Archive for the ‘media’ Category

3 Days and Waiting Twitter’s New Tina Brown Strategy

Posted: November 24, 2020 by datechguy in blogs, business, elections, media, News/opinion
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I’ve never liked Twitter even though I’ve used it. I was a late adopter, and with good reason. It’s the crystal meth of social media — addictive and destructive, yet simultaneously unsatisfying. When I’m off it I’m happier than when I’m on it. That it’s also being run by crappy SJW types who break their promises, to users, shareholders, and the government, of free speech is just the final reason. Why should I provide free content to people I don’t like, who hate me? I’m currently working on a book on social media, and I keep coming back to the point that Twitter is far and away the most socially destructive of the various platforms. So I decided to suspend them, as they are suspending others. At least I’m giving my reasons, which is more than they’ve done usually.

Glenn Reynolds

Apparently Twitter has decided that even though their written accusations against me are patently false it’s much too embarrassing to grant my appeals quickly only to have their apologies and claims of “mistakes” be illustrated as false.

In fact given the text of my last appeal...

For what is now the 6th time in under 20 days you have locked me out claiming that I was spreading intimate images when I was in fact each time tweeting out a link to a post on Benford’s statistical law which demonstrates the impossibility of Joe Biden’s magic ballots.

Moreover Every time I have appealed you have upheld said appeal apologized and claimed my lockout was an error. YET EVERY SINGLE TIME AFTER THESE “apologies” I HAVE RETWEETED THE VERY SAME LINK TO THE VERY SAME PIECE AND WAS LOCKED OUT WITH THE VERY SAME FALSE ACCUSATION AGAINST ME.

To say this is despicable and dishonorable is to not only repeat myself from previous appeals but to say something that is so apparent that it almost doesn’t need saying. That you still do this demonstrate why other alternatives like Parler are doing so well.

Bottom line you’re accusation is false and I’m not only not going to delete the tweet but after this appeal is won I will test to see if your upcoming “apology” and assertion of a “mistake” is worth any more than it was the last five times you sent them.

At least my next lockout for that same link will be lucky number 7

emphasis mine

they have clearly concluded that there is no percentage in handling my appeal in a timely manor.

So I am now on day three of my lockout awaiting the results of my appeal and counting. For Twitter it’s the best of possible worlds in the sense that they keep me silent while pretending that they are carefully considering the nuances of my appeal but they keep the Benford’s law post from spreading, at least on their platform, while always dangling the carrot that if I just delete the tweet in question I’ll be welcomed back.

Now if I was 14 or 21 or maybe even in my 30’s that might has some oomph, alas dear twitter I’m nearer to my 70th birthday than I am to my 45th and thus lived many decades without twitter, and while it is a convenience I can continue to function without it.

While the in the short term such a plan will achieve goals in the long term discouraging your product (that’s folks like me) from being on your platform while encouraging them to go to other places such as Gab (Parler wants a cell phone number that I don’t have) might not be appealing to one’s customer base (advertisers) which is likely to have as bad an effect on shareholders as encouraging your voter base to not reproduce with the same predictable results.

The problem exemplified by the case of Lena Dunham is that the “r strategy” (parents having fewer children, with the idea of more “quality” in their offspring) pursued past a certain point, involves an increased risk of eventual reproductive failure. This is what I mean by taking into account secondary and tertiary consequences, thinking forward to the third generation down the line. Suppose this hypothetical:

John and Jane have two children.

If both of their children have two children of their own, John and Jane will have four grandchildren.

If all four grandchildren each have two children, then John and Jane will have eight great-grandchildren.

Now a slightly different hypothetical:

John and Jane have three children.

If each of their children have three children of their own, John and Jane will have nine grandchildren.

If all nine grandchildren each have three children, then John and Jane will have 27 great-grandchildren.

In other words, increasing average family size from 2 to 3 — which is not much, really, in terms of r/K theory — produces a third generation of descendants more than three times larger. This fact is obvious from simple arithmetic, yet its social consequences are profound.

Now if your business model is to attract users so that you can sell exposure to them to advertisers the exile of those who actually reproduce might be a bad idea if you wish to have your company last like a Ford or a McDonalds for generations after you are founded.

