C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
Facebook sodding well should be liable for that.
The Australian law is a step in the right direction. It's the rest of the world that's been too timid in allowing the big social media firms to not be regulated like a media firm if it happens not to suit them in a particular situation. They also don't pay nearly enough tax anywhere in particular to justify the kid gloves treatment.
Bollocks to that. I agree with making them pay taxes but that is completely separate from the issue that including a headline in the link - just like everyone does the world over - should not be copyright infringement.
I hope both Google and Facebook make things as difficult as possible for the Australian Government. The twats need putting in their place over this.
Yeah, fuck Australian sovereignty! Big business needs protecting.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
It's a stupidly drafted law (a little like the EU one from a few years ago) that will achieve the exact opposite of their stated goals.
Just been checking out the latest Covid heat map. Cases now under 100 per 100k per week in most local authorities in Essex and Kent. Southern England overall looks better than the Midlands and North, but there don't appear to be any places left with rampaging Plague.
Exactly how low the cases will have to get before we're let out remains, of course, to be seen. I hope to God it's not as low as the 1,000 per day being talked about in some of the papers. That so low, and so many tests are being done, that it's quite possible the false positives alone would be enough to clear that low a bar - in which case we'd be stuck in lockdown forever.
Definitely some worrying smoke signals coming out that Johnson has been captured by what I call the Ferguson brigade on SAGE again. Does anyone other than Imperial academics seriously believe we will see a summer surge with 100K+ deaths?
Johnson needs to listen to other voices, some even on SAGE, perhaps those with a more rounded view of overall risk and balance of wider public health issues (eg. mental health, economic well being etc etc).
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
Just been checking out the latest Covid heat map. Cases now under 100 per 100k per week in most local authorities in Essex and Kent. Southern England overall looks better than the Midlands and North, but there don't appear to be any places left with rampaging Plague.
Exactly how low the cases will have to get before we're let out remains, of course, to be seen. I hope to God it's not as low as the 1,000 per day being talked about in some of the papers. That so low, and so many tests are being done, that it's quite possible the false positives alone would be enough to clear that low a bar - in which case we'd be stuck in lockdown forever.
What portion of positives in New Zealand do you think are false positives ?
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
Facebook sodding well should be liable for that.
The Australian law is a step in the right direction. It's the rest of the world that's been too timid in allowing the big social media firms to not be regulated like a media firm if it happens not to suit them in a particular situation. They also don't pay nearly enough tax anywhere in particular to justify the kid gloves treatment.
Bollocks to that. I agree with making them pay taxes but that is completely separate from the issue that including a headline in the link - just like everyone does the world over - should not be copyright infringement.
I hope both Google and Facebook make things as difficult as possible for the Australian Government. The twats need putting in their place over this.
I think we shall have to agree to disagree. I could probably be persuaded that this specific law is not the solution (possibly even misguided), but I am very sure that it is an attempt to solve a real problem. It simply cannot be the case that people get their news from companies who are subject to almost no regulation whatsoever - it just blurs the lines between actual fact-driven news, and gibberish conspiracy theories and downright misinformation.
More widely, it cannot go on being the case that people can use a platform to break the law (libel, mostly), while the platform is immune from all legal ramifications. (Utterly inappropriate simile alert!) The big social media companies are like arms dealers selling WMDs to third world countries and then being surprised when they use them to commit atrocities.
"For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.": Matthew 13:12kjv
"overall, disorder increases": the second law of thermodynamics
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
Facebook sodding well should be liable for that.
The Australian law is a step in the right direction. It's the rest of the world that's been too timid in allowing the big social media firms to not be regulated like a media firm if it happens not to suit them in a particular situation. They also don't pay nearly enough tax anywhere in particular to justify the kid gloves treatment.
Bollocks to that. I agree with making them pay taxes but that is completely separate from the issue that including a headline in the link - just like everyone does the world over - should not be copyright infringement.
I hope both Google and Facebook make things as difficult as possible for the Australian Government. The twats need putting in their place over this.
Yeah, fuck Australian sovereignty! Big business needs protecting.
Nope, they just need to understand the consequences of their idiocy. Of course they are free to pass whatever laws they like. And the rest of the world is at liberty to say fuck you and go elsewhere.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
Facebook sodding well should be liable for that.
The Australian law is a step in the right direction. It's the rest of the world that's been too timid in allowing the big social media firms to not be regulated like a media firm if it happens not to suit them in a particular situation. They also don't pay nearly enough tax anywhere in particular to justify the kid gloves treatment.
Bollocks to that. I agree with making them pay taxes but that is completely separate from the issue that including a headline in the link - just like everyone does the world over - should not be copyright infringement.
I hope both Google and Facebook make things as difficult as possible for the Australian Government. The twats need putting in their place over this.
Yeah, fuck Australian sovereignty! Big business needs protecting.
I may be wrong on this, but I thought this was Big Business doing what they were told? The law says (again, I might be wrong here so please correct me if I am) that if they do a certain thing then they will be charged for it, so they are making sure that they don't do it.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
Facebook sodding well should be liable for that.
The Australian law is a step in the right direction. It's the rest of the world that's been too timid in allowing the big social media firms to not be regulated like a media firm if it happens not to suit them in a particular situation. They also don't pay nearly enough tax anywhere in particular to justify the kid gloves treatment.
Bollocks to that. I agree with making them pay taxes but that is completely separate from the issue that including a headline in the link - just like everyone does the world over - should not be copyright infringement.
I hope both Google and Facebook make things as difficult as possible for the Australian Government. The twats need putting in their place over this.
Yeah, fuck Australian sovereignty! Big business needs protecting.
Australia = NewsCorp in this case, no? Sounds like both sides are losing though.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
You're like the people attacking Microsoft in 2000 asking for its break up, and missing the point that their time in the sun is already past.
This is something I struggle to get my head around.
I signed up in 2006 when it was brand spanking new, less than 15 years ago.
To be fair, the peak of my usage was c.2006-2011, following which it dropped off massively, but I'm still on it because there are a couple of awesome meme groups on it - and there are a few dozen people for whom I don't otherwise have address or contact details.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
If it is free then you are not the customer, you are the product.
Just been checking out the latest Covid heat map. Cases now under 100 per 100k per week in most local authorities in Essex and Kent. Southern England overall looks better than the Midlands and North, but there don't appear to be any places left with rampaging Plague.
Exactly how low the cases will have to get before we're let out remains, of course, to be seen. I hope to God it's not as low as the 1,000 per day being talked about in some of the papers. That so low, and so many tests are being done, that it's quite possible the false positives alone would be enough to clear that low a bar - in which case we'd be stuck in lockdown forever.
