October 28, 2020
Friday, October 30, 2020
Friday, October 23, 2020
GOTO 2018 • Containers From Scratch • Liz Rice
This is kind of awesome. I really liked the "f-bomb" lol :)
Thursday, October 22, 2020
Quibi? What is Quibi?
Last night when I noticed the breaking news that a company called Quibi had made public their intentions to shut the doors and fold, I looked at my wife and said, "Quibi? What is Quibi? What was Quibi?" She said it was some company that was trying to put a different kind of a spin on streaming video but she wasn't entirely sure of the details, so I started poking around on Google to see what I could find.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Quibi was a social media based streaming video startup that made headlines earlier this year because they had raised a whopping $1.75 billion in capital for their newborn venture. Also according to the WSJ, it began only a short six months ago, and the news of them throwing in the towel being released publicly sometime last night was the first I had heard about it, which did surprise me to some very minor degree.
Of course, all things considered, 2020 has been a year that will no doubt be referenced and studied for a long time to come because of everything that has transpired this year here in the U.S., and even globally. When I went to sleep for the last time in 2019 I had no reason to suspect that 2020 would be a year full of unprecedented and unfortunate events and natural disasters from sea to shining sea, and right now we are only in mid-October. I've heard people say many times in years and decades past that sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction, and I am hoping and praying that 2020 has finished producing unwanted and unwelcomed truths, but I will believe that is true at 12:00 a.m. on January 1 and not a moment sooner. I hate to be so pessimistic, but until then my guard will be up and expecting just about anything to happen, and hoping that nothing else does...
But after having seen so much of this year's fruits with my own eyes, the fact that a six month old tech startup I had never even heard of until publicly announcing that it was shutting its doors didn't come as much of a shock to me. I won't lie however, being a very tech savvy person myself for about three decades now, I was a bit puzzled as to how or why that was actually transpiring when they had raised almost two billion dollars in capital to begin their journey. That is billion with a "B", by the way; that is $999,999,999.00 with and additional $750,000,001.00 stacked on top of that and in one big pile in some bank somewhere.
Considering that most successful startups don't even reach anywhere near that amount of money for many years after they first launch, if ever they do, my immediate thought was that they obviously went into the wrong field. From my vantage point, the owners of Quibi obviously should be in the business of helping people raise venture capital for their small businesses and startups, because I've never seen anyone do quite as well in that aspect of their business endeavor as they did at the onset of opening Quibi.
I hate to say it, but I don't think they'll ever have what it takes to build a successful tech company and would highly encourage them to avoid this industry to the best of their ability. I believe they'd make a killing with a business helping to raise capital for other businesses though; call it a hunch, a gut feeling, or whatever you'd like, but I don't think it requires any clairvoyance to be comfortable with betting on them if they chose to pursue venture capital consultancy over tech in the future.
In all fairness in regard to Quibi biting the dust however, I should mention that an established competitor was already pursuing bringing Quibi to court alleging that their patent rights were being violated by the startup. According to the Wall Street Journal, the streaming video company EKO, in addition to already being established was also being backed by the Hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. who was/is financing the high-stakes patent lawsuit. This obviously played a huge part in Quibi's decision and yesterday's announcement to walk away rather than testing the legal validity of the claims of such formidable foes. This is likely especially true considering that the owners of Quibi were at such an early stage in their own company's development, and all things considered, it was probably the wise decision amongst the choices they had moving forward from where they were at the time the decision was made.
Again, the fact that they chose to do the prudent and conservative thing with so much investor capital at their disposal is just another tell-tale sign that a venture capital consultancy business would be a good fit for this pair. There are a couple of reasons why the tech industry probably isn't, however.
To begin with, to make a company such as Quibi successful in that market would require some things first, and when I say first, I mean that considering what you're up against in the world of social media giants like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube, and obviously EKO, NetFlix, Vemo, and we can't forget Amazon and Google, you need to be to the point where you are able to just know without any doubt that your plan isn't going to constitute a patent violation or result in any copyright issues. To do that, you'd have to do some serious research on the competition and if you were determined enough to proceed there is most likely a way to do it without having any such issues.
