Isn't it hilarious that it's been "controversial" to say there's a US proxy war in a country where the US is sending weapons to be used by CIA-trained fighters backed by US intelligence against a longtime US rival in a conflict the US knowingly provoked? Just an FYI here. Putin asked to join NATO because (as he said in Russian, but nobody dared translate, let alone publish) he hoped and expected they could and would help destroy the nuclear arms arsenal both sides are abusing for imaginary stability between former enemies, and (yes, he actually said this) "all this is, is a weapons arsenal from days when leaders were suicidal emotional maniacs", and "we are above that now, we have existential problems to solve, like a warming planet and pollution". There's another Putin for you. Right after NATO turned down his third proposal to have Russia join, he noted that the nazi-affiliated groups in Ukraine, who were murdering thousands of innocent russian speaking people in Ukraine (mainly in Donbass), were a big problem for NATO. Adding that he "does not understand why NATO even still exists", and that his "quest to join NATO was merely a way to prove NATO…

1982: Michel Mulders, Henri Overduin and vocals by Arianna Kraak lyrics; last night as I drove down town to have a ball and fool around at the streets I catch the word they say a virus is going round now you read the Sunday papers watching movies late at night how come noone told me yet what's on everybody's mind: there's a virus going round the word's all over town there's a virus going round it's all they talk about there's a virus going round and it's going 'round and 'round there's a virus going round spreading over town out on the street they break the news you say they're worried about the way I look tomorrow is another day you don't believe a word I say there's a virus going round it's going 'round and 'round there's a virus going round spreading over town here comes the doctor he makes a noise go tell the ladies go tell the boys here comes the doctor he looks at you he says no problem he says you're through there's a virus going 'round it's going 'round and 'round there's a virus going 'round jumps from town to town out on the…

Dear Google, I find it quite abusive how you tend to use your own product (gmail, of all) to communicate to your users telling them you are *not able* to communicate per e-mail, by using a "no-reply@google.com" from-field. Furthermore, it is highly illogical for you to switch areas to be blurred in streetview, and then claim there is no switching it off at all. How is it even possible then, for Google to know which areas need to be blurred and which do not have to be blurred ? What kind of strange code do you use, where you seem unable to use proper switches (i.e. either ON or OFF, like with every normal switch)? Here's an idea: Out of your gigantic for-profit earnings, put 100k a year aside for 2 people that use support email as it was intended (to give support using a from field with an actual address people can communicate with, not some black-hole nothing 'we are too big to care' corporate crap /dev/zero disfunctional cop-out). Then, put another 100k aside for some coder that can actually write a proper switch in your streetview databases, so that owners of homes/buildings (which you decided to blur in…

what3words? Tried using it, for about a month, only to find nobody was prepared to also install the app, or remember 3 words chosen by an unknown third party, or clicking "Navigate to" in that app and then opening Google Maps, while having been obliged to create an account with them, which by that point on android phones is already being milked as advertiser food because they're opened using just 1 Google account that happens to be on the same device. It's just another deep hole towards collecting big data from innocent android users. If anything, it seems to be trying to patent location info, which is ridiculous. And the "///" seem to be a way to induce thoughts of a protocol being used, but it isn't really a protocol, just window-dressing by an (undoubtedly) overpaid design-squad. What I would prefer is a translation of LAT + LONG into just one numbers string. That way you could just start at 1, which could for example be the UTC or GMT 0 or something random that is used a lot, and end with whatever many locations have been tagged using a number. That way it would be fair, just as fair…

Da's wel erg makkelijk hè? Asociaal herrie maken, en dan zeggen dat de ander dat moet tolereren omdat ze leven in een grote stad. Zo groot is die stad trouwens niet. Bangkok, *dat* is een grote stad. Daar is het, naar verhouding tot het verkeer en aantal mensen, muisstil, viel me op. Je mag best geluid maken, maar wij leerden als kinderen om *niet te hard* te praten op straat, en zeker niet 's avonds, wij leerden rekening te houden met wat anderen misschien als afleidend of storend zouden kunnen ervaren. Ook dieren trouwens, in een bos bijv. Als je in de natuur met heel veel hard getetter kinderen hoort kwebbelen, en de ouders/groepsleiders zeggen daar niets van, dan weet ik al meteen hoe laat het is. Een aantal kids in de buurt denken hier schijnbaar ook dat ze de enigen op de wereld zijn. Met hun bluetooth-speakers pontificaal gaan hangen voor je deur, of keihard krijsen, schreeuwen, stampen of tegen dingen aantrappen alsof ze psychiatrisch patienten zijn, zonder er een moment erg in te hebben dat er misschien mensen zijn die bijv. thuis werken en zich willen kunnen concentreren. Of die nachtdiensten draaien en willen kunnen slapen. Het gaat…

Sounds unbelievable, doesn't it? Clearly Gmail use their Spam 'detection' as a non-stop alpha version test-system, there's generally an alarming number of false positives in their Spam folder, or, wait, they don't call it a folder, they *label* it as being spam. I have been running my own mail-server(s) ever since the BBS/fidonet days in the 1990s, and I can assure you, the reader; I do know how email works, I know what each header in an email means, I know why and when it gets blocked, bounced, deferred, queued, tagged, blacklisted, you name it. Been there, done it all. And that's why I'm so fed up with google's attempts to monopolize the email-sphere by forcing all other mail service providers to jump through unpredictable hoops in order to avoid their false positive spam-tagging. Just because they're a big name doesn't mean they know how email works, in fact, most of their delivery-servers are blacklisted somewhere for a reason. Compare that with my score why don't you. Apparently Google wants the entire world to use Gmail, and Gmail alone. When you finally got used to their strange label- and filter-conventions, after years of sending each other huge attachments, Google forces…

So, Articles 11 and 13 have been approved by MEPs. Very bad news for the internet. Unless member states push back, Google News (among others) will shut down across the EU and all kinds of censorship mechanisms will become widespread. Creators and social media will not benefit. Amazing how time and time again those sociopaths in powerful positions, when they see something that works well, they manage to fuck it all up. GDPR also proved to be a disaster for internet in the EU but this will be even worse. And, as always, apparently the MEP's that voted in favor didn't even know what they are really voting on, because the result will just be the total opposite of what they hoped to achieve; - It will be the end of what was left of trust in main-stream media or social networks. - The Onion Router network will improve, expand in functionality, gain A LOT of traction and new users. - We will probably see new separate decentralized root-DNS appear, next to separate decentralized domain name registration systems, and secure tunneling inventions will explode. Let's see how they like that. - Mozilla Firefox will probably end up being the only…

Fun fact; Blockchain technology doesn't require any mining AT ALL, no cracking hashes, no crunching of numbers. Another fun fact: A good reliable functional cryptocurrency does not require mining AT ALL. It's an insane idea brought forward by virtual value backed by nothing (about the same as the one behind the dollar and euro today), implying that one has to do 'something special' in order to create new currency. A so-called 'proof of work' consensus algorithm. Completely unneeded. Mining is a deplorable wasteful mechanism by which only retards think they 'create value'. Mathematical and cryptography advancements have long surpassed any requirement of having to crunch numbers in order to 'create' new virtual currency. Funniest fact: Bitcoin creation ends when a set amount of them has been created by mining, thereby proving how useless the concept of wasting energy, time and resources has been all along. Its value doesn't just disappear after they've all been mined! Even bitcoin's core mining software developer stated that mining wasn't needed in order for BTC to function back in 2009. It was a silly fun idea, made up solely to make it look like you needed to do something in order to get rewarded that…