We were at that level in the Summer. We can get there but I doubt Johnson will stay the course.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
You're like the people attacking Microsoft in 2000 asking for its break up, and missing the point that their time in the sun is already past.
Only taxpayers use Facebook.
All the really cool platforms these days (hi, TikTok!) have figured out that it's much better to have a userbase that predominantly has no disposable income.
"For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.": Matthew 13:12kjv
"overall, disorder increases": the second law of thermodynamics
I presume the first statement would get you deplatformed from a university speaking engagement.these days...
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
Indeed. I'm only on it for my High School friends in Canada. Sure we could have a group somewhere else. But it's free. And those who I still want to hear from I hear from. Those who I don't I don't. Would we use FB if we were setting it up now? No. Of course not. Can we be arsed to go somewhere else? No. Of course not.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
You're like the people attacking Microsoft in 2000 asking for its break up, and missing the point that their time in the sun is already past.
This is something I struggle to get my head around.
I signed up in 2006 when it was brand spanking new, less than 15 years ago.
To be fair, the peak of my usage was c.2006-2011, following which it dropped off massively, but I'm still on it because there are a couple of awesome meme groups on it - and there are a few dozen people for whom I don't otherwise have address or contact details.
I’m very odd insofar as I have been on it, even in its heyday.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
George Osborne is said to have used c.2012 referring to the economy (read that in Cameron at 10).
Porterhouse Blue is my go-to for an accurate depiction of how Cambridge works.
The portrayal of Sir Godber Evans and Lady Mary -- failed Labour politician and his wealthy Liberal wife -- is one of the most vicious in all satirical literature.
The satirising of Oxford academics in Morse is also a lot of fun -- the episode where the Master is a devil-worshipper & the Bursar is a pornographer is a stand-out.
The sequel to Porterhouse Blue, however, has moved on from the 1960s and 1970s - as I recall it, some of the previous caricatures - the Chaplain, I think, for one - actually become more sympathetic characters in the context of the changes in Higher Education since then.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
Facebook sodding well should be liable for that.
The Australian law is a step in the right direction. It's the rest of the world that's been too timid in allowing the big social media firms to not be regulated like a media firm if it happens not to suit them in a particular situation. They also don't pay nearly enough tax anywhere in particular to justify the kid gloves treatment.
Bollocks to that. I agree with making them pay taxes but that is completely separate from the issue that including a headline in the link - just like everyone does the world over - should not be copyright infringement.
I hope both Google and Facebook make things as difficult as possible for the Australian Government. The twats need putting in their place over this.
Yeah, fuck Australian sovereignty! Big business needs protecting.
Australia = NewsCorp in this case, no? Sounds like both sides are losing though.
I have ever no love of the Murdoch press, but Facebook is making vast profits from content that it gets free, from someone who has to pay for it.
If we want decent journalism, it has to be paid for, but the problem is that everyone wants free content on the net. That means either advertising, or marketing of our data.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Apparently it is US slang from Al Capone times. My Dad used to use it a bit.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
If it is free then you are not the customer, you are the product.
I don't care which one I am as long as I can still use it.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
You clearly missed the recent hoo-hah over WhatsApp, when Facebook let its mask slip, as they tried to further incorporate the swallowed company, WhatsApp, into the Evil Empire. People really DO care or this PR disaster would not have happened
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
It has been suggested that newspapers are like coral reefs, providing a sheltering environment for the use of words not seen anywhere else, like fracas or rumpus.
I really don't know what you do with a population that doesn't want to be jabbed.....
The more likely situation is people want to be vaccinated but the much-vaunted logistical programme just isn't functioning over in my part of the world.
I don't know why this should be - is it a question of vaccine supply or of there not being enough places to get vaccinated?
Whatever the problem, all the agencies (including both central Government and the Mayor's office if need be) have to be involved in improving the vaccination roll-out in this part of London and other areas where the numbers being vaccinated are lagging behind.
If there is a larger or smaller minority not wishing to be vaccinated, then you would presume they'd be moving through the population more quickly filling in the gaps and I just wonder if in those areas claiming to be well into the higher groups there are higher levels of vaccine refusal than are being reported - I don't know.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
It’s a bizarre phrase indeed!
You should watch the unherd video, SPI-M bloke is definitely up your alley. He is very annoyed at people taking about "new normals", rather arguing we should be fighting to get back the old normal.
Just been checking out the latest Covid heat map. Cases now under 100 per 100k per week in most local authorities in Essex and Kent. Southern England overall looks better than the Midlands and North, but there don't appear to be any places left with rampaging Plague.
Exactly how low the cases will have to get before we're let out remains, of course, to be seen. I hope to God it's not as low as the 1,000 per day being talked about in some of the papers. That so low, and so many tests are being done, that it's quite possible the false positives alone would be enough to clear that low a bar - in which case we'd be stuck in lockdown forever.
What portion of positives in New Zealand do you think are false positives ?
I don't know. Nobody is sure of the precise false positivity rate for each test method. Values of 0.8% and 0.5% have been quoted at different times in respect of PCR, but the true value remains unclear.
What it is reasonable to assume, however, is that no Covid test method is totally immune from this problem.
Now, given a test rate of 500,000 per day (which is a little below the current rolling seven day average for the UK,) the false positivity rate would only need to be 0.2% for a rate of 1,000 cases per day to be recorded entirely due to false positive tests.
The notion of false positives alone - never mind the additional contribution from the ongoing load of true positives, which will undoubtedly continue to happen - being able to generate a signal that large is therefore, I would contend, not so far fetched.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Apparently it is US slang from Al Capone times. My Dad used to use it a bit.
Urban diuctionary gives a slightly modified slant:
"Gang Busters was a famous radio program that was first heard in 1936 and aired until 1957. The sound effects of police sirens, tommyguns, and screeching tires that opened the show were dramatic and exciting -- this inspired the expression 'coming on like gangbusters'. Usage has opened up to describe things that are not just exciting, but successful, intense, and many other adjectives, and many drop the 'coming on like' prefix. I think we should be more careful about how we use it, and keep it true to its origin -- something that starts with much excitement and drama is 'coming on like gangbusters'."
My experience of millennials and Gen-Z'ers is that you can influence their views, but only on a 1:1 basis and if they trust and respect you first.
Probably most have never been exposed to the other side or just stay quiet. Social media are different. Twitter loudmouths rarely in normal worker-employer relationships, which for young people means creatives / slacker / gig economy. Lots of blaming capitalism for their anxiety instead of their 420 or booze habit. It's also a reality that this side has lots of online bullies (I know people who set up groups to coordinate harassment for thoughtcrimes), whereas the other side mostly doesn't care but their most extreme flank kills people.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
You clearly missed the recent hoo-hah over WhatsApp, when Facebook let its mask slip, as they tried to further incorporate the swallowed company, WhatsApp, into the Evil Empire. People really DO care or this PR disaster would not have happened
Just been checking out the latest Covid heat map. Cases now under 100 per 100k per week in most local authorities in Essex and Kent. Southern England overall looks better than the Midlands and North, but there don't appear to be any places left with rampaging Plague.
