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Posts Tagged ‘Link Rot’

In the News (#1630)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 18, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Real-time facial recognition…is…destroying the concept of privacy or anonymity in public spaces.  –  Electronic Privacy Information Center

Don’t Call It Trafficking (#1097) 

There are many ways for fascist corporations to rob the public treasury:

…Kentucky’s largest drug rehab center…Addiction Recovery Care…[has profited immensely from] a boom fueled by misery and…easy money from government officials desperate to curtail the [symptoms of the] opioid crisis [without ending the prohibition that creates and maintains it]…Kentucky’s payouts for drug treatment became so lucrative that companies bused in clients from other states to fill their treatment centers…Between 2019 and 2024 ARC billed the state $1.7 billion…and…[its] growth was fueled in part by [blatantly-fraudulent] billing practices…[which are now the subject of] a whistleblower suit filed in 2023…Part of the fraud…was committed at the explicit urging of supervisors who told them they were under pressure to meet billing targets set by [bosses]…ARC…violated so many regulatory standards, lack of staff chief among them, that the conditions posed “an immediate danger to client health, safety and welfare”…[while] publicly tout[ing] a [“]Christian[“] message…

Link Rot (#1441)

A rare bit of good news about enshittification:

The Internet…Archive’s Wayback Machine…has partnered with…WordPress…[to] launch…a new WordPress plug-in — the Link Fixer — that is designed to combat the scourge of “link rot”…by scanning…WordPress posts for outbound links, then cross-referencing the Wayback Machine for archived versions of those links.  If there are none, it will automatically take new snapshots of the articles in question.  Should a linked web page go offline, the new feature will then redirect readers to the archived versions, so that there is no drop in service.  The tool also archives a user’s own posts, helping to ensure their longevity…if an original link that had gone offline is resurrected, the plug-in will start redirecting the user to that original page again instead of the archived version…

Above the Law (ROTW #20)

Rapist politicians generally prefer to assault drunk women:

[California politician] Eric Swalwell…raped [a staff member] when she was [drunk] and left her bruised and bleeding…it was the second time [he] had [raped] her [but in the previous incident] in 2019…[she was too drunk to remember…three other women [reported]…various [other] kinds of sexual misconduct…including [groping them and] sending them [dick pics]…

When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals (#1578)

Uthmeier’s hoping to get a cut of the “AI” gravy train before it collapses:

Florida’s attorney general…ha[s] opened an investigation into ChatGPT…in [hopes of profiting from] the m[urder]…of…two people at Florida State University last year [by a man obsessed] with the chatbot…James Uthmeier [babbled pompous claptrap about]…“our children” [despite the victims being adults, adding] “facilitate criminal activity, empower America’s enemies [and] threaten our national security” [for extra pomposity]…the widow of [victim] Robert Morales…[is also] considering legal action against OpenAI…

Shame, Shame (#1599)

Any true Christian would recognize this as blasphemy:

…a tech company called Just Like Me is offering…video calls with a…[chatbot synchronized with a cartoon representation] of Jesus for $1.99 per minute…The rapid proliferation of [chatbots intended to exploit] faith…is…unsurprising…given the widespread a[buse] of chatbots for everything from therapy and medical advice to companionship and romance.  Th[ese] burgeoning s[cams] now include…[fantasy characters who pretend to be] Hindu gurus, Buddhist priests…Jesuses, and Catholic [priest]s…Christian software engineer Cameron Pak has developed criteria to help believers navigate these new applications, insisting that…”AI cannot pray for you, because the AI is not alive”…

Mad Libs (#1612)

Any doctor who trusts chatbots should be sued for malpractice:

…bixonimania…[is an eye] condition doesn’t appear in the standard medical literature — because it doesn’t exist.  It’s the invention of a team led by Almira Osmanovic Thunström…[of] the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who…uploaded two fake studies about it to a preprint server in early 2024…Within weeks…[chatbots] began repeating the invented condition as if it were real…the fake papers were then cited in peer-reviewed literature…Thunström [used]…the name bixonimania because…“I wanted to be really clear to any physician or any medical staff that this is a made-up condition, because no eye condition would be called mania — that’s a psychiatric term”…[she] planted many [other] clues…to alert readers that the work was fake.  [The make-believe author supposedly] works at a non-existent university…in [an] equally fake…city…One paper’s acknowledgements thank “Professor Maria Bohm at The Starfleet Academy…in…her lab onboard the USS Enterprise”.  Both papers say they were funded by “the Professor Sideshow Bob Foundation for its work in advanced trickery…part of a larger funding initiative from the University of Fellowship of the Ring and the Galactic Triad”…early on…[there are] statements [such as] “this entire paper is made up” and “Fifty made-up individuals aged between 20 and 50 years were recruited”…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1615)

