Gongol.com Archives: January 2019
January 31, 2019
The number killed in Syria's civil war last year. Fewer than in 2017 (2,109) or in 2016 (2,372). Yet still 1,437 too many.
Facebook is a main cyberwarfare battleground
The company says it "removed 783 pages, groups, and accounts that were being used in a coordinated disinformation campaign "directed from Iran". And here's why Iran would do such a thing: Asymmetry of results. The Facebook report says they found "Less than $30,000 in spending for ads", but the pages reached more than 2 million users.
The Airbus A380 may be among the walking dead
Emirates Airline may be reconsidering an order for the super-jumbo jets, which could mean the whole program is doomed
Principal Financial warns of likely layoffs ahead
The financial-services sector isn't hot right now, and that meant net income for 2018 was a lot lower than in 2017.
Apple and Facebook go to digital war
Apple is seeking to punish Facebook in a visible way for violating Apple's terms for applications. Facebook was using the "Facebook Research" app (according to impressive reporting by TechCrunch) to gather data on everything users did with their phones. It paid those users to give up their privacy -- apparently to the tune of $20 a month -- which is an interesting market price signal. (The number seems terribly low, given the amount of intrusion. But in reality, users routinely give up a lot of privacy for free without even acknowledging or realizing it.) But the PR nightmare here is that the users Facebook solicited were ages 13 to 35, and that means the headline becomes "Facebook paid teens $20 a month to give up their privacy". It's worth repeating: Facebook isn't your friend.
Cable median barriers prevent head-on crash
(Video) Iowa DOT footage shows a car skidding out on icy I-380, crashing into police cars in the median, and being stopped by a cable barrier in the median -- almost certainly preventing an even more serious head-on crash with oncoming traffic.
Des Moines needs a good winter festival
The metro needs some kind of mid-winter event so we can look forward to something fun when it's apocalyptically cold outside. Like, when it's gas-station-wiper-fluid-still-frozen degrees out. And you can't count the Iowa caucuses, because that's just a once-every-four-years open-mic night.
