flobotera blog

Musings about the past, the present & the future in technology, urban dialog and dreams.

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... people believe what the Internet says more than reality.

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/

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French journalist Florence Hartmann jailed by war crimes tribunal

Former Le Monde correspondent in Bosnia detained for revealing information about Srebrenica massacre was withheld from international court of justice

It’s a bad time to be a journalist.

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History repeats itself and why the war on drugs shouldn't be what it is.

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Thanks to reddit constantly trying to educate us about internet security.

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We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.

http://markmanson.net/find-what-you-love

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#notlikehitler

No, nobody is like Hitler. Not Putin, nor Trump, nor Kim-Jong-Il. Well Kim-Jong-Il perhaps comes closest when it comes to race based ideology. It’s ridiculous how it’s in worldwide fashion to compare state-leaders to Hitler. Though not surprisingly. While traveling around the world I have most of the time the impression that most people, and not only common people, don’t have a clue about history and about unbiased historical narratives. Well of course no written history is unbiased and as we all know history is written by the victors, but still there is a certain rationality in which history (events and people) needs to be perceived everywhere. As it goes for Hitler the two most popular narratives out there seem to be: First that he is the role-model of an evil person and second that he was a great leader who had some flaws but ultimately wanted to do the best for it’s people. I don’t agree with any of those two narratives and they very much depend on the places where you are. In the asia-pacific region for example, many countries seem to follow a state narrative of ethnic cohesion and that’s where the people’s narrative is actually most popular, while in more liberal places he’s just the evil of the 20th century. I don’t want to talk about Hitler or history though – that’s not the point of this post. I just want to condemn the inflationary use of Hitler-comparisons. Because they are off-place and aren’t helping recent discussions nor discussions about history. And comparing Hitler to any person currently alive, actually in a way also means to negate the Shoa (Holocaust), which is a crime here in Germany.

So please, the next time you search for a comparison please, please, PLEASE, think about it before you unleash your opinions on us.

As always, if you feel this is worth debating, don’t hesitate to contact me.

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Everybody is a spy

Since Wikileaks and Edward Snowden’s leaks, nobody can deny the actual reach of modern spy techniques. Everybody is vulnerable, if we could put it this way. Our online presences are open secrets. But what about our offline presences? Well as times fly by both of these become more interconnected to a point, where it’s not as easy anymore to discern one from the other and some people live for their online life with the best examples being so called social media stars. So what’s my point? Well, slowly. It’s easy for us to condemn all the spying and data mining of states and corporations, but – but nobody likens himself to be part of it. We’re always in a state of innocence not to be blamed and need to protect ourselves against big brother – at least this is how one of the many popular narratives goes.

What makes me freak out is not the institutionalised spying – known and unknown – on me or all the other private persons, but the naiveté of many people taking part in exactly the same process, without even thinking or being aware of it. It’s the random breach of privacy which get’s more and more common in a world where everybody is a photographer, needs to share his recent feelings with friends or just show off one more time for the day. These breaches are conducted by neighbours, friends or random people, who’s act is mostly also the evidence – somewhen we’ll be able to see all the pictures and videos we’re on thanks to face recognition mechanisms. And even though Youtube introduced features already to blur content – how many of the casual users actually care. In contrary, their mostly curious about what the people doing on the pictures. In some cases this lead to investigations or world wide uproar (for example the dolphin scandal in the beginning of 2016).

Is this whole archiving the world thing now a problem or a solution, or both? I don’t know. It’s complicated.

I just feel there should be places where I’m alone and nobody asks you awkward things because they don’t agree with what you wear (or not) and how you move (or not). And not even on your own balcony you are safe anymore. I recently sat out in the cold on the balcony reading, when my brother sent me a picture with the question what I was doing. After a very short investigation it turned out that a neighbour two houses away, took a picture of me, sending it to a friend of him asking what I was doing there, who in turn asked my brother what I was doing there. Not that it would even matter to myself what I was doing there, but what does it matter to them? Is it a valid try to saturate their curiosity? Or just a way of bringing the processes we condemn in our everyday life?

On this note I’ll leave you with miserable men that went shopping:

https://www.instagram.com/miserable_men/

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Our Hemisphere’s Temperature Just Reached a Terrifying Milestone—Faster Than Expected

Update, March 3, 2016: Since this post was originally published, the heat wave has continued. As of Thursday morning, it appears that average temperatu ...

Welcome to the future.

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How a tiny island nation tries to do right thing despite all the hardships.

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The Russian ambassador to Poland has sparked outrage for putting some of the blame for World War II on Poland, creating a new spat amid deepening tensions between the Slavic nations. Russian Ambassador…

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But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0

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"Shit's Gonna Hit the Fan": Talking to a Billionaire About Class War

Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist who was one of the first investors in Amazon, has the distinction of being one of America’s few progressive billionaires. We spoke to him about the class war—which he is busily fighting.

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SEAL Team 6: A Secret History of Quiet Killings and Blurred Lines

The unit best known for killing Osama bin Laden has been converted into a global manhunting machine with limited outside oversight.

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“How can it hurt? It’s got to be good. There’s lots of habitat out there for wildlife. Koalas and kangaroos – they learn to adapt. I work in the workshop and birds fly in there all the time. Wildlife adapts to mining, so people should do, too.”

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2015/may/15/carbon-bomb-australia-the-new-coal-frontier

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Belgium Commemorates Waterloo With Euro, and France Is Not Pleased

The Belgians were less victors over Napoleon than hosts to the defeat that ended his ambitions, but they have minted a new coin to celebrate the day.

Meanwhile in Bruxelles.

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There’s no money like war money, buhjaaa.