Exactly how low the cases will have to get before we're let out remains, of course, to be seen. I hope to God it's not as low as the 1,000 per day being talked about in some of the papers. That so low, and so many tests are being done, that it's quite possible the false positives alone would be enough to clear that low a bar - in which case we'd be stuck in lockdown forever.
Definitely some worrying smoke signals coming out that Johnson has been captured by what I call the Ferguson brigade on SAGE again. Does anyone other than Imperial academics seriously believe we will see a summer surge with 100K+ deaths?
Johnson needs to listen to other voices, some even on SAGE, perhaps those with a more rounded view of overall risk and balance of wider public health issues (eg. mental health, economic well being etc etc).
The Boffin’ Boffin sure gets a great hearing for someone who broke his own rules so he could get his end away.
Still, he is marginally preferable to Dr Doom Edmunds, who pops up on the telly more frequently than even Tony Slattery in his heyday.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
You're like the people attacking Microsoft in 2000 asking for its break up, and missing the point that their time in the sun is already past.
This is something I struggle to get my head around.
I signed up in 2006 when it was brand spanking new, less than 15 years ago.
To be fair, the peak of my usage was c.2006-2011, following which it dropped off massively, but I'm still on it because there are a couple of awesome meme groups on it - and there are a few dozen people for whom I don't otherwise have address or contact details.
I find it invaluable. It has helped me make contact with old friends from school and university, and with old enemies who are now friends. It helps me maintain contact with people in my business outside of the workplace. It allows me to meet with like minded people in hobbies - I am on hobby groups with at least two other PB members and facebook is invaluable for getting a wider audience for interest groups. It allows me to keep an easy unforced contact with my wider family of cousins, aunts and uncles. It is an invaluable tool for almost ever aspect of my life - far more than any other form of communication and almost, dare I say it, as important as PB.
Actually thinking about it I wouldn't even be on PB were it not for Facebook as it was through a comment from a friend on there that I first found the site. And I know how much you would all miss me if I weren't here.
If Facebook were to disappear it would cause me genuine hardship.
Just been checking out the latest Covid heat map. Cases now under 100 per 100k per week in most local authorities in Essex and Kent. Southern England overall looks better than the Midlands and North, but there don't appear to be any places left with rampaging Plague.
Exactly how low the cases will have to get before we're let out remains, of course, to be seen. I hope to God it's not as low as the 1,000 per day being talked about in some of the papers. That so low, and so many tests are being done, that it's quite possible the false positives alone would be enough to clear that low a bar - in which case we'd be stuck in lockdown forever.
What portion of positives in New Zealand do you think are false positives ?
I don't know. Nobody is sure of the precise false positivity rate for each test method. Values of 0.8% and 0.5% have been quoted at different times in respect of PCR, but the true value remains unclear.
What it is reasonable to assume, however, is that no Covid test method is totally immune from this problem.
Now, given a test rate of 500,000 per day (which is a little below the current rolling seven day average for the UK,) the false positivity rate would only need to be 0.2% for a rate of 1,000 cases per day to be recorded entirely due to false positive tests.
The notion of false positives alone - never mind the additional contribution from the ongoing load of true positives, which will undoubtedly continue to happen - being able to generate a signal that large is therefore, I would contend, not so far fetched.
No, it is pretty clear. The absolute maximum false positive rate for the PCR test is 0.08%
Porterhouse Blue is my go-to for an accurate depiction of how Cambridge works.
The portrayal of Sir Godber Evans and Lady Mary -- failed Labour politician and his wealthy Liberal wife -- is one of the most vicious in all satirical literature.
The satirising of Oxford academics in Morse is also a lot of fun -- the episode where the Master is a devil-worshipper & the Bursar is a pornographer is a stand-out.
Our Provost was apparently the inspiration for Sir Les Patterson...
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
You clearly missed the recent hoo-hah over WhatsApp, when Facebook let its mask slip, as they tried to further incorporate the swallowed company, WhatsApp, into the Evil Empire. People really DO care or this PR disaster would not have happened
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
It’s a bizarre phrase indeed!
You should watch the unherd video, SPI-M bloke is definitely up your alley. He is very annoyed at people taking about "new normals", rather arguing we should be fighting to get back the old normal.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
Facebook sodding well should be liable for that.
The Australian law is a step in the right direction. It's the rest of the world that's been too timid in allowing the big social media firms to not be regulated like a media firm if it happens not to suit them in a particular situation. They also don't pay nearly enough tax anywhere in particular to justify the kid gloves treatment.
Bollocks to that. I agree with making them pay taxes but that is completely separate from the issue that including a headline in the link - just like everyone does the world over - should not be copyright infringement.
I hope both Google and Facebook make things as difficult as possible for the Australian Government. The twats need putting in their place over this.
Yeah, fuck Australian sovereignty! Big business needs protecting.
Australia = NewsCorp in this case, no? Sounds like both sides are losing though.
I have ever no love of the Murdoch press, but Facebook is making vast profits from content that it gets free, from someone who has to pay for it.
If we want decent journalism, it has to be paid for, but the problem is that everyone wants free content on the net. That means either advertising, or marketing of our data.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
You're like the people attacking Microsoft in 2000 asking for its break up, and missing the point that their time in the sun is already past.
This is something I struggle to get my head around.
I signed up in 2006 when it was brand spanking new, less than 15 years ago.
To be fair, the peak of my usage was c.2006-2011, following which it dropped off massively, but I'm still on it because there are a couple of awesome meme groups on it - and there are a few dozen people for whom I don't otherwise have address or contact details.
I find it invaluable. It has helped me make contact with old friends from school and university, and with old enemies who are now friends. It helps me maintain contact with people in my business outside of the workplace. It allows me to meet with like minded people in hobbies - I am on hobby groups with at least two other PB members and facebook is invaluable for getting a wider audience for interest groups. It allows me to keep an easy unforced contact with my wider family of cousins, aunts and uncles. It is an invaluable tool for almost ever aspect of my life - far more than any other form of communication and almost, dare I say it, as important as PB.
Actually thinking about it I wouldn't even be on PB were it not for Facebook as it was through a comment from a friend on there that I first found the site. And I know how much you would all miss me if I weren't here.
If Facebook were to disappear it would cause me genuine hardship.
I must fess up to heavily contributing to the "Disused Stations" FB group since lockdown started, mostly locations in London (eg. York Road, Ludgate Hill, etc.).
