#Tech Controversy

[scienceswitch]

What is Google’s Project Nimbus and why is it controversial?

Google’s Project Nimbus is a cloud computing contract that Google and Amazon signed with the Israeli government in April 2021. With a hefty price tag of $1.2 billion, this collaboration between tech behemoths and the Israeli government was poised to revolutionize the way data is stored and processed. But not all is sunny with Project Nimbus; it’s a project that has  become as controversial as it…

[mouthtapedguy]

Coming soon: Canada sues Google for renaming ‘Hudson Bay’ to ‘Chad Lake

[eldritch-m0th]

people talk about the “good ole days” of avengers fanfic where they all lived in the tower and got up up to shenanigans together like it was weird and cringy that it was a trope but thats literally the plot of the avengers 2012 animated series, episode 3 sams mom bales cookies and they fight over who gets the last one, jarvis bullies them all relentlessly, and they generally get along

tdlr more people need to watch this show

[anoant-haikyuu-dump]

thinking about a Nekoma band au... Fukunaga as the bassist because you don't really notice it's there despite it being one of the most important instruments. Fits with his under-the-radar powerhouse thing

[firstoccupier]

4chan: The Internet’s Mos Eisley Cantina Takes Another Hit

In the chaotic world of online forums, 4chan stands out like a neon sign in a dark alley. Dubbed the “cesspool of the internet,” it has a reputation for being the lawless Doge City of the online world. This notorious imageboard has seen its fair share of craziness, and now, it’s down again—this time, apparently hacked. On April 14, 2025, users began reporting that 4chan was loading slowly. By…

[chikoyama]

Teen Chiyori: Gakuganji-sama, I heard you play the electric guitar! c:

Gakuganji: Uh, yeah..? (What does this kid want?)

Teen Chiyori: I play the drums!

Gakuganji: …

Teen Chiyori: *Stares, smiling* c:

Gakuganji: … How much do you know, kid?

[bluisgayandmoregay]

I'm just gonna say it. Linus Media Group is just another shitty company owned by another shitty rich white guy. Maybe Linus is "nicer once you get to know him" or some other bullshit like that, but everything that has happened and has been happening with them is down right sad.

No one should ever be dismissed or told off or belittled or shamed for coming forward about assault in the workplace, hell anywhere, and Madison deserved much better when coming forward to higher-ups.

If LMG responds to Madison's allegations the same way they've been responding to all the inaccurate videos callouts and the whole Billet Labs controversy, then Terren should consider taking a long hard look at who he employes while he gets situated as CEO

On related topics, first my opinions about the "mandatory meeting" video from

this link (credit u/Nitazene-King-002 on Reddit. It was originally posted 6 months ago around when Madison left, however the comments on the original post are upsetting).

This is the most corporate bullshit response Linus could've given. I've heard some of these exact phrases a dozen times working for Big Corporate™ before.

The fact that barely anyone knew about an internal anonymous reporting feature is highly concerning as that implies no one told them either purposely or accidentally. And either way is shady.

James's "joke", while maybe funny to some of a certain inner circle, was very clearly poorly timed and disgusting given the circumstances of the meeting itself.

Second, my opinion about the Billet Labs waterblock prototype scandal.

In LTT's video addressing the data inaccuracies and "how the company will move forward from this"

(credit: Linus Tech Tips on YouTube)

They say that they simply misplaced and mislabeled the waterblock and auctioned it off at the LTX convention, and, after finding out that it was supposed to be sent back to Billet Labs, handled refunding the auction in a very unprofessional way.

Third, my opinions on the inaccurate graphs and lazy post production fact checking.

While LMG is certainly not the biggest tech company trying to give people data on products, they most certainly have the time, money, and effort to fact check everything in their videos, despite what Linus has said on both the LTT forums and the WAN show. While they do address and focus on this topic in the above YouTube video, it is once again filled with corporate copypasta phrases and empty feeling promises as they try to calm everyone down. The video feels half assed and like most of them aren't taking it seriously as they insert inside jokes to the script. (but that is just my opinion)

Fourth, my opinions on Madison's allegations.

A link to Madison's thread

(credit: @suuuoppp on Twitter. It's a long read and heartbreaking, but worth it if you still believe LMG is a good company)

explaining everything that happened to her while working for LMG, and exposing higher ups for how they dismissed and belittled her for feeling attacked by other coworkers.

In my opinion this thread alone should be enough to tell people that something is wrong at LMG. She did not deserve anything that was mentioned there, whoever dismissed her cries for help should be fired for putting an employee's mental health in danger.

I believe Madison without a doubt, the behavior of some of her coworkers is completely unacceptable.

All in all, I expected better from LMG. I feel bad for Terren for having to deal with this right as he joins, but perhaps he's going to be part of the problem later.

I hope some of the smaller teams in LMG like TechLinked/GameLinked and Mac Address come out ok. Maybe Riley takes the linked writers and an editor to make his own tech news channel, or Horst can do the same with Mac Address.

