Tech

Notwithstanding my hyperbolic title, we’ze all gone DIES! DIES! Ok, maybe not dies, but like, close, man, like real close. Scientists say, and this is key, it is “extremely unlikely” the Empire-state-building-sized asteroid will kill us all and leave the planet to the cockroaches, but I am upset at the lack of certainty in that statement. Poem follows the excerpt, so keep at it, friends.
Asteroid the size of the Empire State Building will skim past Earth just before Christmas – Mirror UK
Excerpt:
An asteroid the size of the Empire State Building is set to skim past Earth just before Christmas.
The asteroid, dubbed 216258 (2006 WH1), will pass our planet at about 15:17 on December 20, according to NASA .
The space rock is estimated to measure around 240 – 540 metres in diameter. At the higher end of that estimate, the asteroid could be 1.4 times the height of New York’s iconic Empire State Building!
During the passing, the asteroid will be around 3.6 million miles away from Earth. While this might sound far, it’s actually classed as a ‘close approach’ by NASA.
Thankfully, it’s extremely unlikely that the asteroid will impact Earth during the passing.
……..
Empire.
The long-flamed face.
In the breech of the night sky a body
Heaved in the flotsam, driving
Storey upon storey of imagined skyscraper overcome
Asteroid’s metaphorical clean slate.
A clean slate.
A state. The empire looms over the fire.
The metaphor overtakes the math.
“We are certain that such end at such time, and before Christmas on top of it,
is extremely unlikely.”
And I go back to sleep, my head
Stuck between floors on my way to the top
Of the Empire State Building, preparing
To destroy worlds. Again.

Our preferred-nation partner, the “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” Chinese are working on innovative ideas regarding the emergence of tech and state, a sort of techstatetopia where technocrats can order a hit on a dissident by checking their social credit score and pinging their mandatory digital identiyy card for their location. They want their cattle, I mean citizens, to scan their eyes every time they take a digital crap. Cool.
Did you know Google helped China work on developing AI? Cool story, bro.
China due to introduce face scans for mobile users – BBC UK
Excerpt:
People in China are now required to have their faces scanned when registering new mobile phone services, as the authorities seek to verify the identities of the country’s hundreds of millions of internet users.
The regulation, announced in September, was due to come into effect on Sunday.
The government says it wants to “protect the legitimate rights and interest of citizens in cyberspace”.
China already uses facial recognition technology to survey its population.
It is a world leader in such technologies, but their intensifying use across the country in recent years has sparked debate.

This story breaks my heart. The great Tim Bernes-Lee (no, this current iteration won’t reduce the past versions) has left us, metaphorically, in spirit, in liberal spirit, at least. The Guardian has titled a story “Tim….unveils global plan to save the web,” but then reveals a plan by Tim to not SAVE the web, but finish it off once and for all.
Tim has decided that danger is worth killing for, though, of course, he won’t see it that way because he must not, surely, understand what powers he is giving to institutions that have the power of lethal enforcement at their disposal. Tim trusts the state, not the people, for he fears their danger, their ignorance, their lack of conforming to the morality, to the way that Tim and his small coterie of protected ether-builders in ether cathedrals have mathematically and morally worked out will benefit us all.
To that end, Tim wants a Contract for the web that DEMANDS, among other things, that the state, all states, in all forms, PROTECT humanity from the dangers of bad ideas, bad words. Tim is the man that gave you HTML, the code that essentially made the web navigable, made web pages more or less possible. 1994 Tim believed in his neighbors, and, like a form of Prometheus, he gave his gift of digital fire to the world.
But, unlike Prometheus, he turned back from his work, and now he is seeking to have that fire returned, but not to him, to the state, to the corpostate. He wants to take that power out of the hands of the poors and placed firmly in the hands of the billionaires, for the good of the whole.
I wonder whether he’s figured out the role he’s really playing in this morality play. There are no halos needed for your costume, sir, trust me.
Tim Berners-Lee unveils global plan to save the web – The Guardian
Excerpt:
Sir Tim Berners-Lee has launched a global action plan to save the web from political manipulation, fake news, privacy violations and other malign forces that threaten to plunge the world into a “digital dystopia”.
The Contract for the Web requires endorsing governments, companies and individuals to make concrete commitments to protect the web from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity.
“I think people’s fear of bad things happening on the internet is becoming, justifiably, greater and greater,” Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, told the Guardian. “If we leave the web as it is, there’s a very large number of things that will go wrong. We could end up with a digital dystopia if we don’t turn things around. It’s not that we need a 10-year plan for the web, we need to turn the web around now.”