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
Facebook - and Google, and Twitter - only *appear* to be free, as they distribute news, memes, gifs. In truth they are freeriders, exploiting the hard journalistic/creative work of others, often paid, often underpaid, often not paid at all. Thus they crush creativity and journalism, at source, and we are all poorer
Look at a viral video. How much does the maker make? Usually pennies, compared to the millions of dollars it will generate for the internet giants.
I prefer a world where the creator becomes a squillionaire, like the Beatles, and all the cash does not go to the passive relayers, like Mark Zuckerburg
Your precious Facebook will still exist if it is forced to float away other parts of its monopolistic empire
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
That's really very serious - proper back of beyond Third World conditions. You do wonder how long their society can function without both electricity and running water, and in the middle of a prolonged severe weather event as well, before it starts to break down.
It's basically the sort of thing I was always afraid might happen in this country if we ever had a repeat of the Big Freeze of '62-'63. I'm not at all sure that our infrastructure could cope.
Porterhouse Blue is my go-to for an accurate depiction of how Cambridge works.
The portrayal of Sir Godber Evans and Lady Mary -- failed Labour politician and his wealthy Liberal wife -- is one of the most vicious in all satirical literature.
The satirising of Oxford academics in Morse is also a lot of fun -- the episode where the Master is a devil-worshipper & the Bursar is a pornographer is a stand-out.
Our Provost was apparently the inspiration for Sir Les Patterson...
Zelman Cowen? I didn't hear that one...
It was the rumour, though I have no way to back it up. Having heard him speak to a crowd of very drunk rowers at a Bump Supper I can believe it though.
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
You clearly missed the recent hoo-hah over WhatsApp, when Facebook let its mask slip, as they tried to further incorporate the swallowed company, WhatsApp, into the Evil Empire. People really DO care or this PR disaster would not have happened
Lots of my friends went mad, trouble is they dispersed to multiple different messaging apps.
Why? Because Facebook via Whatsapp had a monopoly, and nothing else can compete.
FB needs four or five big healthy competitors. Break it up, make it float Whatsapp and Insta, let the flowers bloom.
I don't use Whatsapp so I genuinely don't care.
I respect your opinions, quite often, but here you're an ill-informed fool. Sorry. You're a man in late middle age who loves Facebook. Like a a geek who loves his tractor engines. Good for you. But this is not the question at hand
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
SPI-M bloke says return to "normal", probably autumn....perhaps late summer if vaccine programme goes gangbusters both from supply and uptake side of things.
Where did this “going gangbusters” phrase come from? I have only read it in the papers once or twice and have never heard anyone ever use it in real life.
Boris used it when talking about vaccines...so am taking the piss.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
Facebook - and Google, and Twitter - only *appear* to be free, as they distribute news, memes, gifs. In truth they are freeriders, exploiting the hard journalistic/creative work of others, often paid, often underpaid, often not paid at all. Thus they crush creativity and journalism, at source, and we are all poorer
Look at a viral video. How much does the maker make? Usually pennies, compared to the millions of dollars it will generate for the internet giants.
I prefer a world where the creator becomes a squillionaire, like the Beatles, and all the cash does not go to the passive relayers, like Mark Zuckerburg
Your precious Facebook will still exist if it is forced to float away other parts of its monopolistic empire
You really think a single viral video makes millions of dollars for the internet giants?
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
You clearly missed the recent hoo-hah over WhatsApp, when Facebook let its mask slip, as they tried to further incorporate the swallowed company, WhatsApp, into the Evil Empire. People really DO care or this PR disaster would not have happened
Lots of my friends went mad, trouble is they dispersed to multiple different messaging apps.
Why? Because Facebook via Whatsapp had a monopoly, and nothing else can compete.
FB needs four or five big healthy competitors. Break it up, make it float Whatsapp and Insta, let the flowers bloom.
My main friendship group migrated our group chat from Whatsapp to Signal recently. Signal is a charitable foundation setup by some of the guys who originally created Whatsapp before FB bought it. It's pretty good.
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
That's really very serious - proper back of beyond Third World conditions. You do wonder how long their society can function without both electricity and running water, and in the middle of a prolonged severe weather event as well, before it starts to break down.
It's basically the sort of thing I was always afraid might happen in this country if we ever had a repeat of the Big Freeze of '62-'63. I'm not at all sure that our infrastructure could cope.
Just been checking out the latest Covid heat map. Cases now under 100 per 100k per week in most local authorities in Essex and Kent. Southern England overall looks better than the Midlands and North, but there don't appear to be any places left with rampaging Plague.
Exactly how low the cases will have to get before we're let out remains, of course, to be seen. I hope to God it's not as low as the 1,000 per day being talked about in some of the papers. That so low, and so many tests are being done, that it's quite possible the false positives alone would be enough to clear that low a bar - in which case we'd be stuck in lockdown forever.
What portion of positives in New Zealand do you think are false positives ?
I don't know. Nobody is sure of the precise false positivity rate for each test method. Values of 0.8% and 0.5% have been quoted at different times in respect of PCR, but the true value remains unclear.
What it is reasonable to assume, however, is that no Covid test method is totally immune from this problem.
Now, given a test rate of 500,000 per day (which is a little below the current rolling seven day average for the UK,) the false positivity rate would only need to be 0.2% for a rate of 1,000 cases per day to be recorded entirely due to false positive tests.
The notion of false positives alone - never mind the additional contribution from the ongoing load of true positives, which will undoubtedly continue to happen - being able to generate a signal that large is therefore, I would contend, not so far fetched.
No, it is pretty clear. The absolute maximum false positive rate for the PCR test is 0.08%
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
You clearly missed the recent hoo-hah over WhatsApp, when Facebook let its mask slip, as they tried to further incorporate the swallowed company, WhatsApp, into the Evil Empire. People really DO care or this PR disaster would not have happened
Lots of my friends went mad, trouble is they dispersed to multiple different messaging apps.
Why? Because Facebook via Whatsapp had a monopoly, and nothing else can compete.
FB needs four or five big healthy competitors. Break it up, make it float Whatsapp and Insta, let the flowers bloom.
I don't use Whatsapp so I genuinely don't care.
I respect your opinions, quite often, but here you're an ill-informed fool. Sorry. You're a man in late middle age who loves Facebook. Like a a geek who loves his tractor engines. Good for you. But this is not the question at hand
It is exactly the question at hand. As has been made amply evident in this conversation the young are fickle. They drift from one platform to another in a never ending search for something new. They always have done and always will. But where other platforms have faded and disappeared Facebook has survived and thrived exactly because of the middle aged fans - or rather any fans who are over 20 years in age. I happen to know that even a certain Cornish writer of some note who used to frequent these pages is on Facebook. He even posts on rare occasions.
