Tag: rants

The Zombie Apocalypse Is Over : The Zombies Won

All of us nerds made zombie apocalypse jokes at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m not so sure we’re joking any more. I’m sure as hell not.

Whenever I have braved the Outside World to forage for supplies lately, I get closer and closer to getting into a fight myself. I grew up in the mean ‘hoods of south L.A. so I’m no stranger to rumbles. I’m not scared for myself, but I had hoped for a more peaceful coast to retirement in a tranquil suburb by now.

Corona_virus_plans

You can clearly distinguish Team Human from Team Zombie

Team Human are the people who believe in science and reason. They wear their masks and gloves, use sanitary wipes and disinfectant, and keep their distance. They respect the store employees. All of us are out to go about our business quickly and efficiently with the least amount of drama.

Team Zombie isn’t buying any of that. They don’t wear protective gear, and make it a point to get into everybody’s face around every corner. They’re hostile and confronting. They scoff at our “imaginary” pandemic and vaccines and all of our “so-called” science. They’re out to pick a fight at every opportunity.

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Dissecting the Fallacies of the COBOL Programmer “Crisis”

I’ve been way too busy to address the story when it first broke, but that’s how the burrito’s been rolling around here lately. Briefly, here’s the sequence of the story which made my blood boil:

  • COVID-19 pandemic hits
  • World recession (if not depression) hits
  • An unprecedented number of citizens in US file for unemployment
  • US government issues economic stimulus checks so the economy doesn’t go boom
  • IRS, banks, and other institutions report a crisis: they can’t help people fast enough because their machines are using… COBOL!

This triggered an avalanche of ignorant technology story headlines the likes of which haven’t been seen since Y2K.

“Wanted urgently: People who know a half century-old computer language so states can process unemployment claims!” screams CNN.

“Government systems written in the old COBOL computer language are blocking us from our cash!” gurgles ZDNet, the FOX News of tech media.

“Unemployment checks are being held up by a coding language almost nobody knows!” valley-girls The Verge.

“An ancient programming language is suddenly in demand thanks to the pandemic!” derps Salon.

It’s been going on like this for weeks. The drooling stupidity dripping over these stories is inexcusable in the year 2020. The media, let us never forget, is chock full of stubbornly anti-intellectual reporters who flat out refuse to learn because what’s the money in reporting an accurate story?

So, for those of you just joining us (because everybody else lies to you), allow the World’s Oldest Blogging Hacker to explain this mess…

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Try To Understand This: There Are Evil People

UPDATE 04/19/20: Readers have uncovered a massive, coordinated asstroturf campaign to spread fake news and rally a denialist uprising about the CoronaVirus. Buzzfeed concurs, noting ties to a special interest group.

See, I told you it was deliberate, not ignorance! Listen to your prophet next time.

As I write, 04/04/20 (or 04/04/20 for you Europeans), the world is in the grips of – wait for it – the CoronaVirus / COVID-19 pandemic. Worldwide cases: 1.1M, worldwide deaths: 64K, US cases: 300K, US deaths, 8K. Compare those numbers as you read this to see how we did.

The US is currently the most-infected country in the world. At a rate of one thousand people dying per day, we will soon match and surpass the countries where the virus has taken its deadliest toll. Currently that’s Italy, at 15K deaths. The US can catch up to that number by next week at this rate.

In the middle of all this, we still have a shockingly high denial factor.

We could go on all day of course, but that’s enough examples for now. At this point, either the reader has turned away, or else I’m preaching to the choir. Because reality is politicized. So it’s time we looked at how it got that way.

Continue reading “Try To Understand This: There Are Evil People”

A Homage to the Typo Fairy

As texting on mobile devices continues to take the world by storm, more and more people are confronted with the complications of using an interface to communicate. And of course, cursing themselves for the mistakes they make.

Is this typed correctly so far? Let’s run a spellcheck: No, the word “texting” hasn’t made it into the dictionary yet, nor has the word “speelcheck” for that matter. Whoops, we mean “spellcheck”. See, now how do we tell the difference between an omission in the dictionary and a fumble on the part of our fat, clumsy fingers? Continue reading “A Homage to the Typo Fairy”

Why Is SEO Marketing For Media Topics So Hard?

