Tag: news feed

No. More. Stupid. – Wikileaks and Dead Animals

NOTE: Somehow this never got published and I found it while traipsing the jungle of unfinished entries in my journal. While it is dated I don’t liek the idea that I didn’t put this on the site. So enjoy! -Tony 8/16/2012

WikiLeaks isn’t the problem.

Assange isn’t the problem.

The government classifies far too much information, and the information that is actually extremely sensitive isn’t guarded well enough. But that doesn’t matter, because Assange is a scapegoat. Let me ask you something.

If your HOA was deliberately turning a blind eye to its largest contributor because of the money they contribute by constantly ignoring disturbingly illegal activities in the neighborhood, would you hang your next door neighbor, who is in the exact same situation you are, when that neighbor gives all the incriminating information about those activities to the media?

I don’t bloody think so…although you may want to spank them for the inconvenience.

It’s simply astounding. Julian Assange is being sensationalized by the media. The media has made the Wikileaks agenda so much more successful than any one man could have. I daresay he’s also being completely misrepresented by the governments he’s blowing the whistle on. Another point I’d like to make is that the Wikileaks organization is not being treated properly, due process is only being followed where there is direct public scrutiny.

Coming full circle, the media isn’t giving much info on the actual leaks…its just focusing on how evil Wikileaks is and hype. At first it really seemed like the news organizations were in it to go through the documents and out everyone who’d been playing dirty. This is entertainment at its best people…what are we doing about it? The governments…specifically big banking, stopped giving Wikileaks to accept payments via Visa, MasterCard, etc. Governments tried to actually freeze Wikileaks accounts, even though there was no government action ordering that it happen (and there still isn’t).

Let me throw you a curve ball. Wikileaks isn’t anywhere near as “rogue” as you think. Before releasing the information, they consulted with a large number of the worlds largest news organizations to recruit help in making sure the wrong information wasn’t released…you know…the stuff that will get people killed kind of stuff. NOW EVERYONE FORGET YOU JUST READ THAT, so you can go on about your wonderful day thinking that Wikileaks is criminally negligent in allowing this information to be released.

Instead of addressing the very large number of examples of poor candor and decidedly unprofessional monologues…our tax dollars are going into focusing on the owner of WikiLeaks…like he wrote all these things about all these countries.

Please don’t get me wrong. I understand the need for national security…but Mr. Assange didn’t steal the documents, and he’s not bound by US law. He’s just the front-man for Wiki-Leaks.

Assange didn’t leak the information. The US military did. Wikileaks is just another media outlet, the only difference is that people pay more attention to Wikileaks than the hundreds of thousands of blogging and conspiracy theory sites that publish the same ideas and data.

And by the way, the sensationalism has caused some of the WikiLeaks crew to start OpenLeaks. Another venue for people to submit leaks to the media anonymously. Don’t be mad at them, the media allowed them to get the backing for it. The same media putting Assange on the boxtop instead of all that juicy material that was leaked.

Wikileaks Til Ya Puke via Google News Feed

The Sky Is Not Falling!

I just have to get this out there.
I know there were tons of mass animal deaths. I don’t even buy into the whole “fireworks” theory that the birds were frightened by fireworks and flew off head first into the ground.
Maybe in an instance or two, but not all of those instances in three different areas.
But I cant stress this enough. The sky isn’t falling.

Our awareness of world events and is getting more and more…well…acute. As with any experience, as we become accustomed to those experiences I am sure we’ll remain a tidbit more calm about them even though the severity of the situation may be critical. If you truly feel the sky is falling, do something about it. I am not talking about any radical action that would endanger anything, but look for a viable answer, and run with it. There are some REALLY smart people out the that need your help in solving these crises.

That said, I’ve been watching the news, and been reading a FEKTON of documentation on this stuff. Mass animal deaths have been occurring for a long time, with documented events going back more than a hundred years. The USGS has actually been tracking mass animal death for decades, and so does the CDC. Between the two, they apply a body of knowledge incredibly more suited to sift fact from fiction in these matters, and thankfully, unlike the media, they aren’t in the habit of scaring the shit out of us civilians without some credence.

What I think we should all do is what we’ve already been doing. Be more aware. Know where to report news when you see it, and be more responsible when discussing these things so that you don’t start a scare. There is NOTHING wrong about feeling something is important or and there certainly isn’t anything wrong in helping resolve these events, but causing panic and unrest is the media’s forte, not yours. As individuals please try to exhibit some sense when you decide to talk about this.

If you look at the really cool Google Map of animal deaths (linked below), you will notice that there have been a bunch, and if you research them you’ll see a number of them have already been explained. As a species, we ourselves are doing so many things to contribute to this that the numbers are just heartbreaking. For every new method we find to live without destroying our planet, there are a hundred poor choices made for us that hurt the environment. Awareness in a huge factor. As in being aware we can expect at least some people will change their course.

Here is the Google News link for the animal deaths in the news.




How to be a Douchebag.

Normally, I reserve names such as these when referring to…

…people who beat children and/or spouses.
…people that think civil, or even human rights are “quaint”
…people that go out of their way to shit on others without reasonable justification.

But tonight, it becomes more than a moral obligation to point this waste of internet space out…

…it becomes an absolute pleasure.