And I genuinely hope the best for Madison. She was a wonderful part of any video she was in and never deserved anything that wronged her during her time there.

(Small explanations for certain parts:

Remember that these are opinions about facts, while I do literally state that Linus "is another shitty rich white guy", that is my opinion. I've never met him nor anyone who I'm hating on in this post.

It is entirely possible that Madison is lying, but knowing what it's like to be a woman in the corporate tech industry. Right now I believe her 100%.

I am aware of and have seen Gamers Nexus's video calling out LMG about the inaccurate graphs and lazy fixes and the Billet scandal. This post is essentially in tandem and agreeing with their video, while also adding Madison's allegation.

And for those confused as to why James's joke "Are you gonna dance on that table, or just stand on it?" is bad. That line is a reference to someone performing in a place like a strip club, and the way it was said was (in my opinion) satire on the way people in a club might say it in a demeaning way to a performer. I'm not sure who he said it to or why he said it in the first place, but closing a meeting about discussing assault or harassment in the workplace with that line is very disgusting.)

And of course I don't know everything, I'm just putting my opinions on the Internet™. If I've missed anything you know about you can reply/reblog/send an ask and I'll edit/add it on. Same for if I've gotten anything wrong.

#tl;dr I think Linus Media Group sucks right now.

Love,

Brie

[whatislifebesidesrehearsal]

Lead Stage Tech: I actually think soup is a great breakfast food

[alpha-mag-media]

Charissa Thompson breaks silence after controversially revealing she would ‘make up’ NFL sideline half-time reports | In Trend Today

Charissa Thompson breaks silence after controversially revealing she would ‘make up’ NFL sideline half-time reports Read Full Text or Full Article on MAG NEWS

[dandelionsprout42]

Without me having read the exact magazine issue, the timing of when EGM brought up that claim is something I presume must've lined up with the legendarily stupid Banana Controller concept, with looked so little ergonomic that not even 3rd-party controller makers dared to get even close to replicating it. 😺

The analogue sticks apparently being some sort of PSP-like slider sticks was the strawberry on top. 🍽️

Kutaragi also made all sorts of other ridiculous decisions. Special very negative shoutout from me about how he added a CompactFlash (CF) port to the 60GB launch models when he very, very clearly must've known that the exact physical design of the slot would've been much, much more wished for by players to be used for PS2/PS1 Memory Cards.

And instead of cost-cutting anything else about the PS3, he chose to cut… the controller rumble patent payments. Yes.

Safe to say Kutaragi got fired from Sony around 2009, IIRC.

(He also claimed that people who couldn't afford the PS3 at launch, which in some countries soared above US$900 in their local currencies in 2007, should just get a 2nd job. Safe to say Kutaragi got fired from his one job soon after. A literal r/YouHadOneJob moment for him.)

(2005-06 was also arguably the most concept-filled anticipated times in the history of videogames. Nintendo also trialed the later-named Wii Sports on "Nintendo Revolution" at expos around that same time.)

Quote from Ken Kutaragi (Electronic Gaming Monthly #200, Feb. 2006)

[kamalkafir-blog]

US pushes Vietnam to decouple from Chinese tech, sources say

By Francesco Guarascio HANOI (Reuters) -The United States is pushing Vietnam in tariff talks to reduce the use of Chinese tech in devices that are ***embled in the country before being exported to America, three people briefed on the matter said. Vietnam is home to large manufacturing operations of tech firms such as Apple and Samsung, which often rely on components made in China. Meta and Google…

[rightnewshindi]

वान्या अग्रवाल का माइक्रोसॉफ्ट पर हमला, गाजा हिंसा के खिलाफ इस्तीफा; सत्य नडेला को लताड़ा

US News: भारतीय मूल की अमेरिकी इंजीनियर वान्या अग्रवाल ने माइक्रोसॉफ्ट की 50वीं वर्षगांठ पर तूफान मचा दिया। 4 मार्च 2025 को वाशिंगटन के रेडमंड में आयोजन के दौरान यह हुआ। वान्या ने बिल गेट्स, स्टीव बाल्मर और सत्य नडेला की पैनल चर्चा में हस्तक्षेप किया। उन्होंने माइक्रोसॉफ्ट पर गाजा में हिंसा में शामिल होने का आरोप लगाया। वान्या ने कहा, “50,000 फिलिस्तीनियों की मौत में माइक्रोसॉफ्ट की तकनीक…

[firstoccupier]

Elon Musk: How Public Funds, Legal Loopholes, and Far-Right Alliances Built a Tech Empire at America’s Expense

By Victor Laslow, WPS.News Introduction Elon Musk’s name is synonymous with technological innovation, space exploration, and electric vehicles. Yet behind the celebrated entrepreneur’s public persona lies a more complicated story — one marked by a lifetime of benefiting from systemic privileges, navigating legal gray zones in immigration and business, and increasingly embracing political…

[ask-zaukodar]

I'm convinced that the exclusion of 5.25" media bays in "modern" computer towers is the deliberate intent to drive people away from physical media by making it inconvenient to "attach" an external bay to use a media you already have, thus making you settle for streaming.

