Blog/April 2018/Apr 13th

Apr 13th

Busy, busy, busy!

We started the week by cleaning up after the holiday; putting away our “pesaḥ” dishes and pots etc., and reinstating the regular ones. Yes, yes, I know: it’s a lot of carry-on for one week of the year. I like it anyway.

I went from a long dry spell with no (or intermittent) clients, to having three at once. So first of all, B”H! It’s better to have too much work than too little. Now I have to keep myself organized very carefully so they all stay happy. One client is forcing me to write code in Python, which is a rather painful experience (especially after having developed 8th); but at least they are willing to pay for it. If you’re interested, I’ll explain why I hate Python later on…

There was a lot of activity other than that, but despite my best efforts, my brain seems to have forgotten most of the details. So please accept my apologies!

This week, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress. The purported purpose of the hearings was to determine whether or not FB needs to be regulated (e.g. like the phone companies or utilities), and whether or not FB uses their customers’ data improperly.

I do not think FB should be “regulated” (nor should Google, Twitter, etc.), even though I think their approach is wrong and harmful. Governmental regulation generally just leads to higher prices and worse service. However, they must be required to disclose how they use customer’s data and which data they collect. Their record is very, very bad.

There has been a stark uptick in censorship on the major “social media” platforms. Again, I don’t think they should be regulated or prevented from censoring: it’s their platform, it’s privately funded, they should be allowed to do what they want. However, they must own-up to what they are doing and make their customers aware so those customers can make appropriate choices for themselves.

Just this past week, for instance, FB banned “Diamond and Silk” because, they are “‘not safe’ for the community”. Apparently, black conservatives are “unsafe” for FB’s “community”. Whatever that means. They also arbitrarily suspend accounts for political reasons.

YouTube has been “demonetizing” channels with non-left-wing content (not even “right-wing” content, but anything which even questions the “social-justice” narrative or the Leftist ideologies of the US elites). That’s YouTube’s choice, but they should be held to account for it, and users must be made aware of just what “algorithm” YT is using which causes (almost solely non-left-wing) channels to be demonetized.

Twitter has been aggressively “shadow-banning” accounts which make posts contrary to the Twitter-god’s ideologies. They’ve been “accidentally” closing such accounts from time to time.

Google controls a lot of the internet’s data access. Knowing how they use and abuse your data is important.

For the record: there are no neutral platforms at present. And if you didn’t pay to use the platform, you are the product — they sell your data. So if you care about your privacy, don’t post anything to social-media. At the least, don’t post anything which could be used against you in any way.

So: we’re getting ready for a peaceful shabbat, with regular bread instead of the thin cracker stuff. The weather has been nice, but it’s going to warm up in the next several days.

It’s just the three of us this shabbat. We’ll keep mom fed with:
regular ḥalla, mushroom soup, braised short-ribs, baked chicken thighs, roasted veggies, baked potatoes, and fruit.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom!

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