Once you had that figured out, you'd need to have your applications for the servers, terminals, workstations, smartphones, tablets, televisions, and desktop computers to a point where once you had your headquarters properly equipped and your sub-contractors squared away, meaning all of your required on-site and off-site equipment and storage procured and ready to go including having all of it properly configured and secured to the best of your ability, you could deploy immediately on the same day you made the announcement that you've launched your startup.
And ideally, from that day up until election day in November, making sure people see ads for your new product more than they do for people asking for their votes at the voting polls. And after election day, having those ad campaigns continue to some degree until next summer at minimum, making adjustments as needed based on advertising analytics and data, and being sure to watch that aspect vigilantly and with great precision. That way you could make the adjustments in the most effective places and ways to ensure the best results, the best bang for your money.
Television and radio ads could very well be the most critical for such a startup at this point in time, but I'd also have social media campaigns to the extent that would be possible, and I'd probably have people dressed up in pink smart phone outfits with the company's app and logo conspicuously displayed on the screen and the back of the costumes, and I've have them where I'd be sure that lots of teenagers and lots of women would see them. Even if they only get a glympse for a moment, that type of advertising would probably do quite well considering the market and its current state, and the giant companies that might or might not be so cooperative where your advertising priorities are concerned.
One thing that I'm confidently certain of though, is that a startup such as Quibi would probably have a fairly decent shot of making it in the market if they made sure to have all of that setup and ready to go on the same day they officially launched. I can tell you that I spend a great deal of time on my computers these days, as I'm constantly working on my servers here at the house, which by the way I just added another Linux box, CentOS this time which I'm loving by the way, and working on the software I'm developing. That said, I had never heard of Quibi prior to yesterday, so if they were dead set on launching this business, they certainly weren't ready on their advertising campaign end of the task at hand; they should have been blowing TV's up with their adds at least for a solid month or two, and gradually decreasing or even increasing over time based on analysis of the effectiveness of the ads.
I meant what I said about the venture capital consultancy thing earlier, it would be hard for a single person on the planet to deny that these two definitely have some serious potential in that field, for sure. And they even had some national advertisement, headlining from coast to coast on pretty much every form of media outlet medium that we have available to us as of now. That is very likely worth a great deal, so if I'm right then capitalists gonna capitalize I'm sure, it's what they do. I'll be watching to see if perhaps this has already crossed their minds. We shall see.
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
We'll See Said the Zen Master
We'll see said the zen master, for we know not today what we will need for tomorrow but he who carry lighter can burn bridge when he get there.
Monday, October 19, 2020
Never Really Thought it was the Video, But May Never Know for Sure
To be quite honest, I do not believe that my Facebook account was deleted over a video of an idiot setting his own feet on fire on accident. What probably happened?
My theory is that a squeaky fellow named M*** L*j*n* from Louisiana reported me to the Facebook police because he got butt hurt that I was trying to bring attention to the fact that a Facebook group wrecked the social media reach for the entire population of Hurricane Laura victims. He got ticked off because I was trying to help thousands upon thousands of people in Louisiana, and he did it while I was actually in Louisiana helping old people and doing that work for free. I spent a month over there doing that, sawing trees with my chainsaw and moving trees to the road.
While I was over there doing that, he was over there getting my account of more than a decade permanently disabled by crying to Facebook. What I find interesting about that however, is that instead of Facebook contacting me regarding the uproar that I was actively attempting to incite, they chose to just disable my account permanently instead. I was over there volunteering on my own dime, living in a tent behind a church, with no electricity, no bathroom, no shower, and a wooden pallet to sleep on. Had it not been for that guy, I would have helped far more than the three property owners that I did, but I had been communicating with them all by way of Facebook. There were people who wanted me to help them too, but thanks to Mr. L*j*n*, I was not able to get in touch with them, or anyone else.
