Facebook's new news policy for Australians

 Well golly, Facebook will certainly teach us a lesson I betcha! Leaving aside the why, this is a test of something Australian's are quite good at: bypassing bullshit regulation, this time from an up itself US monopoly.

Before I get to how I plan to bypass FB's bullshit I have another important question: why would you use FB for news anyway? Recent US experience of the FB news echo chamber effect on voters suggest it's really not desirable to rely on what the mighty algorithm 'thinks' you might want to see.  I just want to see things that I have decided interest me on FB and to contact friends. If I want (free) news I go to:

news.google.com

theguardian.com

www.abc.net.au/news/justin/

thenewdaily.com.au/news/

These are all tabs in my Chrome setup. I also get emails from reputable news sources so I can go to specific sites for specific stories. As for people moaning about not being able to see the Bureau of Meteorology on FB, go to bom.gov.au, find the pages you want from the menu at the top of every page and save them to your Chrome startup. They'll load way faster and you wont have to look at advertising either. If you want updated information, reload the page.

Basically the idea is if you want to link news items to your contacts on FB, add an extra wrapper to that news link. Get a free blog. Create a blog post with a link to the news item. Save the blog post. Copy the blog post address. Go to FB and enter that address into what's on you mind field along with anything else you want to say.

Let's see if this works. It mightn't be as convenient, mightn't look as good but hopefully will bypass the Zuckeropoly rules.

Here's a test new item:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/02/18/facebook-news-articles/

Remembrance Day

Oz had highest proportion of Commonwealth soldiers killed in WW1, around 1.35% of the total population of 4.5 million.  The RSL says of the 331,781 Oz soldiers serving in WW1 (about 8% of the total population) 60,284 died (about 1 in 5 or nearly 20%), and 152,284 wounded (about 1 in 2 or nearly 50%). Of course psychological damage isn't counted. It could easily have been 100% with very large numbers of soldiers very seriously effected with what we would now call PTSD. Alcohol was pretty much the only available treatment for war related stress since admitting to any form of mental illness would result in social exclusion. The suffering of families grieving the dead and trying to deal with the wounded was massive. Given the survivors were mostly young men the impact on their families would ripple across generations - until World War Two, which was slightly less devastating in numerical terms but turned into the multi generation Cold War proxy wars in Korea, Malaya, Indonesia and so on. (http://www.smh.com.au/comment/a-tribute-to-the-dead-of-world-war-i-20141110-11jkcx.html)

So have we developed a culture of avoiding wars and caring for it's (local) victims? No, we have created cultural spin to avoid examining the horrible and pervasive realities of wars and continued to minimally support it's local victims, returned soldiers and their families. It was recently reported that nearly three times as many returned soldiers have suicided than died during the ten year deployment to Afghanistan (http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4124785.htm). PTSD sufferers are being 'treated' with the anti psychotic Seroquel which keeps them quietish but doesn't approach the actual problem, which can be treated with intensive, live-in neurotherapy (the US Marines are doing it). The new Federal pay deal for the military, after years of haggling, increases pay less than the inflation rate, reduces holidays and conditions so that soldiers and their families are considerably worse off. (http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/defence-force-tribunal-approves-belowinflation-adf-pay-deal-20141103-11g4tr.html) Now it looks like the PM has rolled over to expected US requests and agreed to more troops against ISIS pretending the mission is not 'boots on the ground', which is hard to do when you are accompanying Iraqi soldiers on missions, but then jesuitical spin is Fedgov's speciality. (http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/11/australian-special-forces-moving-into-iraq-tony-abbott-says)

On Remembrance Day we should remember the sacrifice of the soldiers, the suffering of their families, and the massive damage to our society. We should also remember to despise the decades of pious spin and the reality that our society regards soldiers, in service and returned, as expendable.

Con mission by idiots

It's been a while but the Coalition has pulled the old 'Commission of Audit' trick again. For those too young to remember, this is how it works:

Step 1. Select an 'independent' commission composed of extreme ideologues. Give them a brief to look at how to 'fix' things which are assumed to be desperate, especially if they are not. 'Fix' in this context means both emasculate wherever possible and put in place future rorts (as in 'the fix is in').

Step 2. Put off doing anything much for as long as possible saying the commission needs time to report. This allows the government to do some of the policy development it didn't do in opposition when it was concentrating on naysaying, abuse and developing slogans for the election.

Step 3. When the Commission reports, watch while everyone explodes in indignation at the proposed absurdity and cruelty. Carefully gauge from these reactions what may or may not be a policy winner (usually in a substantially modified form), what is only mildly crazy, criminal or immoral (suitable for future policies), and what can be publicly canned as evidence of rectitude. Wait while the public and media exhaust themselves.

Step 4. Present watered down versions of the selected policies in the Budget relying on people to think 'Well at least it's not as bad as the as Commission of Audit proposed!'. Rely on over exposure, emotional exhaustion, inertia, depression and distraction to allow the Budget to pass, possibly after making a few relatively cheap side deals to buy votes.

Step 5. Repeat after being returned to government next when people have had time to forget.

Basically it's all touch flame to blue paper, stand back and rob people while they're blinded by the flash. It seems to work every time because political opponents concentrate on the issues rather than the process. I wonder how we'd go if we concentrated on exposing this process as being a con job? That the people of Australia are being handled by spin doctors in an extremely dishonest, disingenuous and cynical way?

Evolution: Charles Darwin was wrong about the tree of life | Science | guardian.co.uk

Given Darwin dreamt this up before genetics was developed he did very well. Basically the tree of life is a 2d simplification of a multi dimensional reality - that there are alternative pathways to transfer genetic material. But if trying to explain biology to the young or otherwise uneducated a tree is a hell of a lot more use than a thicket. A thicket suggests impenetrability and will tend to lead people to lose interest because they would assess, probably correctly, that their chances of being able to invest the time and effort to understand biology will likely be in vain. Considering how many people reject biology for religion this would not be helpful. Also, while there are alternative pathways, the alternative pathways are much less common than 'standard' reproduction - so the tree is representative of what mostly goes on. Maybe alternative biological pathways should be taught at University like when student who thought they know about the Ancient Greeks are confronted with Aristophanes, priapism and farting contests.

Source: Evolution: Charles Darwin was wrong about the tree of life | Science | guardian.co.uk

'Scissor-handed' creepy-crawly named after Johnny Depp - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Why?

Oh.

Source: 'Scissor-handed' creepy-crawly named after Johnny Depp - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Watch 62 Years of Global Warming in 13 Seconds | Climate Central

This sort of data graphic makes it really quite difficult to NOT get the picture. Do climate denialists have 13 seconds to spare? And there is always the 131 year version.

Source: Watch 62 Years of Global Warming in 13 Seconds | Climate Central

Meet the epigenome: the next genomic frontier

Just when you thought you had a handle on genetics, enter the epigenome! Thinking that the genome (sequence of genes) explains an organism is like thinking a parts listing explains how a device like a car operates under varying conditions through its life cycle. Importantly "...the epigenome is fluid and dynamic; changing in different tissues, at different stages in development and in response to environmental exposures and lifestyle habits. It can be modified by what we eat and drink, smoking, ageing, stress, pollution, sun exposure and countless other environmental factors." So for any philosophers out there, this is why the supposed nature OR nurture dichotomy is a crock. It's nature AND nurture.

Source:Meet the epigenome: the next genomic frontier