What’s Happening In The Matrix
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Age of Empires IV and Real-Time Strategy Games' Rocky HistoryIf the genre is to return to its former glory, it needs to do more than tweak the formula that... Read more » - ●The Best VPNs to Protect Yourself OnlineIt won’t solve all of your privacy problems, but a virtual private network can help make you a less tempting... Read more »
Age of Empires IV and Real-Time Strategy Games' Rocky History
- ●Internal documents show misgivings by employees about Facebook's lobbying and government relations operation, which regularly weighs in on speech issues (Emily Birnbaum/Politico)Emily Birnbaum / Politico: Internal documents show misgivings by employees about Facebook's lobbying and government relations operation, which regularly weighs in on speech issues — “Facebook routinely makes exceptions for powerful actors when enforcing content policy,” a data scientist at the company wrote in a December 2020 presentation.... Read more »
- ●Berlin-based e-scooter rentals startup Tier raises $200M as "first close" of a Series D, bringing its total raised to $660M, and says it is now valued at $2B (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: Berlin-based e-scooter rentals startup Tier raises $200M as “first close” of a Series D, bringing its total raised to $660M, and says it is now valued at $2B — Berlin-based e-scooter rentals company Tier Mobility has announced a $200 million raise which it says is the... Read more »
- ●LA-based esports collective FaZe Clan to go public through a SPAC merger, valuing the company at ~$1B (Amrith Ramkumar/Wall Street Journal)Amrith Ramkumar / Wall Street Journal: LA-based esports collective FaZe Clan to go public through a SPAC merger, valuing the company at ~$1B — Backed by the singer Pitbull and other entertainment and sports celebrities, FaZe Clan targets Gen Z and millennial consumers — Youth-focused online platform FaZe Clan Inc.... Read more »
- ●Thrasio, which aggregates third-party sellers on Amazon, raises $1B+ led by Silver Lake, source says at a $5B+ valuation (Crystal Tse/Bloomberg)Crystal Tse / Bloomberg: Thrasio, which aggregates third-party sellers on Amazon, raises $1B+ led by Silver Lake, source says at a $5B+ valuation — Thrasio Holdings Inc., an aggregator of Amazon.com Inc. products, has raised more than $1 billion in a private funding round led by technology investor Silver Lake.... Read more »
- ●MacBook Pro (2021) hands-on: re-adding ports and removing the Touch Bar is welcome, miniLED display looks great, and 1080p webcam is an improvement (Nilay Patel/The Verge)Nilay Patel / The Verge: MacBook Pro (2021) hands-on: re-adding ports and removing the Touch Bar is welcome, miniLED display looks great, and 1080p webcam is an improvement — New chips, familiar ports, and actual volume buttons — it might be love — It's easy to be excited about the... Read more »
- ●Microsoft says the Russian-backed Nobelium group, responsible for the SolarWinds hack, is still targeting global IT supply chain with 14 breaches since May 2021 (Sergiu Gatlan/BleepingComputer)Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: Microsoft says the Russian-backed Nobelium group, responsible for the SolarWinds hack, is still targeting global IT supply chain with 14 breaches since May 2021 — Microsoft says the Russian-backed Nobelium threat group behind last year's SolarWinds hack is still targeting the global IT supply chain …... Read more »
- ●Berlin-based Billie, a B2B buy now pay later service, raises a $100M Series C at a $640M valuation led by Dawn Capital (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Berlin-based Billie, a B2B buy now pay later service, raises a $100M Series C at a $640M valuation led by Dawn Capital — Buy now, pay later services like Affirm, Klarna, Afterpay and many others have seen their businesses grow in huge leaps, as consumers buying... Read more »
- ●Internal docs reveal farewell posts by some Facebook employees detail disappointment and dissatisfaction with a company unwilling or unable to change (Steven Levy/Wired)Steven Levy / Wired: Internal docs reveal farewell posts by some Facebook employees detail disappointment and dissatisfaction with a company unwilling or unable to change — The “badge posts” of the company's former researchers offer the parting thoughts of the disillusioned. — The Facebook Papers... Read more »
- ●Facebook docs detail issues with moderating non-English speech, leading to inflammatory language in Afghanistan, bans on common words in Palestine, and more (Associated Press)Associated Press: Facebook docs detail issues with moderating non-English speech, leading to inflammatory language in Afghanistan, bans on common words in Palestine, and more — DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As the Gaza war raged and tensions surged across the Middle East last May …... Read more »
- ●Internal Facebook docs detail its opaque tier system for providing protection to users in certain countries, leaving gaps in Myanmar, Pakistan, and Ethiopia (Casey Newton/The Verge)Casey Newton / The Verge: Internal Facebook docs detail its opaque tier system for providing protection to users in certain countries, leaving gaps in Myanmar, Pakistan, and Ethiopia — Leaked documents reveal a huge, opaque system — This story is part of a group of stories called... Read more »
UK battery ‘gigafactory’ plans huge expansion as electric car demand soars- mp3But What About Deagel? - Questions For Corbett #080Today James tackles a question he's received many, many times over the past seven years: Who or what is Deagle.com (or is that Deagel.com)? Where does their amazing population forecast come from? What does it mean? And where did it go, anyway? Your burning questions are answered on this edition... Read more »
- VideoThe Bystander Effect - #SolutionsWatch (video)The bystander effect describes a seeming paradox: the more people who are around to help in a given emergency, the less likely that any one individual will actually stop to help. Today James dives into the psychology underlying the bystander effect and explains how we can flip this quirk of... Read more »
- mp3The Bystander Effect - #SolutionsWatchThe bystander effect describes a seeming paradox: the more people who are around to help in a given emergency, the less likely that any one individual will actually stop to help. Today James dives into the psychology underlying the bystander effect and explains how we can flip this quirk of... Read more »
- VideoIain Davis Dissects the Pseudopandemic (video)Iain Davis of In-This-Together.com joins us to discuss his new book, Pseudopandemic: New Normal Technocracy. In this conversation Davis lays out the copious documentation demonstrating how the pseudopandemic was generated, identifies the larger agenda behind the push toward implementing the technocratic biosecurity state and talks about what we can do to... Read more »