Geekly Update - 09 February 2022

SpaceX seems to not have planned for such a geomagnetic event.With the Sun starting its new 25th cycle,there will be more CMEs and solar flares.

They need to reassess their satellite planning and positioning if they not want to lose any more satellites.

Until Google can get all the bugs out of Android 12 (and stop introducing new ones in their fixes), I don't think many iPhone users will jump ship.

Does Optimus Dream of Electric Sheep?

I have seven Google accounts. One is my main one where I do my day-to-day stuff. 2FA just suddenly appeared there a few months ago. It's nice to have security, but Google sends me notices to tap "It's me" on any of nine other devices (phones or tablets) on which I've registered that particular email. At night all of them are turned off. (One doesn't even get notices.) Occasionally, when out of the house, I have none of them with me. Problems. On the other hand, some of my "other" gmail accounts are used for specific things like bank, doctor, etc. I don't have them as the registered user on anything, so no 2FA. Hmmm...

To be honest - in my experience he got it dead right, from what I see on the Internet these days. "There will be no more things one can’t say, and things one can’t think." Every day I'm pretty sure that's true (especially in the US)

EDITOR'S NOTE: The author was saying that in 2022, people would no longer be constrained as to what they could say or think. With cancel culture, political correctness, woke-ism, and big tech censorship, that's sadly not true.

A plastic bridge? I hope that polymer won't break down in sunlight.

I think Bob's suggestion in the Geekly Update (and in the note he added to Ken's post) is wrong in a very crucial way: We remain as free as ever to say what we want. The government or the police cannot prohibit a person from standing on a soapbox in public, or publishing, in order to express their opinion - even the most untrue propaganda or vile hatred that everyone else considers vile. And, as we see every day, a person's followers are all able to join in the chorus. But here's the important point: At the same time, no other individual - or business, school group, or social-media company - is obligated to allocate their time, space or resources to provide a platform for that person. If anything, requiring them to do so would trample their own free speech rights by compelling them to promulgate opinions they strongly disagree with.

So is it really a violation of free speech or even "robust open discourse" if they refuse to lend their own platforms for the expression of opposing opinions? The answer is no - not any more than it would be for Fox News or MSNBC to deny my request that I be given a program on their network. Of course, if people then get upset when they hear you or me say something they consider outrageous, their own freedom of expression allows them to react accordingly. They may exercise that right in many ways, ranging from making speeches on their own street corner soapbox to posting on websites devoted to opinions like their own - or even the more consequential efforts of "canceling" or boycotting. Those are the consequences of living in a free society and we should stop responding to the "snowflakes" we don't like by acting like snowflakes ourselves.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Trudeau just declared the equivalent of martial law in Canada, in order to stop people from standing on their "soapboxes." They are freezing personal and corporate bank accounts and suspending insurance policies. That might put a damper on their right to freely express their grievances.

Canada's emergency powers actually do nothing to prevent freedom of speech. Arguments against workplace vaccine policies continue to be heard as always. But due to massive blockades, already struggling businesses and their employees have lost income, bringing damage to the economies of Canada and the United States. After holding off for weeks, waiting for the truckers' to end their siege of the streets once their message was heard, the government finally had to respond to the nearly 75% of Canadians calling for it all to end. Unfortunately, with so many vehicles deliberately blocking traffic in multiple locations, ordinary law enforcement efforts were unable to clear public roads without other (financial) pressures being temporarily made available to them.

I am very surprised that you don't realize that difference. To keep with our "soapbox" analogy, for how many hours (let alone weeks) would you allow thousands of other people's soapboxes to be piled up against the front door of your own home or place of business? Or how about if the same people conducted a continual denial-of-service attack to "protest" your websites and refused to stop? Well this has gone even further by doing the equivalent to as many citizens and businesses as it can. By doing harm for too long, the illegal blockade went beyond protest and became a form of extortion. The truckers can avoid the consequences you mentioned if they finally go home now, and they can resume yelling all they want about vaccines in myriad other ways. No one is stopping that.