But if you are merely using a publicly traded company as a means to an end either social acceptance or to advance a narrative a /la Tina Brown then it all makes perfect sense…to all but the shareholders who were looking for profit rather than status that is.

Those guys are into Parler and Gab

Closing thought, one must also consider that depending on who the shareholders are they might not CARE about profit as long as conservatives are silenced consider:

That’s the real point here. Economics isn’t what’s driving this ideology and status is. Jack and the big investors who back him don’t care about the money, they’re never going to be hurting or needing. It’s all about the stuff money can’t buy and by leaning on conservatives you remain acceptable to the “right” people.

Seriously did you think Tina Brown got all those people to lose all that money over the years because they thought she was brilliant or was putting out to get it? Nobody’s that brilliant and there are plenty of woman who would put out for less. It was all about getting the bona fides and entree to the right parties, and the right people and believe me those “right” people who hate our guts will use that for the fullest effect.

Jack and twitter aren’t going to change because of economic pressure or anything else. He’s virtue signaling and that signal is being seen by the people that he wants to see it.

If the primary goal isn’t profit it’s all good to them.

Review: The Liberator on Netflix

Posted: November 22, 2020 by John Ruberry in entertainment, media
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By John Ruberry

By John Ruberry

Lost among the fallout after the presidential election was the debut of a compelling four-episode on Netflix, The Liberator. It tells of exploits of the leadership of Felix Sparks (Bradley James), who eventually reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, of the 3rd Battalion of the 157th Infantry Regiment in the European theater of World War II. Yes, for the most part, this is a true story.

The series which began streaming on Veterans Day, is animated and it uses the new technique of Trioscope, which combines live action and computer and manually created images. The series is based on Alex Kershaw’s book The Liberator: One World War II Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau. It’s a huge improvement over rotoscoping, most famously, or notoriously used in the first feature film version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, which was directed by Ralph Bakshi. The animation is grainy with a touch of sepia, the latter hue of course is common in films set in first half of the 20th century.

For the most part, The Liberator avoids hackneyed plotlines and characters of many World War II projects, other then sepia. There is no “Guy From Brooklyn” in it. But here is a soldier from Chicago, who of course is a Cubs fan. Fact: real and fictional characters from in television and movies are never White Sox fans, unless, as in Field Of Dreams, the South Siders are central to the plot. Oh well, to be fair it was the Cubs, not the White Sox, who played in the World Series in 1945.

When Lieutenant Sparks arrives at Fort Sill in Oklahoma shortly before America’s entry into World War II, he’s given command of “Company J,” which consists of soldiers locked up in the stockade. These ragtag men are a mix of Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and cowboys. 

It’s a tough command, “The Indians and the Mexicans don’t like each other very much,” a jail guard tells Sparks. “And they hate us more.”

But Sparks is looking for fighters, not divisiveness. He and molds them–even though the Native Americans and Mexicans can’t enter a bar off base in Oklahoma. In Italy a captured member of the Thunderbirds is confronted with this irony by a German officer. 

During its two years in Europe, in addition to the invasion of Sicily and the liberation of Dachau, but also the invasion of southern France, as well as the Battle of the Vosges near the German border, and finally fighting in Bavaria, the 157th Infantry Regiment encountered over 500 days of combat. Sure there are arguments and spats among the soldiers. People never always get along. But the soldiers form an effective fighting unit. 

The German troops are treated relatively sympathetically in The Liberator, but only up to a point as the Thunderbirds later of course liberate Dachau.

The supporting cast is superb, particulary the performance of Martin Sensmeier as Sergeant Samuel Coldfoot and Jose Miguel Vasquez as Corporal Able Gomez, two composite characters.

Originally The Liberator was intended as a live action miniseries for A&E Studios for the History Channel but filming such a project in so many disparate locales, the plains of Oklahoma, Italy, the Mediterranean coast, the Vosges, and Bavaria, proved financially impossible. Not so much with animation. Which is why The Liberator is probably on the cusp of what we’ll see soon on the big and small screens. And the use of animation in war dramas will spare us motion picture embarrasments such as the desert combat scenes in the 1965 box office flop The Battle Of The Bulge.

