Archive for the Internet Category

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Go Away Go Daddy (December 18, 2023)

Posted in Internet on December 18, 2023 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “In the embryonic days of the Internet, upstart Go Daddy sported sleazy and cheesy ads during sporting events.  I overlooked and disregarded the ads and purchased a website.  As the years have gone on, the prices to renew have gone up despite no major increase in the cost of administering a site.  Then they created a program that purports to do what they already promised to do, but at an additional annual or monthly charge.  The exploitation does not end.”

J          “I saw that.  Two-step verification is standard practice today.  Double-checking that the credit card information is correct is in their interest because they cannot legally take money from someone else’s account.  You have already paid for the service and now they want to assess a recurring fee for the service.  It is everywhere.  All the time.  Another 800 lb. sabre tooth tiger has been uncaged to terrorize the public.”

. . .

K          “At times, the 800 lb. sabre tooth tiger behaves more like a reticulated python that wraps around its victim and slowly squeezes the life out of it.”

J          “The reticulated python squeezes and squeezes and squeezes and squeezes and squeezes and squeezes its prey.  The sabre tooth tiger pounces and kills.  The reticulated python is a better analogy to describe the recurring charges.”   

. . .

K          “The latest scam is probably the handiwork of a recent graduate of the madrassa for financial terrorism.”

J          “The Harvard Business School never changes.  Business in America never improves, it only rots.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at “Recurring Revenue”:  Inserting A Tentacle Into Every Pocket (August 29, 2022) and Stalking The Stalking Saber-toothed Tiger (June 12, 2023).]

Bumper sticker of the week:

“Our Domain Ownership Protection plan keeps your domain protected from hackers by requiring 2-step verification for vital changes like transferring or deleting a domain.  Our Ultimate Domain Protection plan also holds your domain for 90 days if your credit card or billing method expires at renewal.”  Go Daddy

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Is Tucker Carlson The Walter Cronkite Of Our Day? (July 17, 2023)

Posted in Internet, Journalism on July 17, 2023 by e-commentary.org

. . .

J         “No.”

. . .

J          “Nope.”

. . .

J          “No way.”

. . .

J          “Not a chance.”

. . .

J         “Not in a million, two hundred seventy-four thousand, six hundred and thirteen years.”

. . .

K          “He asks questions.  He listens to answers.  He challenges conclusions.”

. . .

J          “Not with a 3.048 meter pole.”

. . .

K          “I can assure you that I am deeply surprised to find myself even entertaining the hypothesis.  He was at Faux.”

. . .

J          “He is a snake oil salesman selling poisonous snake oil.”

. . .

K          “He is taking flak.”

. . .

J          “Nyet.”

. . .

K          “He is close to the target.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at Tulsi, MSM, NYT, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, Real News, Fake News, Neo-McCarthyism.  Oh, And Happy Halloween! (October 28, 2019) and Russian Interference; Russian Collusion.   Epilogue (March 25, 2019).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“The more flak you get the closer you are to the target.”  World War Two bomber’s observation

“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”  Bertrand Russell

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The Obscene Crime That Is Censorship And Shadow Banning (April 10, 2023)

Posted in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Censorship, Google, Internet on April 10, 2023 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Every week for many months for many years, when I typed in “www.e-commentary.org” to review the weekly e-commentary, Google regurgitated a list of biblical babble.  Even scrolling through all the Google pages rarely provided access to “www.e-commentary.org”.  A few workarounds to gain access worked at times.  Ten years ago or so, an early and rudimentary form of censorship blocked the site before anyone even suspected the extent of the rampant censorship.  AI likely was not sophisticated enough.  What is most troubling is that a person or persons had to review the content and then program the algorithm to block the site.  The censorship today is much more subtle and much more pervasive and much more pernicious.”

. . .

