Politics: Surveillance

Why is it even important… and why should I care? I’ll get to the why…

Spy vs Spy

Spy vs Spy

Recently the Dems and GOP have been fussing about what is or isn’t spying. It doesn’t take exceptional intelligence to figure which side has staked their position in the debate in the Land of Dumb… Is it spying or surveillance? That seems to be the crux of the debate.

SPY ∙ verb

  • work for a government or other organization by secretly collecting information about enemies or competitors.
  • observe (someone) furtively.
  • discern or make out, especially by careful observation.

SURVEILLANCE ∙ noun

  • close observation, especially of a suspected spy or criminal.

Is there really a difference? Is any difference enough to matter? If not, then what is at play?
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Second Life News 2019 w20

A berry good introduction to Second Life™ popped up on YouTube yesterday, How to Get Started in Second Life New User Tutorial.

Save a link to the video. You can refer people to it that ask about Second Life™.

Servers

There is currently no DEPLOYS post which is sort of expected this week as a maintenance project is in progress this week. From Grid Status a few days ago,

Scheduled – Our engineers will be performing maintenance on the Second Life network May 13 – 16. We hope to perform most of the maintenance early in this window, but it may extend several days if needed.

Residents may experience problems connecting to, being disconnected from, or an inability to log in during this time, as well as possible issues rezzing objects, teleporting, or crossing regions. We hope to keep these disruptions to a minimum and greatly appreciate your patience during this time as we work to make Second Life more robust.

We will resolve this status once the maintenance has been fully completed.
May 7, 16:16 PDT

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Facebook and Free Speech, Done?

Facebook has abandoned the ideas of free speech and diversity of thought. We know that from a recent speech given at a publishing and technology conference by Campbell Brown, Facebook official. He announced FB would be censoring news based on its internal biases.

Would they really do that? What might they decide to censor? Well, measured usage statics from numerous sites and sources show they already are and what they are censoring. Thinking is, FB is just getting started.

All Hail the King

All Hail the King

A good report on what is happening data-wise is on the hardest hit site, The Gateway Pundit’s coverage Zuckerberg’s Announcement.

The new media site The Outline started the reporting on the impact of Facebook’s changes. Once people started realizing how pervasive the impact is the excitement started. Continue reading

Facebook Suppression

It is an election year. A key to the democratic process is a well informed electorate. The obvious reason politicians want to control the news is to shape the electorate’s thinking. We have seen that happen with Hamlet’s distorted Trump-Bernie article and how it was picked up and further distorted by the liberal media to serve their agenda.

Deception

Deception

The idea in a free society is that ideas are debated to find the best way of doing something and deciding what needs to be done. People are going to disagree. Some people will never change their thinking. Some people are morons. However, the majority of people will go with what works best. That is a problem for a Leftist that cannot defend their ideas. The Alinsky solution: lie, mislead, and silence those that disagree.  Continue reading

Facebook and Cyber Attacks

If it has not occurred to you, Facebook is an incredible resource for hackers stealing ID’s. People put in all sorts of personal information that can be used by hackers. I would never put my real birth date or any other information asked for by financial institutions on Facebook.

After The End

After The End

It is bad enough that individuals and private teams attack people. But, now governments and terrorist organizations are attacking private individuals. It is not just the Pentagon in DC or the CIA at Langley that are targets. You too may be a target, especially if you work for the Defense Department. Continue reading

Facebook & Names

Jo Yardley had an article up a day or two ago about the fight between Facebook and Germany. It seems Germany has some law that prevents Facebook from requiring identification as it violates German privacy laws.

Germany fights Facebook thus perhaps paving the way for using pseudonyms

Mezzaluna

Mezzaluna

Today we hear Facebook has decided to allow German users to use anonymous names/pseudonyms  . But, only Germans and ONLY residents of Hamburg.  It is no surprise to me Facebook complied but only allow pseudonyms in this very limited area.

German privacy laws put Facebook in a bind. They either complied or kicked out their Hamburg Germany users.  There are 80± million Germans and something less than 2 million live in Hamburg, so while that is a lot of advertizing eyes it isn’t much of Facebook’s user base.

See: Germans allowed to use Fake Names on Facebook, while everyone else CANNOT.

Expect Facebook to come up with some way to limit new signups from Germany that cannot provide RL ID. While Facebook can’t kick someone out for using a pseudonym there is nothing that says they have to let someone in that uses a pseudonym. So, expect a change in Facebook’s signup process.

Making Better Use of Facebook

Many of us in Second Life™ run businesses and some of us also run RL businesses… ummm… that means businesses  not in SL. I suppose whether a business is in SL or not, the business is real. Whatever, I came across this article on making better use of Facebook to promote your ideas, products, services, whatever…

See: How to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Visibility

Embryonic-3 : Mecha-Amonite II

Embryonic-3 : Mecha-Amonite II by Nebraska Oddfish, on Flickr

For bloggers in Second Life, or anywhere I guess, there is the problem of how Facebook is reacting to comments on linked-to sites. Having comments on in my blog drops my points with Facebook.  They are less likely to extend my reach, or in simple words… they will show my stuff to fewer people.

As the article points out, you can have comments on your site. But, if you can encourage visitors to comment on Facebook, your reach will increase. It isn’t so much that you have comments that is the problem for Facebook. It is that Facebook responds positively to people commenting on your links on Facebook.

So, whether you are selling something or just trying to increase your popularity, there are good and bad ways to do that with social media.

Second Life Bits 2015 Week 09

Freeze Frame Bug

It seems there is a bug in the SL Viewer. Yeah, I say that like there is only one… Well, you’ll see this one if you take a snapshot using Freeze-Frame and then close the camera panel before your release Freeze-Frame mode. The only fix at that point is to relog.

Slow Render @ Server-Scripting UG 2015-09

Slow Render @ Server-Scripting UG 2015-09

Once you relog, open the camera panel (Ctrl-Shift-S) and turn off Freeze-Frame. You don’t have to, but I would probably forget it is enabled and take another picture, close the panel, and have to relog again. Continue reading