This guy wrecked my entire charity effort because he didn't like me griping about the group "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" or what that group did to the social media reach. Now Facebook, mind you, is one of the world's authorities on social media and every detail about how it works. I'm pretty certain that everyone there knows enough for what I was trying to get people to listen to ---to at least trigger an inquiry into what I was saying. Since they didn't seem to do the right thing and look into it, it leads me to believe that it is at least possible that Facebook might have been involved in doing it on purpose.
I'm not making accusations here, but I know that I wasn't given the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure that when I used the words, "Facebook", and "national security threat" in the same sentence that it probably triggered a report with all of my posts anywhere on Facebook being forwarded instantly to the Facebook legal department. And once they read what I was telling people, they needed to shut me up and that was the best method they had to do it.
One day, it will eventually get out to the public that what I was trying to tell everyone was really happening, and it was really doing the damage I was saying that it was. It is possible it was by accident, but all things considered, I just don't see how it could have been.
That said, why? Well, Louisiana is a "Trump" state, perhaps Facebook wanted to kill the social media reach for the same reason that the national news wasn't airing any coverage of the aftermath. Facebook would certainly know how to get that done, and the events that I watched unfold in front of my face couldn't have been planned or performed any better than they were performed; flawlessly. And in a way that nobody would notice, or that's what they expected until I snapped to the fact of what was going on. And it did strike a nerve with me because I know a lot of people in Louisiana, and I like and care about a lot of them. Once I noticed what was happening, it was all downhill from there.
Just know that I did try to do what I could to have someone look into what I was saying and wasn't successful in getting a single person out of multitudes of people to give it even a moment of consideration. I have no doubt though, that Facebook's legal department is probably still pissing their pants hoping that nobody does eventually look into what I was saying because should that day come, it is very possible that there could be criminal charges involved. Their virtual document shredders have probably been going 90 to nothing since I tried to blow the whistle on what was going on and for the time being, it looks like Mr. L*j*n* and everyone else has sided with the people who caused the damage and with Facebook, if they were involved in intentionally doing what was done.
I'll be waiting for someone to catch wind of what I've been trying to get people to understand for around two months now, and someday someone will and people are going to regret some of the actions they took regarding all of this. It won't be me, because eventually people will have some kind of "official" proof to what I'm saying so they might either understand it better, or if they just don't believe me, then at that point they will have to assume that someone else is also 'full of crap' about all of it other than just me.
Mr. L*j*n* "took offense" to me trying to help everyone affected by the hurricane and he was successful in ending my trip, costing me a lot of money after I had already been working over there for free, and not being able to help anyone else who I had planned on helping. He also caused me to lose my Facebook account, all my friends and family members whom I have no way to contact or keep up with now, and all of the people who were on that list like my dad whom I was very close to, his sister, and my grandmother all whom are deceased now and just to name a few. I'll just go ahead and put this out there too, I haven't had a paying job in quite some time, and while I was over there doing this work for free trying to help people, well, I wasn't exactly getting paid for that either.
So thanks a lot M***, you repaid everything I was trying to do to help the people in your area including you (and I know you didn't want anyone coming from any other states to help but thousands upon thousands did, and you have electricity because of many of them) , but including you, and repaid all the work I had done with contempt and you don't know a single thing about me, but know this, life works in circles and what goes around comes around. I forgive you for everything you did, but you suck for doing it all, just know that.
Furthermore, the comment you made about not talking about charity work, well, when you caused Facebook to delete my account permanently, I had no choice but to drop everything I was doing and make a blog page in the hopes that people would communicate with me there and let me know they needed help. My blog failed in that regard because after all, it isn't Facebook, and everyone uses Facebook.
The admins of the group "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" had no business setting that group to private, at least not when they did. Because they did that, they killed the social media reach for every local news station in the affected area of the storm and every single person in the entire affected area. The admins of that group caused an incalculable amount of damage by causing the information to not get out to the people it very badly needed to get to, even the Lake Charles mayor was pleading with people to try to get the word out, but that group was standing in the middle of that information and the people it needed to reach, and you helped do that as well. Good job buddy. Good job.