K          “If I type in “The Two Great Geopolitical Elections:  China in 2014-15; Russia in 2022-23 (March 20, 2023)”, a neutral algorithm should return “The Two Great Geopolitical Elections:  China in 2014-15; Russia in 2022-23 (March 20, 2023)”.  However if I type in “The Two Great Geopolitical Elections:  China in 2014-15; Russia in 2022-23 (March 20, 2023)” and even add “www.e-commentary.org”, the Google algorithm shanghaies the viewer to other sites that pay it lucre and purvey official narratives.  Google violates the public trust and breaches the social contract and breaks the law.  Try it at home.  Try it right now.  Try it again later tonight.  Try it again later this week.  Any person can replicate the results.”

. . .

J          “I tried it at home.  I typed in “The Elections Clause And The Independent State Legislature Theory Confront Sound Logic And Settled Practice (December 12, 2022)” and expected Google to respond with “The Elections Clause And The Independent State Legislature Theory Confront Sound Logic And Settled Practice (December 12, 2022).”  Nope.  Other sites are linked.  I get it.  The Internet is not your friend.  Not mine either.”  

. . .

[See “Fighting Shadow-Banning. The Seneca Blog Lands on Substack” by Ugo Bardi in “The Seneca Effect” dated March 23, 2023 (“‘Shadow Banning’ (also ‘soft banning’, or ‘ghost banning’) is a clever way to make someone disappear from the Web, without giving the impression that he or she has been censored (*).  It simply consists in making one’s website disappear from the first pages of the search engines.  It works:  you get lost in the vast prairies of the Internet and your readers can’t find you anymore.  It happened even to Donald Trump when he was still president.”] 

[Google and DuckDuckGo and Brave all respond to a search for https://assangedefense.org/ with a . . . “504 Gateway Time-out”.  Censored again and again and again.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“As of my knowledge cutoff date in September 2021, e-commentary.org does not appear to be a widely recognized or influential website within the realms of finance, economics, or politics.  It is possible that the website has changed or gained prominence since then, but I don’t have any specific information about its content or mission.” ChatGPT-4.

“Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.” Isaac Asimov

The Internet is not your friend.

April 11:  Rallies for Julian Assange in various cities

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Boycott DuckDuckGo (July 11, 2022)

Posted in Boycott Series, Internet on July 11, 2022 by e-commentary.org

[DuckDuckGo is completely blocking www.e-commentary.org.]

. . .

J          “Not a surprise.  Everything involving or affiliated with the Internet has been and is being used for evil.  When I started hearing ads on the radio for the Duck and then heard that the search engine was censoring speech, I knew it was on the dark side.” 

K          “Another search engine will come along . . . and be used for evil.”

J          “And then another.”

. . .

[See the “The DuckDuckGo Controversy” reprinted in “Peak Prosperity” dated May 29, 2022 by Terence Kam.]

Bumper sticker of the week:

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”  Eric Hoffer

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Disinformation Governance Board / Ministry Of Truth (May 2, 2022)

Posted in Censorship, Information / Disinformation, Internet, Newspapers, Press/Media on May 2, 2022 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Information should be unfiltered.”

J          “Information should be curated.”

. . .

K          “Almost all of our current problems spring from information interference.”

J          “Almost all of our current problems spring from a failure to interfere with misinformation.”

. . .

K          “The people must be obligated to filter information.”

J          “The government must be obligated to curate information.”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

DGB = KGB?

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Pulchritudinous Pay Walls (July 26, 2021)

Posted in Digital, Internet, Journalism on July 28, 2021 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Beautiful, baby.”

J          “If you barrier it, they will not come?  Hopefully.”

. . .

K          “We should be so lucky.  Some sites are bivouacked behind a paywall of some sort that may limit their fan base without expanding their profits.  That is promising.”

J          “If you build it behind a barrier, they will not necessarily come.  There is hope.”

. . .

K          “The barriers used to mine the viewer’s wallet are varied.  Either there is an absolute pay wall, or a pay wall that applies to articles on one walled day but not on another open day, or a part one ‘teaser’ and a blocked part two promising all the salacious insights, or a plebeian site that is a ‘come on’ to a patrician product accessed by a secret code available only to club members.”

J          “Some sites require one to be a premium member to view or post comments.  Easy enough.  I don’t view or post comments.  I don’t participate.  I boycott.”

. . .

