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Disinformation For Hire: How A New Breed Of PR Firms Is Selling Lies Online

January 11, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

I get a digest of the latest news on news and reporting from the Pew Research Center. One recently caught my interest was from Buzzfeed on the new “Black PR firms” who will, for a fee, generate, structure and support any lie you wish. Scary isn’t a strong enough word, terrifying is more apt. It … [Read more…]

Posted in: Content, Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, Feminism, Finanace, Future of Work, IT Failures, Politics, Racism, Thinking about Tagged: Art-Media, Artifical Intelligence, Black PR, BuzzFeed, Cat@Net, cybersecurity, deception, deception and influence operations, Disinformation, Facebook, fake fact-checking, influence, intelligence, Lies, marketing, online manipulation, operation, PR, Pragmatico, Public Relations, spam, The Archimedes Group, the Reporter, Twitter

PFAS – Trump administration threatens to give forever chemicals another reprieve

January 11, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

Over at the website for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Kathleen Rest posted this “Profiles in Cowardice: Chemicals, Climate, and a Toxic Disregard by the Trump Administration” which is worth the time to read.

Posted in: Climate Change, Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, IT Failures, Politics, Racism, Science, Thinking about, Trump Tagged: climate change, climate science, EPA, forever chemicals, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS, Trump, UCS, Union of Concerned Scientists

Energy Vault

January 5, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

From SwissInfo – Energy Vault Jan 3, 2020 Revolutionary idea to store green power for the grid By Armando Mombelli Stacking blocks of concrete with a crane to store energy and use the force of gravity to keep producing electricity when renewable sources are lacking: simple but revolutionary, the battery solution proposed by the Ticino … [Read more…]

Posted in: Climate Change, Ethical and green living, Finanace, Nuclear Industry, Politics, Science Tagged: battery, C02, electricity, electro-chemical, electro-mechanical, Energy Vault, fossil fuels, gravity, hydrogen-based systems, nuclear power, oil-industry, reservoir, Softbank, solar panels, Solar power, thermal, Vision Fund, wind power, wind turbines

Amsterdam Y2K

January 1, 2020 by sergneri 1 Comment

It was 20 years ago today … we were new to Europe. I had gone ahead in October of 1999 to find an apartment and get some basics set up. A stayed behind in Northern California to wind things down and take care of the odds and ends before coming in November to our new … [Read more…]

Posted in: Faits Divers, IT Failures, Politics, Thinking about, This Day in History, Uncategorized Tagged: 1999, Amsterdam, Basel, Biel/Bienne, Boxing day, Champagne, cyclone Lothar, Dam Square, December 26, December 26 1999, January 1 2000, millennium, Neuchatel, New Year, New Year's Party, Olten, Swiss rail, Switzerland, vuurwerks, Y2K

Booth and Lincoln

December 25, 2019 by sergneri Leave a Comment

I was intrigued by this article, which, as I corrected it, I noticed had mention of both Lincoln and the actor Booth in the column. Written in December 1860. it was years before the two would actually collide on the “world stage.” LETTER FROM NEW YORK. [FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] Towards the bottom of the … [Read more…]

Posted in: California Newspaper Archive, Faits Divers, Obituaries, Politics, Racism, Slavery, Thinking about Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, John Wilkes Booth, Secesssion

United States of Plastic

December 24, 2019 by sergneri 3 Comments

In the Guardian June 2019, very nicely done graphic on plastic and what we’re not doing about it:This is the illustrated story of where it’s gone by Susie Cagle in San Francisco and the series UNITED STATES OF PLASTIC can be found here. Thu 2 Jan 2020 07.46 EST, in the Guardian, another article The … [Read more…]

Posted in: Climate Change, Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, IT Failures, Politics, Science, Thinking about Tagged: anthropocene era, Inequality, landfill, plastic, polluters, pollution, Recycling, rich and poor, waste

Americans take fish antibiotics because it’s cheaper than a visit to the doctor

December 12, 2019 by sergneri 1 Comment

A study of antibiotics marketed for fish online found user comments about human use garner nine times as much attention The Guardian US healthcare

Posted in: Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, Finanace, Politics, Racism, Science Tagged: anti-bacterial, antibiotics, drugs, fish antibiotics, healthcare, Self-medication, veterinary medicine

Opinion: The Man Who Predicted Nazi Germany

December 7, 2019 by sergneri Leave a Comment

John Maynard Keynes foresaw the chaos that would follow from the Versailles peace treaty.,by Jonathan Kirshner, New York Times, Dec 7, 2019.

Posted in: Faits Divers, Finanace, Politics, Thinking about Tagged: Austen Chamberlain, David Lloyd George, Europe, Fascism, France, Georges Clemenceau, Germany, John Maynard Keynes, Lloyd George, Nazi Germany, Paris Peace Conference, Prime Minister Lloyd George, United States, Versailles, Woodrow Wilson

A Few Notes About the Future of Work

November 25, 2019 by sergneri Leave a Comment

Seems that themes come in batches, the newest theme for me is the old Jetson’s promise of leisure time replacing work, somewhere in the future we’d all work at what we’re good at and there would be enough (food and other goods and money) to go around. I’m firmly convinced that since the dawn of … [Read more…]

Posted in: Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, Feminism, Finanace, Future of Work, IT Failures, Politics, Racism, Science, Thinking about Tagged: AI, Artifical Intelligence, Economics, Future of Work, Government, innovation, MIT, money, Politics, productivity, Skidelsky, so-so technology, startups, Stockton, technology

Read Sacha Baron Cohen’s scathing attack on Facebook in full: ‘greatest propaganda machine in history’

November 23, 2019 by sergneri Leave a Comment

The Guardian published the contents of a speech by Cohen: In a speech last night at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen attacked Facebook and other social media platforms for enabling the proliferation of hate speech and misinformation. The speech was striking in its sincerity – Baron Cohen appeared as … [Read more…]

Posted in: Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, Feminism, Finanace, IT Failures, Politics, Racism, Science, Sea Stories, Slavery, Thinking about, Trump Tagged: Anti-Defamation League, Aphabet, bigotry, Facebook, Fake News, GOOGLE, hate, hate speech, misinformation, Propaganda, racism, Sacha Baron Cohen, Stephen Miller’s Labradoodles
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