two weeks ago.
There is no "mark all read" button. You have a thousand messages in the list, but a couple of them, 700+ messages ago, are marked as unread, making the unread count up top useless? Congratulations, you get to click a thousand times to clear that. Also, the position of the "delete" button changes every time. Sometimes those 5 buttons are horizontal, but sometimes they wrap to 2 or 3 lines, depending on... I don't even know what. (See "Facebook Cow Clicker".)
Once you have deleted a message, it is gone forever. There is no Trash folder. The message itself exists, and everyone can still see it, you just have no way to navigate back to it from "Facebook Presents Inbox by Marc Jacobs" or whatever this is.
That "Exclamation point" button means "Mark as spam". As far as I can tell, it's the same as Trash. It does not even move it to a spam folder, because as I said, folders aren't a thing. There is no Spam folder, nor a Trash folder, not an Archive folder. And it absolutely for sure does not report the message as spam. It's just a handy busy-box for you to click that does nothing, like calling 311 about a blocked bike lane.
Is there a way to report abusive Instagram messages? Sure there is, there's a "Report" item hidden on a dot-dot-dot popup menu in the "User" sidebar! That takes you to a FAQ telling you to run the Instagram app on your phone, find the message again (good luck with that), and report it from there.
If it's a Facebook comment, there are context menus for blocking and reporting, that work completely differently. What you want is a button that means "report this abusive asshole and make them go away forever". What you get is three different paths to report comments, delete comments, and block users, which take like 14 clicks, and if you miss one step, some or all of those things don't happen. Also it's entirely possible that "block" means "don't show this person's abuse to me personally, but do continue showing them to everyone else who looks at my business page." After all these years, I still have no idea.
My business account manages multiple Facebook and Instagram pages. Do messages to all of them show up in the same place? Hahahahahahahaha no. Each one gets its own separate "Instagram By Facebook Inbox Business Message Console Business" page.
Oh yeah, those red message count badges at the top? They never change as messages are read or tabs are changed. I mean, that sounds too hard, right?
One might hope that this incompetence indicates that they simply don't have employees who know what they're doing, and one might dream that maybe that's because Facebook is just too embarassing a place for the competent to work. Maybe the people capable of getting jobs elsewhere took my advice and quit. But that's wishful thinking. Ethics are not correlated with programming skill. It's just that they don't give a shit. Tools to allow businesses to use Facebook to intermediate communication with those businesses' customers are not a priority. As a rational, sane person, the things that you expect are part of Facebook's business are not. If you think you are their customer, or even that your customers are their customers, you are wrong.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
#uncategorized #computers #corporations #doomed #firstperson #spam
Oddly specific botnet
Whoever once had the address "mim@mcom.com" has a vast and extremely enthusiastic botnet trying to crack their password on mcom.com's (nonexistent) IMAP server, from 20,000+ unique IPs in the last 30 days.
Never give up hope, it might work some day!
Though I am impressed by the IP space they control, I guess.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
#uncategorized #computers #doomed #firstperson #nscp #security #spam #www