Now you have to know a little tech first. You see, I’ve been administering over 10 domains (not including subs) for a long long time. When I first started blogging and transcribing my journals into my blog, I also set up an aggregation site on a sub-domain of TonyTown so that I could read all my news without going to anyone else, or having to surf like mad to so many sites. In doing this, I didn’t realize the RSS feeds were being indexed by the big search engines, which is in fact a pretty huge screw-up on my part. But I screwed up more. This same sub-domain/site is also where I tested out plugins for WordPress. One of these was the first original TonyTown twitter account, which I have also not used or looked at in ages, but was taking it’s queue from posts on the news feed.

Bottom line…All my RSS feeds for The Onion, BitRebels, CNN, Natalie Tran, Ars Technica, Gizmodo and Scientific American they were being posted as linked articles on the aggregation site on my sub-domain. This reeks of techno-babble, but the bottom line is that the articles were getting regurgitated through my sub-domain. This is very bad etiquette on the net. Well, let me rephrase, it is very bad etiquette to re-post content without some level of permission from the publisher.

This was totally me. I never realized the site was searchable, and didn’t know the stupid twitter feed was attached to it.

The part that makes me want to write about this though, is how I was approached about it. This insane low-life self-anointed waste of internet space starts spamming the absolute hell out of my personal twitter account (non-direct, for all the public to see) with completely unnecessary hashes (tags like #douchebag etc) and foul language. There are children who watch that feed. Not to mention a few news sites, WORK, etc…and this guy didn’t even bother emailing me.

I have to point out something here…this guy, out of the 13000 links aggregated, owned…wait for it… 7 articles. They weren’t even really articles. After reading them, I found them to be more or less absolutely useless amounts of regurgitated music babble about who’s hot and who’s not. Even funnier…he hadn’t posted to BitRebels in months, which was the actual publisher of the content.

You see the pleasure of not being in this for the money is this is 100% opinion. This winner could have easily just messaged me but started off the conversation by calling me a Twat…and THEN telling me to remove his content from my site.

Foul-mouthed Tweet #1 “Hey you TWAT! Remove immediately MY POSTS from your so called blog #XXXXingDouchebag”

Thoughts/Reaction #1 – “Wow, this guy is nuts…I don’t rip others content.”

Foul Mouthed Tweet #2 “@XXXXXXXXXXX Just look at the whole thing, [he] is stealing content from @gizmodo, @theonion, @bitrebels and Scientific American.”

Thoughts/Reaction #2 – “Wow, this nut is angry about something. Wait…those are on my aggregator”
At this time…I am trying to figure out how this guy even knows that feed is there. Remember, I haven’t even looked at it in ages, I didn’t even have the password for it.

Foul-mouthed Tweet #3 Sent to his buddy: “People like this [ME] that steals content from others really piss me off. Sorry for the language…”

Thoughts/Reaction #3 – “Why is he spamming Twitter instead of emailing me? Oh…this guy apologizes to his friend for saying PISSES…but wont bother to contact me properly.”
–Friend in California texts me to let me know the activity is on the radar *AWESOME* (not)–

Foul-mouthed Tweet #4 “That is MY CONTENT you XXXHOLE!”

Thoughts/Reaction #4 – By this time I’d found the problem (i.e. me being a dumbass) and apologized to him for the problem.

Foul-mouthed Tweet #4,5,6,7 – “I don’t say they are mine, they are mine you XXXXing douchebag! Just search for [Insert Foulmouthed Asshat’s Name Here] on your site and DELETE IT!”

–Two more people letting me know there is some guy flaming the hells out of me on twitter–
By this time…honestly…nothing I tried to say I was doing was getting through. I had already moved the aggregation access to another undocumented and unsearchable domain AND fixed the twittering silliness, but this guy was now spamming others and continuing on his little rant.
By then a tiny little minuscule spec of the Twitter community…that is ONE of his followers/friends RETELLS his complaint long after I’d already rectified the situation.

I’ve been using that feed for years without a PEEP from the other sites. Yes, the activity it was performing by allowing itself to be searchable was very bad net-etiquette. Yes, my completely forgetting there was a Twitter feed attached to it…yep, all me – my fault.

But you sir. You’re a Twitter Guru right? So in your vast repertoire of blog-knowledge did it occur to you that I might have just screwed up? Because if I were leeching content deliberately…do you honestly think I would pull content from…BitRebels?! Seriously?! I read your articles, (they’re shit) and it makes me glad I didn’t bother trying to get on with BitRebels when they started…because if you’re half the egotistical asshat in person that you come off as on Twitter, I’d probably create a website dedicated to your vastly unreasonable and offensive attitude with people on the net….which by the way…isn’t copyrighted.

The real funny, is after he’s apparently satisfied his insanely valueless content is no longer available via my news portal…he goes on to start another fight with another guy on Twitter about…of all things…how lame his blog posts and intellect is. The guy…none other than Robert Scoble of http://scobleizer.com. This is about the equivalent of Joe the Plumber telling Steve Jobs how to market the iPhone. Yeah. Winner. You. Are. Not.

Finally going to get some rest on this though. Hope everyone had a great night.

-Tony