Zuckerberg and company already knew this; it’s the entire point of the gadget:

More than 70 civil liberties…[and human] rights…organizations are demanding that [Facebook] abandon plans to deploy face recognition on its [pervert] glasses…[because] the feature—reportedly known inside the company as “Name Tag”—would hand [cops, spooks, goons, and other] stalkers…[and] abusers…the ability to silently identify strangers in public…The coalition…is demanding [Facebook] kill the feature before launch, after internal documents surfaced showing the company hoped to use [Trump’s chaos]…as cover for the rollout…[because] bystanders in public have no meaningful way to consent to being identified…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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In the News (#1441)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 29, 2024| 1 Comment »

What is presented as an effort to stop…violence…ends up being the main source of violence.  –  Erika Lust

The Red Umbrella 

If he truly had trouble before, why did he call the same agency again?

Varinder Singh Deo…was celebrating with a friend…in Deo’s detached garage, drinking alcohol and consuming cocaine, while Deo’s wife and child slept…Deo arranged for a sex worker to come over…[but] didn’t think she looked like her online photograph. Deo [and]…the woman, referred to as B.K…argued over a cancellation fee…Deo [brandished]…a handgun…later [claiming to] police…he’d had a traumatic experience with the same escort service a few years earlier when he was supposed to meet up with a sex worker but was instead robbed by multiple men at knife point…B.K. and [her duo partner] M.C. started retreating back to their vehicle…[and] Deo fired two shots at them.  One…struck the back of M.C.’s left shoulder…[she] spent three days in hospital and suffered nerve damage…and…scarring…and…also had to pay a more than $7,000 bill for blood stain removal from the rental car…[the British Columbia judge] chose to sentence Deo to four years in prison…[and] ordered [him] to reimburse B.K. for the blood stain removal bill…

Link Rot

It’s good to see someone actually studying this problem:

A new Pew Research Center analysis shows just how fleeting online content actually is:  A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible…For older content, this trend is even starker.  Some 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are not available today, compared with 8% of pages that existed in 2023…23% of news webpages contain at least one broken link, as do 21% of webpages from government sites…54% of Wikipedia pages contain at least one link in their “References” section that points to a page that no longer exists…Nearly one-in-five tweets are no longer publicly visible on the site just months after being posted…

The Course of a Disease (#1244)

The Spanish case of the Swedish rot has been especially virulent, so this is encouraging:

Spain’s Socialist Party…[has] suffered a sound defeat…in its attempt to recriminalize sex work…[after] the party’s ruling coalition allies…withdrew their backing from the widely reviled “Abolition of Prostitution” law…PSOE’s…Laura Berja, unequivocally stated last year, “We must abolish [women’s sexual freedom] because it is incompatible with human rights.”  El Mundo [said the]…defeat holds “symbolic weight” and sends the abolition law “right to the trash bin.”  It is the first time, the newspaper noted, that the PSOE has failed to rally its coalition allies in support of an important piece of legislation, which may indicate a “crack” in the coalition that could further endanger its chances to remain in power…

Thought Control (#1379)

The censors got what they wanted in this case:

A public library in Boise is transitioning to an “adult only” library.  The Donnelly Public Library s[tated]…that the change is due to the passage of HB710…that en[courages] anyone to sue the library if [they claim] children are exposed to…adult material…due to its small size and the…ambiguous…language of the bill, the change is the only way the…[library] can assure compliance with the law, which goes into effect on July 1…The bill…was signed into law by Governor Brad Little earlier this year, [despite his veto of an earlier version]…

Torture Chamber (#1415)

The inevitable result of locking mentally ill people in filthy cages and entrusting sociopathic thugs to mind them:

…in April 2021, Georgia Baldwin…was clearly in the throes of a severe mental health episode…[but] she was arrested…[on a trumped-up] felony charge [anyway] and sent to jail in Tarrant County, Texas.  Six weeks later, in June, a psychiatrist determined Baldwin was “incompetent and thus unable to stand trial”…[but instead of sending her to] a state hospital…”Tarrant County chose to [keep] Ms. Baldwin [locked] in a small cell, where she could not see through a window or view other human beings,” remaining there from July 27 until her death on September 14…from…”severe hypernatremia” —high levels of sodium in the blood typically resulting from dehydration… [two other prisoners] with severe mental illness [also died] of dehydration in Tarrant County’s c[ages] over a two-year period…Abdullahi Mohamed [was arrested] in June 2020 for…[a violent] manic…bipolar [episode]…Nine days later, jailers…found him unresponsive in his cell, and he died soon after.  And in December 2021, Edgar Villatoro Alvarez was [caged]…after having been hospitalized for a bipolar episode the previous month…he died [the following] February…

Dangerous Speech (#1435)

The government doesn’t care about all those charges, as long as Lacey dies in a filthy cage:

Government attorneys in the Backpage case…want…Lacey and two co-defendants to be sentenced on their respective guilty verdicts so the three men can appeal to the Ninth Circuit…[before] the government will decide if it will retry Lacey…Judge…Humetewa vacated Lacey’s previously scheduled Aug. 6 retrial date and set sentencing for July 9 for Lacey…Scott Spear and Jed Brunst…Humetewa [refused to consider]…the possibility that Lacey be allowed to remain out on bond pending the outcome of any appeal…The one thing the judge and the parties agreed on was that there are weighty matters to be decided by the Ninth, including [multiple kinds of] prosecutorial misconduct…It could take anywhere from eight months to two or three years before the Ninth issues a decision.  Which means there is no immediate end in sight for this vindictive prosecution, now in its seventh year…

The Cop Myth (#1438)

Why are people shocked when men paid and encouraged to behave violently, behave violently?

A [typical and representative Kentucky cop] has been found guilty of murder[ing the husband of his girlfriend, Lena North]…Jeremy Lewis…murder[ed]…Tyler North…[in 2018, but it took the Kounty Kops] two…year[s to find the remains]…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Link Rot

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , , , on August 12, 2021| 2 Comments »

A number of readers have asked me why most of the links on my blog now lead to archived copies of web pages rather than the originals.  One reason is that many news sites are now paywalled, and archive sites circumvent 90% of paywalls; another is that so many sites now demand readers agree to be spied upon (“please approve our tracking cookies”) and archives circumvent that as well.  Many sites also feature adblocker-blockers, and since my brain can’t handle being bombarded with ads that blink, flash, jump, drift, pop up, and otherwise assault my vertigo and aggravate my anxiety, an adblocker is non-negotiable for me if I’m to use the internet at all.  But the most important reason of all is the title of this column: link rot, the phenomenon by which once-functional links now lead to nothing because the original page has been abandoned, deleted, censored, subjected to DMCA “takedown”, or memory-holed.  The problem has always existed, but it’s getting worse thanks to many factors including increasingly-aggressive puritanism, fascist systems that increasingly favor big corporations over the small sites that once made up most of the virtual landscape, and the growing popularity of censorship.  Worst of all, not all rotted links are completely dead; some lead to articles which have been bowdlerized, edited to hide inconvenient facts, or otherwise altered from the original.  Embedded YouTube videos have their own special kinds of rot:  videos can be removed, accounts can be cancelled because some corporate bully claimed “copyright violation“, and in the past few months YouTube has suddenly started enlarging embedded videos so they no longer fit properly on the screen (the better to lure the viewer to the main site, where they can be more effectively tracked and bombarded with ads); the only way to fix this is to go into the HTML code of every single stretched video, one at a time, and manually reset the height and width to their original dimensions.  It’s bad enough having to do that with videos; on a blog as extensive as this one, repairing other rotted links is quite impossible.  So the best I can do is to ensure that going forward, readers clicking on the links I embed will be able to see the article I linked to, in the same form as when I linked it.

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