Hi, I’m “Penguin” Pete Trbovich… and you overthink SEO!

You have a great idea for a moneymaking website: You’re going to write a fandom blog for your favorite media, be it movies, TV shows, music, video games, books, comics, manga, anime, whatever. And then you’re going to post affiliate links from your site to Amazon, etc., so that fans will read about this stuff and hopefully buy some of it with a commission for you.

What a “passive-income” prospect! All we need is some content marketing, and the rest takes care of itself. People Google for this stuff all the time, so you know it’s a popular topic space.

What fandom do we pick to write about first?

Star Wars is popular, we can cash in on that fandom! Let’s see how competitive writing about Star Wars is:

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GeekyDomain Round-Up: The Witcher, Green Gifts 4 Geeks, and Sci-Fi Novels That Need An Adaptation

It’s come to this: I’m so busy working for other people’s sites that I can’t get the chance to blog on my own, so I have to do digests. Probably for the best. I’m on three posts per week at Geeky Domain now, so the pace is getting spunky.

“If You Liked The Witcher, You Might Also Like…” explores the genre of the occult detective. Revisit Kolchak, The X-Files, and a cameo from Vincent Price because I’ll take any opportunity to insert him.

You see in the banner on that image that for a goof, I compared the “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” song to “Bravely Bold Sir Robin…” from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Right after that, we lost Terry Jones, who co-directed same for the Python troupe. Sad loss, and another Python down.

“Gifts for Green Geeks” is a gift list for responsible geeks who want to carry on their geekery while adhering to a new standard of reducing their carbon footprint. Gives me a chance to continue my contrarian climate-advocacy views from old classics like “If Anybody Cared About Climate Change, We Could Have Solved It By Now.”

“Five Sci-Fi Novels Just Waiting To Be Adapted To Film” is a nerdrage rant about how Hollywood isn’t adapting anything quality anymore, get off ma’ lawn and all. But each of those five sci-fi classics I picked are all works with a strong argument for being potential box-office champions. We can do that or we can try to retread Spider-Man for another Uncle Ben death scene. Your call, Hollywood!

“Time is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans!” — John Lennon

 

For your Christmas catching-up: The Impeachment of Donald J. Trump

Here it is Christmas Eve, and I’ve JUST NOW shoveled my way out from under my workload to pay attention to my own site for a change.

I know most of you want to think about this like you need a hole in your mistletoe, but I promise it’s funny and enlightening. The Impeachment of Donald J. Trump examines where we are, how we got here, where we might be going, and – are you sitting down for this? It actually explains things so they make *some* sense!

It’s a defining Christmas for the Trumpster. Lots of soul-searching is due (though we may be sure none will be undertaken). If ghosts of Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and John McCain visited him tonight, that would be most fitting.

 

eCommerce Marketing: How We Misread the Internet Audience

By now the Internet has chewed up and masticated the infamous Peloton exercise bike ad. For you people in the future visiting to soberly learn the lessons from the Ghosts of Christmas Ads Past, here’s what that was all about:

The Internet reaction to this ad is a textbook case of unexpected backlash

Everybody mocked it. And lest you be tempted to think “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” Peloton’s stock actually fell 10% due to bad press from the ad.

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OK Millennial , Take It From Generation X : You Really DO Suck!

Before You Fall For This “OK Boomer” Nonsense, Read This

Let me ask you information-age savvy Millennials a real stumper: When was the last time you heard a Generation Xer complain? About ANYTHING?

Well, it’s about time you did. I’ve spent my whole life hearing from both Boomers and Millennials, while like a typical Gen Xer I’ve kept my head down and quietly stayed in my lane.

Because I’m a Gen-Xer and I’ll swear on my tattered Breakfast Club ticket stub that I never heard about a generation war until Millennials came along. Before that, generations were just one more arbitrary method of sorting demographics, useful to marketing executives and the occasional political survey, but otherwise unremarkable. I’ll put that up front, even though I’m about to talk about generations as if they meant something: Generations are nothing but what Papa Kurt Vonnegut dismissed as a granfalloon, a word we could stand to bring back for the label-happy modern media.

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