The point is that if you base your product on what the youth want you will get a brief, highly successful, explosion of support and then more often than not will fade to obscurity and ruin.
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
Facebook sodding well should be liable for that.
The Australian law is a step in the right direction. It's the rest of the world that's been too timid in allowing the big social media firms to not be regulated like a media firm if it happens not to suit them in a particular situation. They also don't pay nearly enough tax anywhere in particular to justify the kid gloves treatment.
Bollocks to that. I agree with making them pay taxes but that is completely separate from the issue that including a headline in the link - just like everyone does the world over - should not be copyright infringement.
I hope both Google and Facebook make things as difficult as possible for the Australian Government. The twats need putting in their place over this.
Yeah, fuck Australian sovereignty! Big business needs protecting.
Australia = NewsCorp in this case, no? Sounds like both sides are losing though.
Newscorp have just been given a giant cheque from Google thanks to this law though, so I don't think they'll be upset at all.
But at the same time, if having her on stage causes ticket receipts to drop or makes it harder to raise money from donors because people don't want to be seen to be supporting a homophobic actress, then isn't that the Theatre company's prerogative?
The theatre company has to make the decisions that are best for it; it's directors or trustees have moral and fiduciary responsibilities. They don't have a broader remit to support people whose private views result in lower revenues.
Isn't the test of this the inverse? Imagine she was a strong advocate for gay rights, but it was thought by the theatre company that this would cause tickets sales to drop, could they sack her for making her views public? I think we all know the answer to this...
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
Facebook - and Google, and Twitter - only *appear* to be free, as they distribute news, memes, gifs. In truth they are freeriders, exploiting the hard journalistic/creative work of others, often paid, often underpaid, often not paid at all. Thus they crush creativity and journalism, at source, and we are all poorer
Look at a viral video. How much does the maker make? Usually pennies, compared to the millions of dollars it will generate for the internet giants.
I prefer a world where the creator becomes a squillionaire, like the Beatles, and all the cash does not go to the passive relayers, like Mark Zuckerburg
Your precious Facebook will still exist if it is forced to float away other parts of its monopolistic empire
Free content is a real problem for those who need to make an income. There is some excellent stuff for free, such as on PB, but it also gives us vacuous Instagram influencers. At some point we are going to have to relearn that quality writing is worth paying for.
New Zealand has done 1,613,211 tests and found 2,340 cases in total. That is a 0.14% positive rate. It's going to have labs at the same quality as ours processing the results and they find so few cases that every last one is going to be tracked for symptons, perhaps further tests by their CDC/PHE equivalent as they have generally been close to zero covid right throughout the pandemic. If there was a significant chance of any sort of false positive in large numbers @Alistair 0.08% is an upper bound here as linked at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/methodologies/covid19infectionsurveypilotmethodsandfurtherinformation#test-sensitivity-and-specificity that would mean New Zealand would have 57% of it's tests as positives. Except a FIGURE of 57% is completely implausibly high as their affore mentioned CDC/PHE equivalent would know about it and they'd be retesting people over and over as they're finding so few. It'd have come out in the news by now.
From our own ONS We know that the virus is still circulating, so it is extremely unlikely that all these positives are false. However, it is important to consider whether many of the small number of positive tests we do have might be false. There are a couple of main reasons we do not think that is the case.
Symptoms are an indication that someone has the virus; therefore, if there are many false-positives, we would expect to see more false-positives occurring among those not reporting symptoms. If that were the case, then risk factors such as working in health care would be more strongly associated with symptomatic infections than with asymptomatic infections. However, in our data the risk factors for testing positive are equally strong for both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections.
The percentage of individuals reporting no symptoms among those testing positive has remained stable over time despite substantial declines in the overall number of positives. If false-positives were high, the percentage of individuals not reporting symptoms among those testing positive would increase when the true prevalence is declining.
False positives are going to be REALLY REALLY rare*. True negatives OTOH simply involve missing the virus, they're likely much more prevalent.
It's the same with the 28 day death cut off. That will cut off way more Covid related deaths than people who die due to something else but simply happen to have Covid at the same time.
* It would indicate incompetent laboratories more than anything.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
Facebook - and Google, and Twitter - only *appear* to be free, as they distribute news, memes, gifs. In truth they are freeriders, exploiting the hard journalistic/creative work of others, often paid, often underpaid, often not paid at all. Thus they crush creativity and journalism, at source, and we are all poorer
Look at a viral video. How much does the maker make? Usually pennies, compared to the millions of dollars it will generate for the internet giants.
I prefer a world where the creator becomes a squillionaire, like the Beatles, and all the cash does not go to the passive relayers, like Mark Zuckerburg
Your precious Facebook will still exist if it is forced to float away other parts of its monopolistic empire
You really think a single viral video makes millions of dollars for the internet giants?
I think your maths have gone screwy somewhere.
Of course a viral video makes money. Take Gangnam Style. It has made megamillions for YouTube, and we know this because it made millions for its creator. The artist, here, was defended by the K-Pop industry and lots of lawyers, so he was able to get his chunk. Many others go entirely unrewarded. I see it happen on social media daily. Vids that could make thousands, millions, simply handed over and piratised, because the corporations like FB and Google just fuck them over.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
You clearly missed the recent hoo-hah over WhatsApp, when Facebook let its mask slip, as they tried to further incorporate the swallowed company, WhatsApp, into the Evil Empire. People really DO care or this PR disaster would not have happened
Lots of my friends went mad, trouble is they dispersed to multiple different messaging apps.
Why? Because Facebook via Whatsapp had a monopoly, and nothing else can compete.
FB needs four or five big healthy competitors. Break it up, make it float Whatsapp and Insta, let the flowers bloom.
Actually I have no problem with floating off Instagram and Whatsapp. Again I use neither so get no benefit from them. Not sure how that would help with competition for Facebook. There was competition but compared to facebook it was shit. Hence the reason it is not around any more. I don't hold with the idea we should go for the lowest common denominator service just to prevent one company getting too successful.
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
Just been checking out the latest Covid heat map. Cases now under 100 per 100k per week in most local authorities in Essex and Kent. Southern England overall looks better than the Midlands and North, but there don't appear to be any places left with rampaging Plague.
Exactly how low the cases will have to get before we're let out remains, of course, to be seen. I hope to God it's not as low as the 1,000 per day being talked about in some of the papers. That so low, and so many tests are being done, that it's quite possible the false positives alone would be enough to clear that low a bar - in which case we'd be stuck in lockdown forever.
What portion of positives in New Zealand do you think are false positives ?
I don't know. Nobody is sure of the precise false positivity rate for each test method. Values of 0.8% and 0.5% have been quoted at different times in respect of PCR, but the true value remains unclear.
