Cyberwar is here; thoughts on leaving Facebook; AI for Coronavirus; Russian spacecraft trailing US spy satellite; Jack asks Elon for help; ICE buying cellphone location data; Netflix autoplay off; the Expanse; Star Trek: Consolidating; Oscars; getting lost and sometimes found; beer rage; feedback loop.

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Show Notes

FOLLOW UP

Podcast Movement Evolutions

Equifax Breach: Four Members of Chinese Military Charged with Hacking

Brian’s Facebook Post about Facebook

I’ve been debating what to do about Facebook.

I have derived a lot of value from it over the years, and still do to some degree, but the value proposition has been on a continual decline.

People who’s updates I’ve enjoyed have left; I’ve had to resort to a patchwork of 3rd party plugins to keep seeing updates in order or updates from friends not buried under an avalanche of ads or “suggested updates” or corporate PR releases or things FB thinks I might be interested in, and those 3rd party apps are engaged in a game of whack-a-mole with FB which keeps finding ways to break them and block them so I see what FB wants me to see, not what I want to see.

There isn’t really a viable alternative; Instagram is pretty pictures and being run increasingly into the ground by the mothership, FB itself, to be more like FB and bury even the pretty pictures. Twitter is – pardon my french – a fucking shitshow that for whatever reason gets far less attention than FB for it’s bots and divisive nature. I’ve always argued Twitter has the best PR company in the world. I’m too old and don’t care about spending my day watching short videos so TikTok isn’t for me, and I think even Snap is surprised that Snapchat is still a thing.

Sure one can argue the best alternative is to reach out to friends directly, see them in person, and that works for a handful of friends but social media has gotten me hooked on staying in touch with friends that live far away, as well as the ability to follow on with people’s lives I don’t come in to touch with regularly, or if at all, anymore. If I do leave FB, I fear I will really miss those occasional interactions, or with those I have no interactions with, just the knowledge of those people’s lives and what they’re experiencing and where they’re at on their journeys.

Hmm. All I meant to write was the first two sentences. Seems I’m really thinking about this much harder than I probably should be.

IN THE NEWS

Scientists are identifying potential treatments for coronavirus via artificial intelligence

Two Russian Spacecraft Are Trailing a US Spy Satellite. Space Force Is Unimpressed

Jack Dorsey Asks Elon Musk How to Fix Twitter

Law enforcement is now buying cellphone location data from marketers

Slack says its biggest customer, IBM, is going ‘wall to wall’ and rolling the chat app to all 350,000 of its employees

MEDIA CANDY

Netflix’s horrible autoplay previews can be turned off

ViacomCBS plan would unify all of Star Trek (and more) in one new streaming service

Download the New Version of ‘Aerial,’ the Best Mac Screensaver

Taika Waititi Puts Apple On Blast For Their Terrible Keyboards In Hilarious Post-Oscar Win Interview

Springtime for Hitler

AT THE LIBRARY

An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King

The Stars in Our Pockets – Getting Lost and Sometimes Found in the Digital Age by Howard Axelrod

FEEDBACK LOOP

Vivaldi Browser Tab Search

YouTuber uses neural networks to upscale 1896 short film to 4K 60 fps

Craft beer hater pulls gun on people outside Brooklyn’s Other Half Brewing Company

Angry mum demands Xbox refund after ‘hackers bought 36,000 Fifa gaming points’

This girls-only app uses AI to screen a user’s gender — what could go wrong?

Tesla remotely disables Autopilot on used Model S after it was sold

Mac Pro + Pro Display XDR Skins & Wraps

When Rob Lowe And The Makers Of “The Lyon’s Den” Truly Decided to Stop Giving A F-ck

The Final Scene of The Lyon’s Den (2003 TV Series)

“A Behind-The-Scenes Look At Amazon’s Upcoming Rivian Electric Van”

Experian Boost

At the Edge of the World, a New Battleground for the U.S. and China

Microsoft Teams goes down after Microsoft forgot to renew a certificate