Tech

Three Cheers for Quiet Nerds

The new administration is deleting data, references, and medical guidance, but they didn't account for good-hearted nerds

Endeavorance

Endeavorance

— 8 min read
Three Cheers for Quiet Nerds

SO, data, right?

Not long ago, I posted a video about "your data" and what it means when companies and governments are jockeying for it. Now I want to talk about a very different type of data availability: research, science, and communications from official sources online.

✨ BUCKLE UP ITS REAL SEXY STUFF ✨

As the new administration took over the White House and brought along with them a ketamine-fueled moron who failed upwards into becoming a billionaire (it is an exercise for the reader to determine which of them I'm referring to), they've been hard at work stripping public research data and repealing submitted journal entries that even mention the word "gender."

It is not out of the ordinary for a US administration to delete broken or outdated datasets. The scale is what's causing alarm, as are the contents of the data being deleted.

Going beyond scientific datasets, they've also taken down the CDC's info search page, alongside the USAID website and more. The kicker: now that Musk is all up in our government's business, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) has announced they will no longer post public updates or send out update emails to journalists, instead opting to post exclusively to their Twitter account.

Twitter is a private platform. You cannot browse content without an account. You can be banned from Twitter for disagreeing with Elon Musk. A government safety administration agency is now going to be posting its only updates there.

Actual absurdity

Online public data and information availability is the whole point of the internet. The web was invented for the immediate sharing of interconnected information, starting among universities and agencies to help share and explore research.

It wasn't until major corporations moved in that websites started to lock everything behind account creation. They want people to make accounts so they can send you spam email, boost their engagement numbers, and sell a better story about growth to investors. None of that helps share information or improve your quality of life. Companies LOVE to profit off of publicly funded research. A great example would be AccuWeather's long history of re-selling publicly available information back to people.

As for data sets, its unfortunately a tale as old as time. Authoritarian leadership shaping and filtering research data to fit a narrative. Who could have seen this coming!? Thankfully, the internet has a lot of Good people doing cool things. Among those cool things was a massive effort to backup and re-host deleted datasets, thanks to the folks at archive.org, a donation driven non-profit working to preserve information availability.

Conveniently downloadable

The internet is weird and does not make sense in the context of a capitalist system and a world with borders. In theory, the internet is an incredible, decentralized exchange of information that propels humanity forward. In practice, most of that happens among the people who aren't making the big bucks: open source developers, researchers, wiki editors, hackers, archivists, and hobbyists. The megacorps then take their work and manipulate it or use political force to otherwise limit access except through their proprietary systems (see: NTSB/Twitter thing above).

If you would like to donate to the Internet Archive as a thank-you for trying to keep the information on the web available in the face of authoritarian censorship, you can do so right here.

Policy Stuff

The Tariffs

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Update (Feb 4): The tariffs have been "postponed by 30 days" after Trump called the leaders of Mexico and Canada. Both countries told him they'd "commit to" actions to fix stuff. Notably, these actions were things both countries had already committed to.

Trump's tariffs go into effect tomorrow (Feb 4) with economic forecasts showing they will likely unleash economic turmoil and cost the average US family over $1,100 a year. We're looking at 25% tariffs on everything from Mexico and Canada, as well as 10% on everything from China. There's an exception which taxes energy from Canada at 10% (oil, gas, etc).

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From Investopedia, here are the "key takeaways" about tariffs:

1. Governments impose tariffs to raise revenue, protect domestic industries, or exert political leverage over another country.

2. Tariffs often result in unwanted side effects, such as higher consumer prices.

3. Tariffs have a long and contentious history, and the debate over whether they represent good or bad policy still rages.

He invoked a national economic and health emergency, citing "the border" and fentanyl as his reasoning. Canada and Mexico are genuinely confused and don't know what to make of this, but are putting countermeasures in place as soon as the tariffs land. There's no information about what it would take for him to rescind the tariffs, and meanwhile he is posting about how Canada can end the tariffs if they simply "become our 51st state." It was never a joke.

