Reading Time: 4 minutes Pluck yew. If you believe what you read on the internet and are a sucker for an amusing story, you might think that the most widely used curse in modern America—and its physical manifestation (i.e., “flipping the bird”)—evolved from this supposedly ancient, undecipherable epithet above and its accompanying obscene gesture. Indeed, “pluck yew” does sound […]
Posted inSocial Media
The EU is cracking down on big-tech privacy theft. Why not the US?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Although most of us never read the endless expanses of fine print in social-media-user “terms of service” agreements, the European Union’s (EU) “big-tech” regulators do. These agreements and the corporate abuses they accommodate can have far-reaching negative effects on societies—such as social unrest of the kind that ended up with a lethal, riotous assault on […]
Posted inNonreligious News
An atheist called out religious hate speech. Facebook punished him for it.
Reading Time: 2 minutes YouTuber and podcaster Seth Andrews recently received a 30-day suspension from Facebook for the crime of… calling out the bigotry of a Christian hate-preacher. And since I accidentally played a role in his banishment, it seems worth chiming on what a horrible move this is on the part of Facebook (and its parent company Meta). […]
Posted inThe Secular
Is social media ‘church’ for atheists? I didn’t think so until now
Reading Time: 4 minutes Two weeks ago I had my Facebook account shut down for child pornography. Yup, you read that right. A couple weeks ago, I was lying on my couch on a Tuesday night, relaxing with a glass of wine and watching TV at about 10:30pm. Suddenly, a strange text message came in from a family member: […]
Posted inTechnology
Microsoft’s purchase of Activision is about the Metaverse
Reading Time: 3 minutes There’s been a lot of talk about the Metaverse recently, thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement last year that he’d be changing Facebook’s name to Meta and shifting the company’s focus to “the Metaverse.“ What is the Metaverse? Although we have glimpses of the Metaverse today in gaming (Roblox, Fortnite, and other games), the Metaverse is […]
Posted inPseudoscience
Mercury retrograde has nothing to do with Facebook going down
Reading Time: 4 minutes Why was Facebook down for several hours yesterday? Here’s a technical explanation from someone who would know: Later Monday, Santosh Janardhan, Facebook’s VP of infrastructure, released a statement about Facebook’s service interruption saying the company was “sorry for the inconvenience caused by today’s outage across our platforms.” Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes […]
Posted inUncategorized
On Racism and Changing Minds
Reading Time: 7 minutes The reason I am saying this post is that it is setting up a second piece after it. Racism is high on pretty much everyone’s agenda right now. I am an active poster on my own personal Facebook page and in this time of turmoil, there have been ample occasion and opportunity to do so […]
Posted inUncategorized
Christian Scammers Have Discovered Coronavirus (Thanks, I Hate It)
Reading Time: 13 minutes There’s just something about con artists preying on desperate, gullible people that gets me mad. And I’m not fond of the wingnutty, controlling flavors of Christianity in general. So when coronavirus reports began escalating, I knew that eventually those wingnuts would get their hands on it — and begin using it to their advantage. Here, then, is a brief report on what the major Christian scams are right now, the truth of them, and finally some suggestions on what you might consider doing if you run across any conjobs trying to capitalize on fear and ignorance.
Posted inPolitics
Dark Money, Social Media Influence and Voting
Reading Time: < 1 minute I know this is a few weeks old now, but I think this is a must-watch video concerning the influence of media organisations and dark money on elections, notably (here) Brexit and the EU referendum and result, as well as the policies and negotiations enacted thereafter. The talk description is as follows: In an unmissable […]
Posted inComedy
Dear Facebook And Facebook Friends
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dear Facebook and Facebook Friends, I work *75 hours a week at low paying jobs. I blog. I podcast. I’m the primary caregiver for my children. If you are in dire straits I don’t mind you asking me to donate for a Facebook fundraiser. But if you’re asking me to buy you suntan lotion for […]