I left Private Internet Access (PIA) for Proton VPN after the Kape acquisition years ago. Still happy with my decision and I recommend Proton VPN to anybody in the market for personal VPN services.

Relevant Ferris Bueller Wisdom

Have they solved the racial bias issues that has plagued facial recognition systems?

“… guys like me who have been debanked,” Donald Trump Jr. said

I had to look up “debanked”. Admitting to it has to be the financial equivalent of telling people you are a registered sex offender.

A survey of 18,000 Americans released in March pointed to flexible work schedules helping mental health.

It’s almost like the work force actually values the quality of their lives more than … umm, honestly I’ve never been able to figure out a positive side for companies pushing RTO. Report after report show remote work improves productivity, employee retention, is perceived as a significant perk to attract new talent, and reduces corporate overhead (that last one is just an assumption on my part).

Seriously, what is the attraction for RTO?

For those, like me, who had never heard of BRICS before this article.

BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Originally identified to highlight investment opportunities,[1] the grouping evolved into a cohesive geopolitical bloc, with their governments meeting annually at formal summits and coordinating multilateral policies since 2009.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS

How is banning TikTok “limiting technological advancements”?

Would you agree that I was able to provide examples of “China doing the same” which you stated that you “did not see”?

Are you kidding? China has some of the strongest censorship laws in the world which includes filtering internet content and blocking access to apps. North Korea is the only country that has more repressed access to free information.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China

The Chinese government has banned, among others, Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, BBC, Wikipedia and … are you ready for this … TIKTOK. The Chinese government agrees that TikTok should be banned (though for different reasons).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China

In 2020, so-called “AI agents” defeated human pilots in simulations in all five of their match-ups - but the technology needed to be run for real in the air.

It did not reveal which aircraft won the dogfight.

I’m gonna guess the AI won.

Some refrigerators can dispense cold filtered water.

The difference is the US government believes that TikTok is beholden to the Chinese government. When a corporation acts this way it is an invasion of privacy. When a foreign government acts this way it is espionage.

If TikTok is sold to an entity the US government thinks is sufficiently independent from a foreign government, then they can continue spying on users.

Alternatively, they may be able to registers under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. I don’t know how that would impact TikTok’s ability to operate though.

They look like Firethorn berries.

The general take away is “Surveillance is oppression and it is the responsibility of the people to stand up against oppression”.

A few other quotes I like that fit the theme.

“People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

— V (V for Vendetta)

“Without privacy, you can’t have anything for yourself. Saying you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”

— Edward Snowden

Nooooo! 😭 I so badly wanted this to be real. I had even looked it up by ISBN to try and order it. The ISBN is for a book titled Brute Orbit, if anybody is curious.

The month is Compuary, which is a new cyber-month they added just for doing hacker stuff.

A what now? To do what again?

And they do sex stuff up there as well.

Reeeeealy?

There’s Baltimore Airport, lab-grown to be a swimsuit model but programmed to kill.

Obviously a complex character with depth.

There’s Crusty Silverware…

Say no more … please.

Infiltrate the dome and take out Harvard Pubence, the president of cops.

You son of a bitch, I’m in!

Tonight, Pubence is guest of honor at the 9th annual Rich Perverts’ Ball.

OMG! Stop I already said I was in!

My team jacked up on Tums 2

Seriously, I need to read this book or my life may never feel complete!

There are 54 pages of risk factors, which, after reading many S-1 filings over the years, seems pretty long. One of the most notable is the sentence, “We have incurred substantial losses during our history and may never achieve profitability.”

Well that doesn’t sound very promising for them.

20 year shelf life, but looks like it went out of stock in 2019 😭

https://www.delish.com/food-news/a25847175/costco-giant-mac-and-cheese/

I wonder if mRNA vaccine treatment for cancer is what they are referencing.

From what I was able to understand (and maybe somebody can correct anything I’ve gotten wrong), the “vaccine” is tailored on a per-individual basis to target key protein markers of a petients particular cancer. This allows the body to identify and start to attack the cancer where previously the immune system would not be able to tell the difference between healthy and cancerous cells.

Ref: https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2022/mrna-vaccines-to-treat-cancer

23andMe admitted that hackers had stolen the genetic and ancestry data of 6.9 million users

I’m honestly asking what the impact to the users is from this breach. Wasn’t 23andMe already free to selling or distribute this data to anybody they wanted to, without notifying the users?