Saturday, October 17, 2020
A Word of Advice Regarding the Use of Facebook for Anything Other Than Sharing Links Pointing to Your Content
By: Casey Jones
I want to note here that everyone should be aware of the fact that you can have NO reasonable expectation of anything you post on Facebook being there from one day to the next. I would advise anyone and everyone to avoid putting any amount of time or work into anything that will be stored directly on any of Facebook's servers. I would advise you not to upload any photos directly to Facebook (other than profile pictures and cover photos), not to write anything of any great length on Facebook, and to not post any content directly to Facebook anywhere on their platform, with the exception of links pointing to some other place where that content is stored.
I learned this the hard way after losing my account for no justified reason. This included my personal account, all of the pages I managed including my business page for B&C Goods and Services, and all of the groups I managed. The thousands of photos I uploaded over the years while I had my account, all of the friends and family members I had on my list who are now deceased, all of the friends and family members I had on my list who are still alive and well and have no idea that any of this even took place, all of the posts and the replies to posts, life events, memories with other people, every single bit of it wiped out with a single click of a mouse and without good reason, and with no explanation provided by Facebook as to why. The only thing Facebook offered was this: "Not Following Community Standards" and also that this decision was final and absolute, it can't be reviewed or reversed.
Mark Zuckerberg and his company claim that they set community building as one of their main priorities and that keeping those communities healthy requires that people feel safe while using their platform. This is the justification for the existence of their Community Standards and the disproportionate and inappropriate punishments, as well as their discriminate manner in which they apply these consequences to users who knowingly or unknowingly violate them. These claims to hold communities in such high regard cannot be genuine however, because numerous Facebook users have had their accounts permanently disabled and have been permanently forbidden by Facebook from making future accounts on their platform for sometimes very trivial reasons or even for no reason at all in some cases.
How can Mark Zuckerberg justify asserting that he holds communities in this high regard if he takes it upon himself or upon the self-appointed responsibility of his company to permanently remove any given user over a TOS violation without first asking every single user who is on that TOS violator's friends list whether or not it is okay with them if he (Zuckerberg) banishes that person forever from this place made for families and friends to interact with one another? What gives Mark Zuckerberg the right to forbid all of the users on his platform from being able to communicate with any single one of their friends or family members? It is his establishment, for sure, so legally he has the right to do that if he wants to, but people need to be aware that this happens a great deal more than most realize.
If you try to look at one of your friends' or family members' page one day and you see an error message stating that the content is missing, or that you don't have access to view it, do not assume that you've been blocked. First you should assume that your friend or family member has been secretly discarded and forbidden to be there any longer by the Owner of Facebook and without any of your input regarding that fact, or without any concern how you feel about it either.
Monday, October 12, 2020
People Need to Stop Using Facebook for Primary Communication
I used to have a Facebook account. I had the account for at least 10 years, but I'm pretty sure that I started a Facebook account sometime in 2008, and considering that it is 2020 right now I'll just say for the sake of argument that I had one for the past 12 years.
For some undisclosed reason, other than "Not Following Community Standards", Facebook or someone at Facebook took it upon themselves to permanently disable my account recently. Facebook, is under no obligation to care whether or not "YOU" mean anything to any single one of its users, and so they simply delete your account, all of your memories and things you shared with your friends and your family, and then they move on and you never hear another word about it.
There are many reasons why the Facebook policies that call for doing this are wrong, and I am not even going to bother too much at trying to convince anyone of this. But I will say that it seems that Facebook does not feel like its users should determine who they will and will not put up with on their platform, and take it upon themselves to remove people for violations that most users probably aren't even aware of. I know I wasn't aware of the one that I'm sure they used to justify permanently disabling my account, not until after they did it at which point I read the community standards trying to figure out what could have caused them to do this.
So what happens if Facebook disables the account of someone that other users on Facebook actually want to hear from and want to keep up with? Facebook doesn't care about that a single bit. They don't care what you think about it or how you feel about it, and quite frankly, it's none of your business because its their platform and if you don't like it, by all means, go somewhere else.
That has to be the worst customer service model I've seen in my lifetime, and it tells me a lot about their company, its employees, its CEO, and its outside advisors who help them create their policies. A site built on getting people to use their site to interact with other people, owned and operated by people who don't care about other people; now there's something I never thought would have grown into a company as large as Facebook has grown into.