What it is reasonable to assume, however, is that no Covid test method is totally immune from this problem.
Now, given a test rate of 500,000 per day (which is a little below the current rolling seven day average for the UK,) the false positivity rate would only need to be 0.2% for a rate of 1,000 cases per day to be recorded entirely due to false positive tests.
The notion of false positives alone - never mind the additional contribution from the ongoing load of true positives, which will undoubtedly continue to happen - being able to generate a signal that large is therefore, I would contend, not so far fetched.
The evidence is that the value is at least below 0.08%, not 0.8%
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
Indeed. I'm only on it for my High School friends in Canada. Sure we could have a group somewhere else. But it's free. And those who I still want to hear from I hear from. Those who I don't I don't. Would we use FB if we were setting it up now? No. Of course not. Can we be arsed to go somewhere else? No. Of course not.
Yeah. It's an issue that geeks get really intense about (hence the millions moving from WhatsApp and all that), in the same weay as the browser wars and the MS vs Apple stuff. Most FB users find it a harmless free way of exchanging low-level chat with friends. Almost the only politics I see on it is threads I've started myself, except for a couple of American friends who got into the election big time (awkwardly for friendship, one on each side).
I do feel some unease about banning people for improper use - yes, even Trump. But otherwise, as monopolies go, it's a fairly innocuous one IMO.
Porterhouse Blue is my go-to for an accurate depiction of how Cambridge works.
The portrayal of Sir Godber Evans and Lady Mary -- failed Labour politician and his wealthy Liberal wife -- is one of the most vicious in all satirical literature.
The satirising of Oxford academics in Morse is also a lot of fun -- the episode where the Master is a devil-worshipper & the Bursar is a pornographer is a stand-out.
Our Provost was apparently the inspiration for Sir Les Patterson...
Zelman Cowen? I didn't hear that one...
It was the rumour, though I have no way to back it up. Having heard him speak to a crowd of very drunk rowers at a Bump Supper I can believe it though.
Oh, it is 100% believable, yes.
Still, he was a level up from some of the more recent incumbents.
As for the Free Speech Champion, I just feel mild contempt that the Government thinks it can start a profitable culture war with such thin gruel. It takes two to have a war. Appoint Toby Young, insist that Farage can speak at Oxford, see if most long-standing lefties actually care.
Porterhouse Blue is my go-to for an accurate depiction of how Cambridge works.
The portrayal of Sir Godber Evans and Lady Mary -- failed Labour politician and his wealthy Liberal wife -- is one of the most vicious in all satirical literature.
The satirising of Oxford academics in Morse is also a lot of fun -- the episode where the Master is a devil-worshipper & the Bursar is a pornographer is a stand-out.
Our Provost was apparently the inspiration for Sir Les Patterson...
Zelman Cowen? I didn't hear that one...
It was the rumour, though I have no way to back it up. Having heard him speak to a crowd of very drunk rowers at a Bump Supper I can believe it though.
Oh, it is 100% believable, yes.
Still, he was a level up from some of the more recent incumbents.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
Facebook - and Google, and Twitter - only *appear* to be free, as they distribute news, memes, gifs. In truth they are freeriders, exploiting the hard journalistic/creative work of others, often paid, often underpaid, often not paid at all. Thus they crush creativity and journalism, at source, and we are all poorer
Look at a viral video. How much does the maker make? Usually pennies, compared to the millions of dollars it will generate for the internet giants.
I prefer a world where the creator becomes a squillionaire, like the Beatles, and all the cash does not go to the passive relayers, like Mark Zuckerburg
Your precious Facebook will still exist if it is forced to float away other parts of its monopolistic empire
You really think a single viral video makes millions of dollars for the internet giants?
I think your maths have gone screwy somewhere.
Of course a viral video makes money. Take Gangnam Style. It has made megamillions for YouTube, and we know this because it made millions for its creator. The artist, here, was defended by the K-Pop industry and lots of lawyers, so he was able to get his chunk. Many others go entirely unrewarded. I see it happen on social media daily. Vids that could make thousands, millions, simply handed over and piratised, because the corporations like FB and Google just fuck them over.
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
Can't get my head around this idea that young people have never been exposed to alternative opinions. They have quite literally grown up with the Internet. By contrast I was limited to the opinions of people I knew or those who were published and happened to be available in a local shop or library. Or on TV.
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
Facebook - and Google, and Twitter - only *appear* to be free, as they distribute news, memes, gifs. In truth they are freeriders, exploiting the hard journalistic/creative work of others, often paid, often underpaid, often not paid at all. Thus they crush creativity and journalism, at source, and we are all poorer
Look at a viral video. How much does the maker make? Usually pennies, compared to the millions of dollars it will generate for the internet giants.
I prefer a world where the creator becomes a squillionaire, like the Beatles, and all the cash does not go to the passive relayers, like Mark Zuckerburg
Your precious Facebook will still exist if it is forced to float away other parts of its monopolistic empire
Free content is a real problem for those who need to make an income. There is some excellent stuff for free, such as on PB, but it also gives us vacuous Instagram influencers. At some point we are going to have to relearn that quality writing is worth paying for.
ITV gave us Love Island Channel 4 gave us Big Brother. The BBC gave us Strictly Come Dancing (god help us!)
Content providers give us what we want to watch and read. And in the case of the BBC I pay for it even if I don't want to watch it. Your argument leads in dangerous directions.
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
C'mon Joe Biden. If you can do ONE GOOD THING in your stupid elderly presidency, apart from Not Being Donald, it is this. Break up the great internet monopolies. Facebook, Google. Apple, Twitter, Amazon,
This is what America is FOR and if it can't do it, just hand over to China now, because they just might (on the grounds of healthy capitalism, not free speech)
You are attacking the wrong people. This is entirely the result of idiotic Australian laws that mean that if anyone posts news items from Australian outlets then Facebook is liable for that. It is the Australians who are behaving like the Chinese in this case not Facebook or Google.
I confess - a rarity on PB - I have not read the minutiae of the Aussie proposal.
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
The problem you have with that analogy is that Standard Oil was shafting the buyers of their product through their monopoly position. The customers were rather pleased when that monopoly was broken.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
Facebook - and Google, and Twitter - only *appear* to be free, as they distribute news, memes, gifs. In truth they are freeriders, exploiting the hard journalistic/creative work of others, often paid, often underpaid, often not paid at all. Thus they crush creativity and journalism, at source, and we are all poorer
Look at a viral video. How much does the maker make? Usually pennies, compared to the millions of dollars it will generate for the internet giants.
