Tag: Suckage

Things that totally suck

Flock Off

Surveillance Society, Technology

And then we have this little collection of reindeer games:

A quiet battle is happening across the US right between towns working to adopt Flock Safety systems and those trying to ban them entirely. From major cities like Los Angeles canceling its Flock contract to towns wrapping Flock AI cams in plastic bags because Flock won’t take them down, it’s a wild time for surveillance and questions about government accountability.

But what happens when you start seeing Flock’s now-recognizable solar panels and AI cameras going up in your neighborhood? What happens when they start to recognize your car or even individual people?

I don’t want to say what I really feel, at this point, because I may get into trouble.  Still, being who I am, I can’t help thinking of this kind of solution:

Then, purely in the spirit of scientific inquiry, I’m wondering if this might work:

Curious, that’s me.  But if you’re going to test the stuff, you may want to get some soon before it mysteriously starts to vanish off the shelves at Home Depot, or from Amazon’s warehouses.

News Summary

Bad News


...one would have thought...


...dangerous for whom?  Asking for a friend.


...I’m taking bets that most if not all of the 400 aren’t native-born Frogs.  What, nobody wants to take a bet?


...in which we play our popular “Guess The Race” game.


...and one more time...


...I hope it crashes with lots of Irish politicians on board.  Would serve them right, the anti-Semitic assholes.


...just wasn’t his day, was it?


....ummmm if her body is covered, she’s not “completely” nude, is she?  Nevertheless, here’s the proof:

I report, you opine.

Quote Of The Day

Old Age, QOTD

From The Divine Sarah, talking about depression:

“Anyway, part of the black dog these days is telling me that I’m done. I’ve done what I could, and now it’s over, and it’s time to shuffle quietly into that good night.”

I think pretty much everyone reaches that stage — I know I have — and I have nothing but respect for people who continue to do serious stuff well into their eighth decade (e.g. the current POTUS).

My old friend Max, he of the Busker Chronicles, put it in his usual cynical fashion:  “Now all we have to do is wait for death.”

I find it increasingly difficult to summon up the enthusiasm to write about much — yesterday’s post about the German car business was one of the few times I could be bothered, because I was actually interested in the phenomenon that is German stupidity.

Otherwise, it’s one big shrug after another.

The only thing that continues to interest me is going “once more into the breech*”, i.e. shooting.

And now, if you’ll excuse me…

*I know, it’s “unto the breach”, thank you Shakespeare’s Henry V.

News Snippets

Bad News


...I’d just love to see the numbers behind that assertion — especially when compared to likely “tremendous numbers” of job losses to this new magical fad.


…only actual humans can qualify?  Buzz Lightyear and Woody sue for anthropocentric bias.


...can’t wait to see the MTBF* numbers on this little trend.  If we’re ever allowed to see them, that is.


...from bad to terrible, or from terrible to really horrible?  I report, you decide.


...let me know when the orange jumpsuits are issued.  Otherwise… [yawn]


...see above.

And in Show Biz (I think) News:


…

*MTBF: Mean Time Between Failures

Proportionate Response

Foreign Affairs, Law and Order

See, here’s the kind of statement that makes me want to reach for the old nail-studded cluebat.  (I know I know, it’s a Brit ergo a fucking dumbass / ideologue, but I’ve heard the same drivel being spouted by our Lefty assholes Over Here.)

British Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has said that not all ethnic groups should be treated the same by police in the wake of the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, who died in police handcuffs after officers refused to believe he had been stabbed by a Sikh man.

Wait, it gets better:

Lammy, who also serves as the left-wing Labour Party government’s Justice Secretary, said that while the “starting point” should be equality before the law, it is not always appropriate to be treated “the same”, noting the disproportionate arrest rates of certain ethnic minority groups, such as Roma travellers [Gypsies] and black Britons.

…and as we all know, the reason that gypsies and Black Britons get disproportionately arrested is — wait for it — because they commit a disproportionate number of the crimes.

It stands to reason (except to people like this twerp) that if you go fishing in a pond where 80% of the fish are yellow-colored, you’re going to catch a disproportionate number of yellow fish.

I’d like to give tits like this Lammy the benefit of the doubt — i.e. that they’re just statistically ignorant — but the truth of the matter is that for them, everything is viewed through the RAAAYYYYYCISM! lens.

Which is what led to the horrible outcome for the Nowak kid, above.  (For those who don’t know what that story was all about, go here.)

The Story So Far

Housekeeping

# Active accounts (starting):  47,244

# Active accounts (current):  27,290

That’s after twelve solid hours.  Over 8,000 Russian bots, and 7,500 identified spam email addresses.  I did get through all the “A” accounts, so there’s that.

Now to tackle the rest of the alphabet.

One last thing:   Reader 0007 and Reader Paul W. (from our Powdered Wig Department), please email me because I inadvertently deleted your accounts, and I’ll reinstate them ASAP.  Also, anyone whose username begins with A/a, please check in case I did likewise harm to you.

I’ll try to get a little blogging done today, just to escape the tedium of looking at lines and lines of code.  How programmers do this all day every day for years without going postal is a mystery for the ages.