It is no shock however in the grand scheme of things, because decent human beings rarely acquire as much money as Mark Zuckerberg has, and I'm not absolutely implying that this proves that he's not a good person, but it certainly raises a flag and makes me wonder. If I had to base that assessment on Facebook's policies however, I'll just say that their policies regarding permanently disabling accounts are a direct reflection of the person in charge of enforcing them, and that certainly doesn't leave much room for respect in my opinion of Facebook's CEO.
I had a lot of people on my friends' list on Facebook, I managed pages and groups, and I put unfathomable amounts of time into building what I had there. I even paid for ads and was a verified ID user. None of that, not the time I had spent on Facebook, not the money I had put into Facebook, not the amount of content I had there for people or the number of likes and comments on any of it, none of that played a part whatsoever in the decision to permanently disable my account or to do it without so much as the decency to explain why. Not that "why" is anywhere even close to justified, because I have a good idea "why" they did it, and the punishment for doing it just doesn't fit the "crime".
If this ever happens to you, you will have a better understanding of what people in my situation are having to deal with, as most people who use Facebook on a daily basis have become so dependant on it for everything they do that involves other people. Ask yourselves this question though, "Do you think that the power to permanently disable someone's Facebook account should be something held by the CEO of the company, or should that be better determined by the people using the Facebook platform?"
What if the person they disabled was someone whom other people liked? What if the person they disabled was someone that other people depended on for things that were very important?
What if the person they disabled was someone whom other people liked? What if the person they disabled was someone that other people depended on for things that were very important?
Wouldn't it be a better policy to inform the person in question that they had violated the terms and explain to them why, and give them a chance to correct the issue rather than just permanently "disappearing" them? And instead of just disabling their account in a worst case scenario, why not just disable all of their posting ability and leave their viewing access, that way they could still see all the content they had posted in the numerous years prior to the incident. They could still see all of their friends' posts, including their friends and family who are now deceased and can never be sent another friend request.
I've had numerous people tell me, "Just make another account." You can't "just make another account" that is like the one that some robot or robot-like employee at Facebook disabled, because there are a lot of things that you had that you can never get back. My dad is one of them, and my aunt (my dad's sister), and numerous friends that are gone forever from this place we live in. I can't go to their pages and look at memories we shared over the years, all of that is gone.
What Facebook did to me, and I have no doubt that they have done to many others, is a shame. A company that treats anyone the way they treat some of their users doesn't deserve any users at all. They are lining their pockets with gold using your "you", all of your information and everything about you that makes you who you are, and their policies prove to me without a doubt that they don't care about how you feel about any of your friends or your families. They would do the same thing they did to me to any one of you in a split second, and never give it a second thought.
People need to find some other means to keep up with their friends and family members other than Facebook. Create a backup because you never know when this will happen to you. You're only one line of programming code and one Facebook policy away from it.
Here is the video that I believe is the reason for them permanently disappearing me from their social network:
Let me know what you think if you would like; I mean do you feel like that video is a justified reason to permanently ban me so that the numerous people in my family have no way to contact me and I have no way to contact them? My business page, and everything I had been working on for years, over this video...
It isn't likely to ever be nearly as big as Facebook, but I'm working on building a social media site to compete with Facebook because people need options, and Facebook needs to grow some customer support.
I write software and I do web design, but it is going to take me a while to get a site like that up and running. I'm open to having some help and I have some excellent ideas to make it a site that people will want to use.
I write software and I do web design, but it is going to take me a while to get a site like that up and running. I'm open to having some help and I have some excellent ideas to make it a site that people will want to use.
First and foremost, people will be put ahead of profits on this site; each person will be more than just a number that owns a bank account. In addition, and unlike that other place, people will not be treated like trash, and this site will NOT have any Communist Standards or firing squads that execute unaware offenders of such, such as Fascistbook has. At least we know where the budget is that was originally allotted for their non-existent customer service department; that budget was obviously reassigned to the Gueststoppo and the firing squads.