I prefer a world where the creator becomes a squillionaire, like the Beatles, and all the cash does not go to the passive relayers, like Mark Zuckerburg
Your precious Facebook will still exist if it is forced to float away other parts of its monopolistic empire
Free content is a real problem for those who need to make an income. There is some excellent stuff for free, such as on PB, but it also gives us vacuous Instagram influencers. At some point we are going to have to relearn that quality writing is worth paying for.
On a more positive note, the New York Times (and indeed The Times in London, to a lesser extent) have shown that paywalls work. People ARE prepared to pay for content. The era of the newspaper you bought with your hand, which was made out of pulped wood, is gone, but the era of the paid-for daily journal is still with us, and has a potentially healthy future. The NYT has 6 MILLION subscribers and is expanding. Blitz-scaling, even.
This is a real problem for the Guardian, which has tried to be an English-speaking free-to-read liberal rival to the NYT and also, ultimately, an existential problem for the BBC, I fear.
British media is going to get squashed by American giants unless they gang up.
Can't get my head around this idea that young people have never been exposed to alternative opinions. They have quite literally grown up with the Internet. By contrast I was limited to the opinions of people I knew or those who were published and happened to be available in a local shop or library. Or on TV.
The internet is very efficient at letting you see only what you want to see unless you make a concerted effort not to. That is why so many were surprised when the Tories won the 2019 election as they didn't know anyone who wasn't going to vote for Corbyn.
Edit to say: this is one of the few sites where we get a significant (but not full) range of views.
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
As for the Free Speech Champion, I just feel mild contempt that the Government thinks it can start a profitable culture war with such thin gruel. It takes two to have a war. Appoint Toby Young, insist that Farage can speak at Oxford, see if most long-standing lefties actually care.
How about those professors and academics I mentioned earlier who are being stopped from discussing serious matters including advising on law changes because they and their institutions are being threatened by a vocal minority?
But at the same time, if having her on stage causes ticket receipts to drop or makes it harder to raise money from donors because people don't want to be seen to be supporting a homophobic actress, then isn't that the Theatre company's prerogative?
The theatre company has to make the decisions that are best for it; it's directors or trustees have moral and fiduciary responsibilities. They don't have a broader remit to support people whose private views result in lower revenues.
Isn't the test of this the inverse? Imagine she was a strong advocate for gay rights, but it was thought by the theatre company that this would cause tickets sales to drop, could they sack her for making her views public? I think we all know the answer to this...
Surely, though, it is unpopular opinions that would cause sales to drop.
But here's the thing: just as I support the right of clubs to enforce ties, or the right of restaurants to prohibit children or breastfeeding, I support the right of businesses to make the decisions that are for the good of their shareholders.
Ultimately, the Directors or Trustees have an absolute moral imperative, and it's not to promote free speech.
I feel very strongly about this, and the whole shit around "stakeholders" in businesses. There is a moral obligation on behalf of Directors, and you cannot muddy it by giving them amorphous and ambiguous obligations to people to whom they are not beholden.
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
In Singapore, there have been nearly sixty thousand ‘cases’ and twenty-nine deaths. A case fatality rate of around one in two thousand, or 0.02%. The UK has had four million cases and one hundred and seven thousand deaths. A case fatality rate of 3%. Therefore, if you get COVID19 you are one hundred and fifty times more likely to die of it in the UK, than in Singapore
CLOSED CASES 328,859 Cases which had an outcome: 245,737 (75%) Recovered / Discharged
83,122 (25%) Deaths
Looks at the number of cases. Jeez. I don’t worldometers is the most reliable source of data in this context. Or do you think there are 2 million plus ‘active’ cases waiting to resolve?
Comments
But the larger point is true. Are the huge Silicon Valley megacorps monopolistic, in a bad way? Yes, absolutely. Facebook is classically monopolistic. It buys up all rivals (WhatsApp, Insta) and either runs them into the ground or slowly incorporates them into the monolith. It is downright evil. And it collects so much data.
Fuck Facebook. Break it up, the same way America broke up Standard Oil in the early 20th century. The USA was THE world power for a century partly because it was willing to do stuff like this, which apparently hampered US companies but actually benefited US capitalism (and everyone else).
If the USA can no longer do this, it is no longer fit for purpose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
Johnson needs to listen to other voices, some even on SAGE, perhaps those with a more rounded view of overall risk and balance of wider public health issues (eg. mental health, economic well being etc etc).
You're like the people attacking Microsoft in 2000 asking for its break up, and missing the point that their time in the sun is already past.
Facebook - since it is free at the point of use - is not shafting its customer base financially. Indeed most of its customers seem to be very happy with the fact it is free even if they get occasionally pissed off with the rather strange algorithm based censorship. Those that don't use it mostly don't care.
Break it up and I will guarantee you will piss off a hell of a lot more people than you please.
More widely, it cannot go on being the case that people can use a platform to break the law (libel, mostly), while the platform is immune from all legal ramifications. (Utterly inappropriate simile alert!) The big social media companies are like arms dealers selling WMDs to third world countries and then being surprised when they use them to commit atrocities.
"There's nowt so queer as folk" Yorkshire
"For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.": Matthew 13:12kjv
"overall, disorder increases": the second law of thermodynamics
I signed up in 2006 when it was brand spanking new, less than 15 years ago.
To be fair, the peak of my usage was c.2006-2011, following which it dropped off massively, but I'm still on it because there are a couple of awesome meme groups on it - and there are a few dozen people for whom I don't otherwise have address or contact details.
All the really cool platforms these days (hi, TikTok!) have figured out that it's much better to have a userbase that predominantly has no disposable income.
Sure we could have a group somewhere else. But it's free. And those who I still want to hear from I hear from. Those who I don't I don't.
Would we use FB if we were setting it up now?
No. Of course not.
Can we be arsed to go somewhere else?
No. Of course not.
https://twitter.com/cd_hooks/status/1362149887224078337?s=19
If we want decent journalism, it has to be paid for, but the problem is that everyone wants free content on the net. That means either advertising, or marketing of our data.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jan/24/whatsapp-loses-millions-of-users-after-terms-update
Lots of my friends went mad, trouble is they dispersed to multiple different messaging apps.
Why? Because Facebook via Whatsapp had a monopoly, and nothing else can compete.
FB needs four or five big healthy competitors. Break it up, make it float Whatsapp and Insta, let the flowers bloom.
I don't know why this should be - is it a question of vaccine supply or of there not being enough places to get vaccinated?
Whatever the problem, all the agencies (including both central Government and the Mayor's office if need be) have to be involved in improving the vaccination roll-out in this part of London and other areas where the numbers being vaccinated are lagging behind.
If there is a larger or smaller minority not wishing to be vaccinated, then you would presume they'd be moving through the population more quickly filling in the gaps and I just wonder if in those areas claiming to be well into the higher groups there are higher levels of vaccine refusal than are being reported - I don't know.