Government Systems Getting Musky

Elon Musk and his lackeys—who seem to essentially just be tech bros who suck up to him—have been going around the government demanding access to every system and database, including the systems that pay out social security, medicare, and more. While writing this newsletter, it came out that Musk's crew strong-armed USAID into giving them access to classified information which they do not have the clearance to view.

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You may be asking: "how can they do this? Isn't this a crime?" to which the answer is: yes, this is a crime, and they can do it because nobody is stopping them.

Now look, I am no lover of the government's trigger-happy use of "classified information" to prevent people from seeing what's going on under the hood. However, Elon fucking Musk is not the person I want rooting around in classified material, whether or not it should be classified. According to the USAID officials, the information accessed includes intelligence reports, and I don't recall voting for "random fucking Cybertruck driver" to spearhead intelligence operations.

I truly do not know when this country at large decided to believe that "somewhat okay at programming" means "absolutely qualified to do literally whatever you want without consequence," but here we are.

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I know that times are hard for all right now, so anything is deeply appreciated. If financial support is not an option, sharing my work is immensely helpful as well!

Thank you kindly. Back to the Stuff.

Tech Stuff

Google's Hard(ware) Times

Google has distributed a memo to all employees in their Platforms and Devices team offering a "voluntary buyout," essentially asking people to take severance and leave the company.

After laying off a ton of people and merging their hardware and Android teams last year to "improve efficiency," they are now needing to further "improve efficiency" with…totally not a layoff.

It remains to be seen how many people will take this deal, but also it's unlikely that Google will be winding down their flagship hardware in the next few years. BUT WHO KNOWS? It's Google we're talking about. They've got a helluva graveyard.

Zuckerberg Seeks Masculine Energy

It's not a GREAT time to be Mark Zuckerberg.

First he did a wild heel-turn to try and get into Trump's good graces, only for his would-be posse to question his motives.

Then he turns around to his company and complains that "everything [he] says gets leaked," which got leaked.

His sudden shift towards the MAGA appeal was so stark that even Republicans are skeptical, in part due to the fact that they've used Meta as a punching bag about "silencing conservative voices" for years.

To cap it off, there are now rampant rumors of an impending divorce in his life. Though, I have not found a reputable source that actually says it's happening.

WhatsThat?

Speaking of Meta, an official speaking for the popular Meta-owned chat app WhatsApp stated this past Friday that around 100 journalists and other civilians were targeted by Israeli-developed spyware by Paragon Solutions. WhatsApp has not publicly released information about who was targeted, but said they'll be contacting the targets directly via WhatsApp.

The attack was a "zero-click" hack, meaning that you didn't need to click on anything or download some malicious file or whatever in order to be infected. You just kinda got it.

While the spyware was developed by Paragon, it is unclear who was leveraging the spyware in this case. Paragon builds and sells spyware, profiting off of invading privacy at scale. Paragon was set to enter a massive contract with ICE's investigation sector, though the contract was put on hold due to a Biden-era executive order restricting governmental use of spyware on nationals. Apparently said order has not yet been overturned by Trump, but given the circumstances, I have my doubts it'll last much longer.

Slightly Dumber Smartwatches

Your wrist might soon be getting a bit dorkier! Remember Pebble smartwatches? Maybe not, but Pebble was one of the earlier smartwatch makers who focused on low-power devices and e-ink/LCD displays. These watches could have weeks-long batteries due to their low power consumption, and could still do most things you'd expect from a smartwatch.

Absolute peak fashion

Unfortunately they didn't quite take off, as Apple, Samsung, and Google raced to make flashier, more colorful displays and whatnot.

But here's something: Google had actually purchased Pebble when they bought out Fitbit, and I guess they've kinda gotten bored just sitting on the old Pebble software, so they've decided to open source it.

Now, the original creator of Pebble intends to make a comeback, and honestly? I'm hype. E-ink is cool, and I think people are real, real tired of having to charge a million things every day constantly. Simple, out-of-the-way, low-power devices are increasingly appealing in a world where Apple and Facebook want you to strap full computers to your face.

Here's the Weather

Source: VentuSky

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