Archive for July, 2021

For the love of all that is good, get off the cloud!!

Posted: July 24, 2021 by ng36b in Uncomfortable Truths
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What could possibly go wrong? From Dilbert.

For the love of everything holy, please, please, please, get your data out of the cloud.

For years now we have been sold on “cloud” technology. Everything will be in the “cloud.” We just move things to the “cloud” and it’ll be great! Cloud computing is the bestest thing ever!!!

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. And in the age of advanced censorship from large media companies, really, really wrong.

The “cloud” is not a hard concept. Put data on a remote computer with a fast connection, so that as long as you have an internet connection you can access the data. On the surface, that seems like a good thing. It’s not, and especially isn’t for anyone that has even a remotely conservative opinion. Why are there problems?

  1. You don’t own your data. Cloud services can use your data for whatever they want. Simply scroll through the terms of service to prove my point.
  2. Cloud services can cancel you at any time. You lose access to your data instantly. You can’t even find the address for the place your data is being stored at, so how do you think you’ll get it back?
  3. You upload more than data. Your data, your location when you upload, the IP address you upload from, all of that goes to the cloud too.

Large media companies continue to prove they have an agenda and are 100% willing to push it. What hurt Parler the most was losing access on Amazon Web Services. AWS is huge, and a large chunk of the internet revolves around using it as a host. Having AWS simply drop a client as big as Parler was unheard of before, but its going to become the norm.

What’s the alternative? Build your own cloud.

QNAP TS-451, from QNAP

Having a network attached storage, or NAS, used to be a thing only geeky kids setup to host their Minecraft server. It used to be fairly complicated to build and maintain. Not anymore. Companies like QNAP and Synology makes NAS devices that are easy to setup, easy to use, and easy to maintain privacy. You can store your pictures, videos, e-mail and everything else without worrying what Facebook thinks of it. These devices even let you safely access them remotely. And with basic models costing as little as 139 dollars, its even a more long-term economical option.

Just like dumping social media, dumping cloud services is going to happen at some point. One must ask, do you think so-called woke companies are going to be happy just censoring social media? Can one imagine a world where problematic pictures, letters, and other electronic media stored in the cloud simply vanish one day, or the files become “corrupted” for unknown reasons? That day is coming. It’s coming soon. Anyone conservative that is foolishly leaving private data in a cloud by choice is going to feel that wrath in less than five years.

There is no good reason to store your private data on a cloud. Unless you have to use one for work, buy a NAS and move off cloud services.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Five Fr. Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill Thoughts Under the Fedora

Posted: July 24, 2021 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine, culture
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The first thing one should take away from this story, particularly if you are a Non-Catholic who has no interest in what the good monsignor is doing in his spare time is this: The same tracking data that was used here is being used on you and you have almost certainly agreed to its use via the user agreement.

If that doesn’t scare you it ought to

My decision to stay off of Facebook and to do without a smartphone is looking better and better every day.

Forgetting the sinfulness of the actions of Msgr Burrill it really strikes me how stupid it is.

Even without this tracking business did he really think that this was going to be kept under wraps forever. Did he not think that with all the enemies that the church has that this would not have eventually been used against the church?

The idea that people think that stuff like this is never going to come out never ceases to amaze me, and I’ll bet there are plenty of people in the church who are very afraid right now.

They should be, particularly for their souls.

It is not lost on a lot of people that the Msgr. is from the same diocese where Fr. Altman has his priestly facilities to say the mass removed for daring to call out both the Bishops and Catholic pols for their open flaunting of the teaching of the church.

I suspect that unlike Fr. Altman Msgr Burrill will not face such a punishment or anything near it from his Bishop, unless he suddenly does something really beyond the pale like coming out against Traditionis custodes.

To nobody’s surprise the “Catholics for Mortal Sin” left as I call them is up in arms about the revelations citing privacy. Crisis Magazine and religion news both hit the messenger hard insisting that these sins were nobody’s business, but at least they referred to them as sins as opposed to Fr. James Martin to who the only sin in that the public was informed of something that I suspect an awful lot of people knew about, some I suspect with authority.

I have a question for these folks. If a priest was banging the wives of parishioners or was working at an abortion clinic under an assumed name, both acts completely legal in the US and elsewhere, would it not be proper to expose these acts?

I suspect their answers would vary depending on if the priests politics paralleled their own.

Speaking off souls what I find really interesting, as a person who struggles with sin, is the lack on concern about Msgr. Burrill’s soul. If these catholic actually believe in their vows and the doctrines of the Church they should be very interested in stopping mortal sins that can destroy a person’s soul.

Now in fairness there are some who are more interested in spiking the ball against their foes then the idea of worrying about both the Msgr’s soul and the souls of the men he was hooking up with. That’s the sin of pride.