What it is reasonable to assume, however, is that no Covid test method is totally immune from this problem.
Now, given a test rate of 500,000 per day (which is a little below the current rolling seven day average for the UK,) the false positivity rate would only need to be 0.2% for a rate of 1,000 cases per day to be recorded entirely due to false positive tests.
The notion of false positives alone - never mind the additional contribution from the ongoing load of true positives, which will undoubtedly continue to happen - being able to generate a signal that large is therefore, I would contend, not so far fetched.
"Gang Busters was a famous radio program that was first heard in 1936 and aired until 1957. The sound effects of police sirens, tommyguns, and screeching tires that opened the show were dramatic and exciting -- this inspired the expression 'coming on like gangbusters'.
Usage has opened up to describe things that are not just exciting, but successful, intense, and many other adjectives, and many drop the 'coming on like' prefix. I think we should be more careful about how we use it, and keep it true to its origin -- something that starts with much excitement and drama is 'coming on like gangbusters'."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCaGnlCmv00
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9270435/Racial-equality-charity-accused-RACISM-branding-black-Tory-pundit-house-n-o.html
Still, he is marginally preferable to Dr Doom Edmunds, who pops up on the telly more frequently than even Tony Slattery in his heyday.
I've got a house full of 'em from the early 30s to the 60s either working or awaiting refurbishment.
Actually thinking about it I wouldn't even be on PB were it not for Facebook as it was through a comment from a friend on there that I first found the site. And I know how much you would all miss me if I weren't here.
If Facebook were to disappear it would cause me genuine hardship.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/methodologies/covid19infectionsurveypilotmethodsandfurtherinformation#test-sensitivity-and-specificity
If you do 208,730 test and 159 come back positive then the very highest the false positive rate can be is 0.08%.
And it can only be that high if every single positive is a false positive. Every last one
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2021/02/17/how-deadly-is-covid19/?unapproved=209929&moderation-hash=a5cef811cb2cdcbea50d9b3f11d6c604#comment-209929
Look at a viral video. How much does the maker make? Usually pennies, compared to the millions of dollars it will generate for the internet giants.
I prefer a world where the creator becomes a squillionaire, like the Beatles, and all the cash does not go to the passive relayers, like Mark Zuckerburg
Your precious Facebook will still exist if it is forced to float away other parts of its monopolistic empire
It's basically the sort of thing I was always afraid might happen in this country if we ever had a repeat of the Big Freeze of '62-'63. I'm not at all sure that our infrastructure could cope.
No kidding.
If you are diagnosed with Covid in France, you have a 1 in 4 chance of dying.
These stats are tending towards meaninglessness
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
I think your maths have gone screwy somewhere.
I also seem to remember that many of the cases were in ex-pat workers who were probably younger than average.
Which means that 50% more people are dying of Coronavirus in France, than actually died in the last twelve months.
When you think about that, you realise just how insane some of these numbers are.
The point is that if you base your product on what the youth want you will get a brief, highly successful, explosion of support and then more often than not will fade to obscurity and ruin.
Not sure that's his style. A flint knapper might be interested though?
Except a FIGURE of 57% is completely implausibly high as their affore mentioned CDC/PHE equivalent would know about it and they'd be retesting people over and over as they're finding so few. It'd have come out in the news by now.
From our own ONS
We know that the virus is still circulating, so it is extremely unlikely that all these positives are false. However, it is important to consider whether many of the small number of positive tests we do have might be false. There are a couple of main reasons we do not think that is the case.
Symptoms are an indication that someone has the virus; therefore, if there are many false-positives, we would expect to see more false-positives occurring among those not reporting symptoms. If that were the case, then risk factors such as working in health care would be more strongly associated with symptomatic infections than with asymptomatic infections. However, in our data the risk factors for testing positive are equally strong for both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections.
The percentage of individuals reporting no symptoms among those testing positive has remained stable over time despite substantial declines in the overall number of positives. If false-positives were high, the percentage of individuals not reporting symptoms among those testing positive would increase when the true prevalence is declining.
False positives are going to be REALLY REALLY rare*. True negatives OTOH simply involve missing the virus, they're likely much more prevalent.
It's the same with the 28 day death cut off. That will cut off way more Covid related deaths than people who die due to something else but simply happen to have Covid at the same time.
* It would indicate incompetent laboratories more than anything.
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/google-gangnam-style-earned-8-million-from-youtube-alone-3618049.html#:~:text=K-Pop Sensation Psy's Gangnam,alone, it has been revealed.&text=In December, Gangnam Style had,garner a billion views worldwide.
I do feel some unease about banning people for improper use - yes, even Trump. But otherwise, as monopolies go, it's a fairly innocuous one IMO.
Actually tonight it could be all of us I think.
Still, he was a level up from some of the more recent incumbents.
Not many "viral videos" make billions of views.
They have quite literally grown up with the Internet.
By contrast I was limited to the opinions of people I knew or those who were published and happened to be available in a local shop or library. Or on TV.
Channel 4 gave us Big Brother.
The BBC gave us Strictly Come Dancing (god help us!)
Content providers give us what we want to watch and read. And in the case of the BBC I pay for it even if I don't want to watch it. Your argument leads in dangerous directions.
It is of course nonsense, but it shows that the stats are not vey helpful at the moment.
https://www.google.com/search?q=new+york+times+subscribers&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBGB880TH882&oq=new+york+times+subscribers&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2j0i22i30j0i10i22i30j0i22i30l3.5349j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
But they have to be paywalled. It is what it is.
This is a real problem for the Guardian, which has tried to be an English-speaking free-to-read liberal rival to the NYT and also, ultimately, an existential problem for the BBC, I fear.
British media is going to get squashed by American giants unless they gang up.
Edit to say: this is one of the few sites where we get a significant (but not full) range of views.
CLOSED CASES
328,859
Cases which had an outcome:
245,737 (75%)
Recovered / Discharged
83,122 (25%)
Deaths
But here's the thing: just as I support the right of clubs to enforce ties, or the right of restaurants to prohibit children or breastfeeding, I support the right of businesses to make the decisions that are for the good of their shareholders.
Ultimately, the Directors or Trustees have an absolute moral imperative, and it's not to promote free speech.
I feel very strongly about this, and the whole shit around "stakeholders" in businesses. There is a moral obligation on behalf of Directors, and you cannot muddy it by giving them amorphous and ambiguous obligations to people to whom they are not beholden.
"Coronavirus Cases:
3,514,147
Deaths:
83,122"
83,122 / 3,514,147 = 2.37%
Yes there'll be some active cases that might increase that further but there's not over 3 million active cases.
I don’t worldometers is the most reliable source of data in this context. Or do you think there are 2 million plus ‘active’ cases waiting to resolve?