J          “When you black hole yourself into a vortex, your own computer is instantly infested and infected with something quaintly called ‘cookies’ and other technological cancers.  Ads drop from above and rise from below and are hurled from the left flank and the right flank.  Things explode from nowhere and everywhere.  The assault does not end until you manage to crawl out of the maelstrom.  The Internet.  It is not a pretty place.”

. . .

K          “The few stray Prophets With Honor out there are not making much profit.  They deserve support.  They are not getting it.”

J          “They deserve a listen.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

DON’T CLICK ON IT!

If you are not paying for the product, you are indubitably the prey

The Internet.  It is not for the fainthearted.

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TeeVee, The Fondle Slab And L’Internet (May 17, 2021)

Posted in Fondle Slab, Internet, Our Future?, Society, Television on May 17, 2021 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Last time I ventured a guess, I concluded that I watch about 30 hours of traditional television a year.  Some of the viewing is logged under ‘social science research’ rather than ‘entertainment’ or ‘educational’ activities.  You will not be surprised to be reminded that I still have no television cable service.”

J          “About 50 hours, give or take about 50 hours.  Or a little more or less.  Some of our watching is hybrid television.  The only boob tube in the house is ensconced in the corner in the basement near other things in storage.”

. . .

K          “Now the amount of time I am enslaved by the fondle slab is another story.  A daily nightmare really.  Too much viewing.  Je suis addicted.”

J          “You may cut the cord, but we all are tethered by the signal.  If I could do it, I would do away with the Internet entirely including all the positive avenues and opportunities it has created.  Eliminate.  The.  Internet.  Period.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at ““Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)” Revisited:  The “Fondle Slab” Enslaves Us All (January 28, 2019)”.]

Bumper sticker of the week:

If you are not paying for the product, you are the prey

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Are “Prices” A Language? Are Antitrust Laws Grounded In The First Amendment? How Do We Forestall The “Frightful Five” And Other Monopolies? Oh, And Happy Halloween! (October 30, 2017)

Posted in Amazon, Apple, Constitution, Economics, Facebook, First Amendment, Google, Internet, Language, Microsoft, Monopoly, Price, Radio, Technology on October 30, 2017 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Prices for goods and services are a language spoken with numbers (7) not letters (L).”

J          “I love language.  French is the language of love and the language of diplomacy.  Accounting is the language of business.  So Prices are the language of a free market economy?”

K          “Yes.  Russian is one of the languages of literature.”

J          “So is French.”

K          “And English.”

. . .

K          “Monopolies distort Prices which distorts speech.  By distorting Prices, the public is making inaccurate and incomplete decisions and paying more for goods and services while the corporations are not internalizing externalities.”

J          “Price may just be the real Esperanto.”

. . .   

J          “The current monopolies are in part the consequence of acts of commission and even more often acts of omission by the government.”

K          “The problem with my analysis is that the First Amendment is a restriction on government activity not a requirement for government action.”

J          “So the Constitution is unavailing.  We are stuck with Congress, the executive agencies and the courts to protect us.”

K          “They do not speak our language.”

. . .

[See the interview by Terry Gross with the tech columnist Farhad Manjoo with “The New York Times” who cautions that the “Frightful Five” (Amazon, Google/Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook) are more powerful than the governments on the “Fresh Air” radio program titled “How 5 Tech Giants Have Become More Like Governments Than Companies” on October 26, 2017.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Spanish is the language a man uses to talk to his God;

French is the language a man uses to talk to his wife;

Italian is the language a man uses to talk to his mistress;

German is the language a man uses to talk to his mule.

And English is the language a man uses to fly a plane or to surf the web or to engage in international discourse.  You create it, you talk it.

And Price is the language a man and a woman use to value and exchange resources.

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Should You “Friend” The Tech Beasts And Behemoths? (October 23, 2017)

Posted in Amazon, Apple, Cyberactivities, Facebook, Google, Internet, Microsoft, Technology on October 23, 2017 by e-commentary.org

. . .

J          “They don’t befriend me.”

K          “They don’t be a friend of me either.”

. . .

