Sunday, December 13, 2020

This week, some of the oddest news included:

• Chicken feathers boiled and broken down to make keratin and “gourmet food”. This is possibly still some vegan’s nightmare but some ecosafe scientist’s moist dream.
• Virtual mates are coming to the net. And three dimensional, AI driven, sensor technology is coming to a home pleasure center near you. Basically rather than going out and meeting people and seeing people, this Covid new world has a bunch of people thinking up a fantasy world where life is contactless and peopleless. Imagine dating without the human aspect as life becomes soulless with everything virtual and everything is done by webcams and remotely. Think see the episode of “Raising Gazorpazorp”. See Blade Runner replicants and Demolition Man.
• Masks might be “needed” but that doesn’t make 2020 any less dystopian. In an odd world that we’ve started living in, daily metropolitan buses that run ads keep reminding you to wear masks and look to others for facts and inspiration. Have you been on buses lately and they keep playing their ads over and over every morning? Throughout history you may have seen in most war efforts that news and radio waves were used to broadcast correct thinking or what a particular group’s agenda wanted you to think. See WWII and Cuban and shortwave broadcasts. Often there were broadcasts that permeated airwaves into other countries and vice versa, sometimes with the intent to jam or interfere and get people to think a certain way or favorably to one particular groups agenda. You might be seeing that now as there has been talks of some people manipulating health data to look more favorable a certain way or another. They were talking about health official data handler in one state. It’s important as a millennial and general adult to be somewhat critical about the media you consume every day. The net has become flooded with so much information it’s hard to tell what to believe. The other day we saw an article about a particular amusement park that automatically photographically manipulates pictures to add facial masks to encourage roller coaster riders to wear masks regardless because their end-of-ride-photo-finish shot would have a mask regardless. The amusement park had a bit of a odd bit in the news when they were advertising for people to return to the park in the midst of pandemic worry. Even a few days ago when new vaccines were said to be on the cusp of approval there was a piece on the news talking about how it was the “moment we’ve been waiting for”. Seems like it’s priming everyone to think a certain way. Thank goodness for different countries and different ways of thinking. There are now alternate sites and places for ‘wrong thinking’ popping up on the web since censorship and deletion of news are popping up. This is a ethical qualm. Should big tech remove or delete posts that could potentially be harmful and risk ire and people moving to other platforms or some other course? This is a whole debate on tech section provisions on what content is allowed on a platform and liability. On the one hand there are people that are very forward and open thinking and others that are more moderate and companies work to strike a balance between political correctness and raw unfettered unfiltered content. On the one hand growing up and first experiencing the Internet in the 90’s there were basic adult and content filters for young minds at school, but now anyone with a cellphone or tablet and basic Internet can access everything globally and various modes of thinking. It’s limitless.
• FireEye ended up on the news these past weeks. This was a cybersecurity data firm that helped clean up in the aftermath of data breaches from Sony and Equifax years ago. But if this cybersecurity firm couldn’t protect its own networks, what hope do us ordinary laymen Joe’s have? It is suspected that a nation state had the resources and prowess to breach the network. Recent news says other gov firms have been hacked recently. More news to come out. Often it is said other countries are hacking a country’s data. But why does it have to be some other nation or state. It could be an inside job. The winners of a war rewrite history to suit their needs. And of course you hardly ever hear of the alternate histories.
  • Lesson: be extra careful online. Cybersecurity is the real news these days. The other 95% of the news is a mirage for what’s happening behind the scenes.

Didja hear any other news? Feel free to post a comment and we’ll investigate it and report back here.