We should be concerned with the souls of sinners as their are our brothers and the soul of the church because it is the instrument by which Christ redeems such sinners, Souls are all that matter, this should always remain the priority. Such things need to be exposed because the scandal they produce endangers souls, yet it is still our duty to be willing to show mercy once they are, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy” For we must remember as I’ve said many times that heaven will be no less glorious nor hell any more bearable if someone we despise is standing next to us there.

We interrupt this blog to shop for a Used car in the $3500 to $4500 range

Posted: July 23, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

My plans for another post were interrupted by my mechanic that it will not be cost effective to bring my 1999 Buick LeSabre up to snuff for the rigorous Massachusetts inspections standards for when the time for my next inspection comes.

Frankly I’d like another LeSabre as I”ve had three and liked them all but as they stopped making them in 2005 that might be a problem so let me put it out there. Who has a car they want to sell me at this price range?

A LeSabre or a 2003-2004 Avalon will get preference as I like both models and years (Don’t like the later Avalons) but if you have a car that will pass Mass Inspection and will not rust away on my I’d be happy to talk (you can reach me in comments. Any car considered will have to pass a check by my mechanic (located in Fitchburg MA)

And yes I know that this is a low budget but thanks to COVID complications my wife has been out of work for six months and with AFLAC coverage about to run out I’m not in a position to put our cash reserves at risk for a better car.

Ok folks let’s hear what you’ve got!

Update: Looks Like I found something if my mechanic gives me the thumbs up we’re all set.

The Biden Regime has officially instituted a Ministry of Truth

Posted: July 22, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Ever since Joe Biden was illegitimately installed in the White House his administration has demonstrated a very remarkable disregard for the Constitution of the United States.  This was on full display last week when Biden’s press secretary announced that the Biden regime has deputized Social Media corporations formally as the official Ministry of Truth for the federal government of the United States.  This is in direct violation of First Amendment.

This New York Post article White House ‘flagging’ posts for Facebook to censor over COVID ‘misinformation’ fully documents the shameful business.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday the Biden administration is identifying “problematic” posts for Facebook to censor because they contain “misinformation” about COVID-19.

Psaki disclosed the government’s role in policing social media during her daily press briefing after Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on companies to purge more pandemic posts.

It absolutely not up to the federal government, or any level of government, to stop the flow of any type of information, whether it be disinformation or not.  Far too often governments label truthful information they do not like or is inconvenient to them as disinformation.

Censorship is a blatant violation of the First Amendment and is also a serious violation of the founding principles of the United States.  During the conference Biden’s press secretary and Surgeon General admitted to the censorship.

“We are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team — given as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue, of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic,” Psaki said.

Murthy said “we’re asking [social media companies] to consistently take action against misinformation superspreaders on their platforms.”

This quote by the Surgeon General pings the irony meter,  The only way to ensure individuals can make informed decisions is if they have access to all of the information from all sides of every issue.

“Misinformation takes away our freedom to make informed decisions about our health and the health of our loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health misinformation has led people to resist wearing masks in high-risk settings. It’s led them to turn down proven treatments and to choose not to get vaccinated. This has led to avoidable illnesses and deaths,” Murthy said.

Those on the political left have been proven wrong over and over again during this pandemic when it comes to science and medicine.  They have been distorting science for decades now to create a climate of fear so they can strip away the freedom and rights of all people.  Their response to the Coronavirus pandemic is the latest installment of this.

The political left has a very long history of labeling any information contrary to the progressive ideology as misinformation.  Something that is well documented in this Federalist article Democrats’ Definition Of ‘Misinformation’ Is Whatever Hurts Them Politically Today

Psaki maintains the government has “a responsibility, as a public health matter, to raise that issue” of people allegedly dying en masse because of uncensored Facebook posts that don’t comport with the White House’s vaccine messaging. This isn’t a caricature of the White House’s position either. When a reporter asked President Joe Biden directly last week what his message is to sites like Facebook, Biden replied, serious as a heart attack, “They’re killing people.”

What’s going on here isn’t really an attempt to save Americans from disease. It’s a desperate attempt by the ruling class to save their own rear ends from information that threatens their ideological goals.

Democrats at the helm of the executive and legislative branches aren’t looking to squash so-called misinformation because it’s the only way to keep people from dying (which still wouldn’t justify their authoritarianism, by the way). Biden, Psaki, and their friends in Congress and Silicon Valley are working to snuff out their opponents’ speech because not only do they think it will help them politically, as it likely did in the 2020 election, but because they believe they can get away with it — again, as they did in the 2020 election.

Marsha Blackburn is often on the right side of issues.  She is with this statement Marsha Blackburn Slams ‘Authoritarian’ Joe Biden for Working with Big Tech to Censor Americans

These revelations are deeply concerning.  The blatant actions by your administration to work with big tech companies to censor Americans’ free speech are shocking – and arguably a violation of the First Amendment.  Communist countries such as Cuba are currently taking away their citizens’ right to use the internet to communicate; the U.S. government should be standing up to, not looking to mirror, authoritarian regimes such as these

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