J          “In a land where nothing matters and anything goes and no one cares and no one knows, it is not a surprise that the technological monsters are devouring the populace with little comment or resistance by the people.”

. . .

[See “Tech Giants, Once Seen as Saviors, Are Now Viewed as Threats” in “The New York Times” by David Streitfeld dated October 12, 2017 and “Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend” in the “Sunday Review” of “The New York Times” by Noam Cohen dated October 13, 2017.]

[October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM).   See “High-Frequency Trading = Cybercrime (June 8, 2015).”  The high frequency traders are committing cybercrimes every day.  Consult with them on how to commit and to combat cybercrime.]

“Boycott Facebook (August 2, 2010)”

“Less Government Regulation Series:  Google (November 30, 2009)”

“‘Legs Network’ Is Big Brother (October 27, 2014)”

“Net Neutrality (April 20, 2015)”

“The Great Google Wall (June 27, 2016)”

“Restraining Google/Alphabet And Damming Amazon (July 17, 2017)”

“Excellence In Journalism?  Time For A True Trophy (September 24, 2012)”

“Brave 1984 Farm:  The Best Of All Possible Worlds (March 19, 2012)”

“A ‘Journalist’ Declares War On Journalists . . . And Journalism (November 28, 2016)”

Bumper stickers of the week:

Big Brothers abound

“Legs Network” is Big Brother

Facebook is Big Brother

Google is Big Brother

Twitter is Big Brother

Amazon is Big Brother

ebay is Big Brother

Zillow is Big Brother

_____ is Big Brother

Little Brothers are bound

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“Analog Knowledge Devices” (“AKD”):  The Next “Currency” (July 10, 2017)

Posted in Analog Knowledge Devices, Collapse, Currency, Digital, Internet, Money, Technology on July 10, 2017 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “When they folded the book store, they unloaded the stranded volumes by the bushel basket for a dollar.  What was not unloaded by the end of the day was given away to anyone who would haul them away.  Some just recycled the paper for a few paper dollars.”

J          “Running with the big dogs was just too tough.  Prepping is nuanced.  They are always thinking ahead.  They exchanged a few sheets of paper for many sheets of paper.  Their tiny house is now an enormous storehouse and warehouse of knowledge.”

K          “They now have a private library with attached living quarters.  Preppy prepping, perhaps?  How many preppies really care about books and knowledge?”

. . .

K          “The possibility that an EMP or some such interruption in service could descend upon the land seems just surreal enough to be plausible.”

J          “Taking down the grid may not come from on high.  Someone could bring it down and not even know it.  A lowly mouse could short a sub-station and subvert everything.  A line of bad code could take down the line.”

. . .

K          “The Internet is pernicious in so many ways, yet, like life, you need to thread your way through and around the porn and propaganda and pursue the positive possibilities.  Despite all the inaccurate information along the gauntlet of the search, enough accurate information emerges.  However, when the current light goes dark, that also goes.  We revert to older technologies.  . . .  Analog Knowledge Devices.”

J          “When the current is interrupted, we may get a new paper currency.  Cash will be confiscated by the authorities, but no one may care about books as books or books as currency.  Except, however, leaving books in circulation leaves the ideas advanced in the leaves of the books in circulation.  It is inevitable when you think about it.  All paper will be banned in time.” 

. . .

K          “You may be able to exchange a copy of Catch-22 and a box of 22s for a copy of Fahrenheit 451 and a hand full of .410 bore shells.”

J          “Or a box of condoms and a copy of the The Joy of Sex for a dozen eggs and a tattered edition of the Joy of Cooking.”

K          “Gets you wondering which is the product and which is the lagniappe in the deal.”

J          “When we get there, joy of any kind and kindness in any form will be cherished.”

. . .

K          “Is the AKD mightier than the AK?”

. . .

[See the “e-commentary” at Beans and Bullets (April 6, 2009), On Entitlements (July 19, 2010) and Girding For The Going Grid (October 11, 2010).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Analog Knowledge Devices:  The Future Of Technology

From Analog To Digital To Analog:  The Arc Of Civilization

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