Author Archives: Aaron 'BingoBoingo' Rogier

Pokemon Go Fad Already Over

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Pokemon Go, a surveillance and public health app developed by Niantic, is already seeing declining usage according to every possible metric (archived). Likely contributing factors include the game having been released broken with updates only introducing software that's even more broken and gameplay that's even less sophisticated than Cookie Clicker, Farmville, and supposed "games" played for fun. Combine that with the reality of rampant transmayoism keeping the most likely core fanbase from engaging in the optimal gameplay strategy of walking around outside and you have a complete market failure no amount of brand related nostalgia1 can save. Meanwhile other games with allegedly more satisfying mechanics are continuing to grow. Just say Pokemon No.

  1. In related news Crystal Pepsi is back and 1990's nostalgia is apparently a thing marketers are trying to push.  ↩

PayPal Freezes Bundy Accounts Over Rebellion Against Federal Government

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Paypal has frozen accounts associated with Cliven Bundy and his Nevada ranch. Cattle rancher and American Patriot Cliven Bundy was captured by Federal Forces in Portland while he was travelling to support his sons following their effort to liberate a portion of the high desert in Oregon. Cliven's sons Ammon and Ryan had already been captured in an incident which left Ryan injured by gunshot and Lavoy Finicum murdered by FBI stooges. Meanwhile the only Federal officer to face charges of terrorism in United States courts was indicted for playing with gift cards. Peace in our time.

Fratire Retailer Suffers Pervasive Malware Installation

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Popular fratire retailer Eddie Bauer suffered a pervasive installation of malware that spanned all of its 350 retail locations according to Brian Krebs (archived). This is astounding normal in electronic fiat payment systems. Krebs however has not offered any words on his blog concerning a far graver malfeasance recently uncovered. Sorry for your loss.

No Arrests In Drug Drone Prison Crash And Mid-Flight Seizure

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A drone carrying drugs and other contraband crashed near Her Majesty's Prison Pentonville in the United Kingdom on August 13th and later that day a second drone was seized mid mid-flight over the prison (archived). Police allegedly chased a suspicious person away from the prison and recovered drug material he allegedly ditched, but no arrests were made in the case. Peace in our time.

Not Quite News Roundup Xtend 2 (TM)(R)

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Welcome to the second edition of the Qntra Not Quite News Roundup Xtend (TM)(R). These events of the past week happened, but didn't quite qualify as news on their own merits.

  • On Thursday following their acquisition by Univision, Gawker media announced that their former flagship Gawker.com would be shuttered next week.
  • RBS, the largest and most Anglo bank yet to do so announced it would be imposing negative interest rates on select major commercial depositors. Loss happens.
  • Following the news of a serious RNG bug affecting all GPG versions a low energy shitgnome campaign of apologetics and "not that bad" followed.1
  • Ethereum Huffing wank continues. It also was discovered that the "Robin Hood" group of Ethereum scammers dumped their classic ethereum tokens raided from the corpse of the DAO, which definitionally is empty.
  • Darkcoin, a minor altcoin notable for containing a rapid inbuilt hard fork mechanism, is going through another round of pumping in the hotsheets. There has been insufficient interest in this altcoin for anyone to care to challenge any of its past hard forks.
  • Trees near good looking soybean fields2 continue their decline. As harvest nears many corn fields are looking awfully weedy.
  • At the moment all is quiet on the BitfinExodus front.

Sorry for your loss.

  1. Edit: The existene of Phuctor and its factoring of numerous PGP keys of course likely has nothing to do with this, because if the shitgnomes don't talk about Phuctor it must not exist.  ↩

  2. Qntra's favorite altcorn  ↩

Github Enforces USG.NSA Copyright And Other Lols, Roundup Xtend'd

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Following the initial announcement of "Shadow Broker's" (WOT:nonpeople) planned auction of alleged NSA surveillance tools and miscellanea, further lulz emerged. Here they are Roundup Xtend'd:

  1. Github effectively and proactively enforced a potential copyright claim by the United States National Security Agency by booting the information off their platform.
  2. Numerous media outlets are skirting around where the goods came from by tenaciously using the "Equation Group" moniker for the group with which the tools originated.
  3. The issue of whether the teasers offered of the goods for sale are novel or rehashes of previous leaks has not yet been definitively established given the sheer amount that has been leaked already.
  4. A suggested price of One Million Bitcoin has been floating around. The price, which represents a substantial percentage of the best money's monetary mass, reeks of insanity and a deep povertree of the sort that makes a supposed person incapable of market participation.

Sorry for your lols.

Dicamba Disaster Continues Destruction

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As the story of the Dicamba Disaster in the United States begins finally reaching mainstream media outlets, the St Louis Post Dispatch brings us news that Dicamba Drift has threatened Missouri's largest peach orchard (archived). Two hundred and fifty acres of the orchard's peach trees are already irreparably harmed and as the damage continues to show that number could double by next spring as the injury progresses.1

Dicamba has been around since 1942. Until this year it had largely survived in its humble role as that thing you add as a tiny fraction of a percent to your tank mix as a little kicker to beat back broadleaf weeds. What it did, what it didn't do, and why it stayed that tiny fraction were established. Why it stayed the tiny fraction is that dicamba is volatile and the dicamba that doesn't get absorbed and bound will vaporize and spread.

The ascendancy of Roundup Ready in the 1990's inspired much panic. "Genetic modifications AND a super herbicide?" Glyphosate however turned out to be a kitten with the surfactants mixed with it carrying a greater hazard to fauna than the herbicide itself, flora was still fucked though.2

Monsanto opened a pandora's box with their latest offering, because when you offer desperate farmers soybeans that won't suffer any losses with two herbicides those farmers are getting as much mileage out of those two herbicides as they can. Bad behavior becomes mandatory, because fuck that other family's peach orchard which took a generation to grow. Also no one cares about the other stands of mature trees yellowing, defoliating, and in clear decline.3

It would likely have not made things much better even if Monsanto released their "less volatile" dicamba with the seeds4 so long as other people were selling classic Dicamba preparations for less. The competition between agriculture and chemistry is leaning decidedly in chemistry's favor with crops outside of the limited Monsanto supplied corns and alt-corns becoming environmentally impracticable. US agriculture at this point appears to on track to become a fiefdom of tort law in the same way US medicine is by this time next year. This is the story of your loss and imazapyr resistant crops can't come soon enough (archived).

  1. And even in the absence of further dicamba applications nearby it will continue to progress.  ↩

  2. But only if the glyphosate solution actually made contact with foliage.  ↩

  3. This phenomena is pointedly NOT limited to the portions of the Ozarks that US based media is suggesting it to be. ↩

  4. It seems likely they anticipated the destruction and didn't want their preparation taking the blame.  ↩