The Liberator is currently streaming on Netflix. It is rated TV-MA, although despite depictions of battlefield wounds and the frequent use of profanity–in English and Spanish no less–I’m unsure why. Oh, some people smoke cigarettes in it too. I’m mean c’mon. This is the 1940s!

Tune in and start watching. You’ll be glad for it. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Even as Jack denies Twitter Censorship to Ted Cruz under oath I’m Locked out a 4th Time over Benford’s Law

Posted: November 17, 2020 by datechguy in elections, media, News/opinion, politics
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I was listening to Rush Limbaugh to Ted Cruz Questioning Jack on Vote Fraud Censorship so I thought it was a good time to give a 4th test to see if twitter is still locking folks who put out that Benfords law tweet

So I tweeted out the following:

So I tried tweeting it out again, guess what happened:

One guess what the email from Twitter accused me of:

Cue my shocked face.

Thanks to the horrible Trump Economy I’m working extra hours 4 pm to 2 AM so my lockout will run out when I get home from work and I will appeal at that time and will expect it to be auto approved like the last one was

Unexpectedly of course

Update: put in my appeal at 2:40 AM when I got home from work, this time the auto win didn’t happen (I quoted Lewis Carroll’s long sad tail to them with them cast as Fury) I’m wondering if they are holding back because I was so public about it particularly during the hearings. We shall see.

“Mr. Ness, everybody knows where the booze is. The problem isn’t finding it, the problem is who wants to cross Capone.”

Posted: November 16, 2020 by datechguy in blogs, elections, entertainment, media, News/opinion, Uncategorized
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King Arnulf: Now, I know what some of you must be thinking… the day has come…. we’re all going down, etc. etc. But let’s get away from the fantasy and look at the FACTS. FACT ONE – The threat of total destruction has kept the peace for one thousand years. FACT TWO – The chances of it failing now are therefore one in three hundred and sixty-five thousand. FACT THREE…[by this time the water is up to people’s knees, and several have crowded onto the lower steps to avoid getting wet.] FACT THREE – Our safety regulations are the most rigorous in the world. We are all nice to each other, we never rub each other up the wrong way or contradict each other, do we?

Crowd: [As the building sink and fall] No.

Citizen: We… er… do seem to be going down quite fast, Your Majesty – not trying to contradict you, course.

King Arnulf: No, of course you’re not, citizen. But let’s stick to the facts. There has NEVER been a safer, more certain way of keeping the peace. So whatever’s happening, you can rest assured, Hy-Brasil is NOT sinking. Repeat, NOT sinking.

Erik the Viking 1989

There is one dynamic that is playing on in the challenge to the Democrat Magic Ballots that deserves more attention.

I’ve already talked about the uphill climb the President has legally here. But it’s the mountain that the Democrat / Left / Media has to conquer is a higher one that is forcing them into absurdity at best and violence and intimidation at worst.

You see people who know statistics and elections know what happened. People who have followed Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta know what shenanigans have gone on in the past and continue to go on. this is no secret to anybody even remotely connected to these cities and states.

After all if the case for the existence of vote fraud is weak you (and remember Trump has to win in 3 or 5 states ) you don’t target people’s lawyers to withdraw and particularly not entire firms. You don’t censor people, particularly low level people for tweeting out charts and you don’t slap warning labels on a former UN Ambassador and governor for stating simple direct facts. And you certainly don’t falsely claim that a whistle blower has recanted when he has not.

In fact the Democrat / Tech / Media left has apparently gone all in on the idea that there is no such thing as election fraud but that any who dare suggest so must be punished.

Donald Trump is playing Elliot Ness, he is attempting to expose and stop the corruption that people have known has been going on for decades in these cites and prove that is was enough to overturn the results of an election. He will have to have a strong case, there is a reason why Al Capone was convinced of Tax Evasion rather than bootlegging and conspiracy.

The Media / Democrat / Tech left is not satisfied with those advantages. They have they have decided to go all out to prove that there is no fraud PERIOD. It’s like telling people in Chicago in the 20’s and 30’s to declare in public that Al Capone isn’t a gangster and to punish anyone who doesn’t say so.

I think this is a mountain beyond them and even if they manage to win their cases this is a moment that has within it the seeds of their destruction.

Cue Sean Connery:

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