An Online Freelancer Breaks Down the UpWork Top 100

UpWork, which is pretty much the definitive online freelancing platform now, just gave us all a great resource that I think hasn’t gotten enough buzz. I’m talking about the UpWork Top 100. It’s a ranking of the top 100 skills that clients seek in the freelance field.

What does it mean to me as a freelance writer? Not much at first glance – the web still needs content, I type content, there will always be a job for me. But secondary influences come into play here. My greedy little gold-plated heart wants to chase every market as it comes up. When cryptocurrency was big (the infamous BitCoin bubble of 2017), I blogged crypto. Now that legalized cannabis is hot, I’ve jumped into that market. I go where the money is.

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Who Needs Halloween When You Have The Real Life Horror Of China?

Yeah, so there’s a new post up at 123ish.com, about the current situation with Hong Kong’s protests and China. It came onto our radar when it involved the gaming community via the Hearthstone fiasco, when a tournament player got suspended for making a little demonstration in support of Hong Kong’s struggle for liberation from China.

I went into covering that story intending it to be light-hearted satire, poking a jab at Blizzard Entertainment and making a few swipes at dictator Xi Jinping and his Winnie the Pooh resemblance. But once I started reading up on what the hell is really going on in China, the story got too grim. Be advised, that link goes to some stomach-churning stark reality. Hong Kong is protesting because it doesn’t want to be subject to Chinese control. After seeing just a taste of what’s going on there, can anyone blame them?

At the very least, China’s torture of Falun Gong members amounts to a modern-day Inquisition, except even Torquemada never got sadistic enough to harvest organs from subjects while they were still alive. The treatment of everybody else in China isn’t exactly winning any human rights pageants either. The continued censorship of most of the world by China through corporate proxies is added salt in the wound. We are all living under China’s bootheel already, whether we know it or not.

Xi Jinping is a modern-day Hitler, and in some ways he’s even worse. This is no laughing matter. China must be stopped now. Why is the rest of the world turning a blind eye?

Faster than I could post, new stories of horrors and atrocities are coming out of China by the day. Read well, because we can do something about China now, or we can all look forward to a “re-education camp” tomorrow.

I wasn’t taking boycotts against Blizzard and other companies seriously before. But now, I’m going to have to at least think it over. If the price of doing business in China is kowtowing to this savage, monstrous regime, then it is not worth it.

UPDATE: A Redditor explains the culture of fear inside mainland China. He, too, points out “Chinese government may be the most powerful totalitarian regime in human history.” and “The West has tolerated CCP for too long.”

UPDATE: NGO Human Rights Watch now declares China “a global threat to human rights.” HRW executive director Kenneth Roth states: “Beijing has long suppressed domestic critics. Now the Chinese government is trying to extend that censorship to the rest of the world. To protect everyone’s future, governments need to act together to resist Beijing’s assault on the international human rights system.”

 

How I Became A Detective Tracking Down Poison THC Vape Cartridges

I’m Just As Surprised As You Are!

Somewhere in my online journalism career, winging into its third decade, I must have come to think of myself as a member of the counterculture. Certainly, the “geek culture” beat I’ve been pounding on is no longer underground, but part of the mainstream and transformed into a hyperthyroid monster of its own. So much so that we enablers sometimes wish we’d saved the cork to the genie’s bottle in case it gets out of control. Ever since undertaking to branch out into swampier horizons, I’ve sought new catacombs of popular culture. There has to be a skull or spiderweb or two here sufficiently gruesome to hold aloft and fascinate some of you.

And then they legalized weed.

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New at 123ish: Amazon Prime Day, your corporate overlord report

Yes, I know, worshiping the temple of e-Commerce is a bit far out of my usual wheelhouse, where I’m typically frolicking with Cthulhu or posting unhinged rants against palm trees. But guess what, chicken butt: Your humble author has to eat too, and articles about Amazon Prime Day brings in the bacon.

It’s funny, too, because for all the vitriol Amazon draws, it’s really just the online version of Sears-Roebuck. Present your case, John Oliver:

Now my case:

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News At 366 Weird Movies – I’m in a book!

A few of my reviews whirled by over at 366 Weird Movies while I was too busy with other things (week off for Father’s Day and all that). To catch up:

CAPSULE: AGAINST THE CLOCK (2019) – A messy mish-mosh of cyberpunk spy thriller themes, as half-baked as the sloppy CGI fractals and hyperactive jump cuts that frame this abortion of a film.

CAPSULE: KEOMA (1976) – Could have been a contender for the last great spaghetti western, but is ruined by the Soundtrack From Hell. Yes, you heard right, and you’ll wish you’d never heard. You’re asking of course, how bad can this possibly be? Here’s a sample. Now imagine that crotch-splitting abomination going on for the ENTIRE MOVIE. That’s right, it never shuts up, a continuous Greek chorus obliterating every serious moment for the 105 minute run-time.

CAPSULE: HARD TICKET TO HAWAII (1987) – A harmless descendant of Miami Vice, with lots of booby cheesecake and a loose story that has something impenetrable to do with a snake, a toilet, a blow-up doll, a skateboard, and a razor-edged Frisbee.

But let’s get to the important part

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You know what I haven’t blogged about in awhile? LINUX!

Anybody out there remember the elder days of yore on the web, when I was one of the few bloggers to talk about Linux and FOSS? I figured it’s time to update distro recommends for a new generation. So here’s the top five Linux distros for every kind of user.
As usual, I dodged the trendy meme distros in favor of time-honored practical systems for anybody from the most clueless newbie to the salty veteran power user. Wow, it has been a long time!

Follow on for one of my classic Linux essays, the final battle report of the Microsoft vs. Linux wars:

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New at 123ish.com: Is Disney A Monopoly, And Should We Be Worried?

Disney has recently raised some harrumphs in the geek community for becoming the owner of both Lucasfilm and Marvel properties. Is that enough to make Disney The Mouse That Roared? I discuss that question in the context of the big picture: In 2019, what media company isn’t a gigantic, world-crushing monopoly? As I demonstrate, hardly any.

As an addendum, literally the day after I posted this, rumor has it that Disney may shut down Marvel Comics right after acquiring it. If so, my prediction there:

“And here Disney just acquired two properties which – hold your fire, please – may prove to not be so valuable in a few years’ time.”

…proved more prophetic than I intended. Oops.

Other Disney-related things I’ve had to say over the years:

  • The Cult of Don Bluth – Former Disney animator, he struck out a career on his own and briefly beat the Mouse that Roared at his own game. Now fighting to get the classic arcade game Dragon’s Lair realized on screen.
  • Forgotten Gems Of Disney’s Dork Age – Disney put Generation X through hell in the 1970s, but these were its least stinky turkeys during that creative holocaust.
  • Best Disney Villain Figures – Paying tribute to the best of the baddest in Disney, with handsome collectible figurines.

Seriously, I don’t say much about Disney because it overall sucks.