Every computer tower everywhere should be mandated to come with internal media bays. At least two, in fact: one for your DVDs/BluRays and one for all the weird SD cards that have been released over the last 20 years.

Let us use our computers to consume our physical media like God intended.

u used to be able to put a dvd in your computer. and then u could watch it

[xtruss]

Why Is Pluto No Longer A Planet?

— Tony Phillips | Sunday February 9, 2025

A Composite Image of Pluto. NASA

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Generate Key Takeaways

Pluto isn't alone—it's part of the Kuiper Belt with possibly hundreds of other planet-sized objects.

Because Pluto hasn't achieved gravitational dominance in its region, the International Astronomical Union's 2006 definition of a planet means it no longer qualifies.

Pluto's classification change remains controversial, with critics challenging the voting process and planetary enthusiasts struggling to let go of their long-lived understanding of the Solar System.

People's profound connection with the Solar System led them to feel a remarkable sense of sympathy for Pluto when it was demoted to a dwarf planet in 2006. But why was it reclassified, and why did this cause so much controversy?

Pluto Has Company

For 76 years, Pluto was considered the ninth planet of our Solar System, 3.7 billion miles from the Sun.

What's more, for the first 62 years following its discovery in 1930, Pluto was thought to be alone, a distant body of ice and rock in a vast abyss of near-nothingness. However, in 1992, David Jewitt and Jane Luu discovered the first celestial object in the outer Solar System aside from Pluto. This confirmed pioneering astronomer Gerard Kuiper's suspicions that the formation of the Solar System resulted in a disk of debris beyond Neptune, our eighth planet.

In fact, Pluto forms only a tiny part of what scientists today suspect might be hundreds of thousands of objects called the Kuiper Belt. Pluto's bright, refractive surface meant that it was easier to spot in mid-century telescopes than many other Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), which is why it was the first object in the Kuiper Belt to be discovered.

The subsequent discovery of Eris in 2005 sparked serious conversations regarding what constitutes a planet. Previously, scientists thought Pluto was the only planet-sized KBO, so they had no reason to challenge its status. However, since Eris is similar in size to—and greater in mass than—Pluto, scientists started to realize that we might end up having dozens, if not hundreds, of masses called planets as we discover more KBOs.

As a result, the California Institute of Technology's Professor Mike Brown, who led the team that found Eris, has since been named "the man who killed Pluto."

The Criteria For Being A Planet Changed

Worried that we might end up with too many planets in the Solar System without clearer parameters, the International Astronomical Union (IAU)—the globally recognized organization for assigning names to celestial bodies—defined the planetary criteria during its 2006 General Assembly. In order to be named a planet, an object must:

Orbit the Sun,

Have enough mass to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium (in other words, become rounded in shape), and

Clear its orbit path of other bodies in its neighborhood.

Since Pluto is surrounded by many other KBOs, it hasn't achieved gravitational dominance in its region. As a result, it doesn't fulfill criterion 3, meaning it can no longer be classified as a planet. Instead, Pluto is considered a dwarf planet.

Year: Pluto Timeline Event

1930: Pluto was discovered by Claude Tombaugh.

1951: Gerard Kuiper speculated about objects beyond Pluto, and these objects were named the Kuiper Belt.

1992: David Jewitt and Jane Luu detected the first KBO aside from Pluto.

2005: Eris was discovered by Mike Brown.

2006: Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet after the AIU provided a modern-day definition of a planet.

Controversy Remains

While this decision might seem cut and dried, some scientists argue that Pluto isn't the only body that should be reclassified based on the final of the three criteria. For example, you could justifiably argue that our planet has not cleared its path entirely, as there are said to be over 30,000 near-Earth asteroids.

Perhaps even more controversially, when the IAU proposed the new definition for members to vote on in 2006, because the vote was on the final day of the General Assembly in Prague, and many of the scientists had to leave early to catch their flight back home, only 10% of the 2,700 attendees remained to have their say. Pluto defenders argue that the outcome would have been very different had more people voted.

Returning to people's overriding feeling of sympathy that I mentioned earlier, many of us grew up understanding that Pluto was the Solar System's ninth planet, and we feel that it has been unfairly targeted in the IAU's modern definition of a planet. Indeed, I fondly remember being taught some mnemonics in school that helped me remember the order of the planets in the Solar System (my very easy method: just set up nine planets), and I'm still not quite ready to come up with a new one that discounts Pluto.

[a-solitary-sea-rover-backup]

“To have longevity, the sport’s got to be more conscious about marketing itself better and being more fan-friendly,” Coutts, the SailGP co-founder and chief executive, says from behind the desk in his office on Auckland’s North Shore.

He would know: SailGP has just attracted its biggest live audience ever in the final two events of Season 4 and, if the early innovations for Season 5 are anything to go by, those numbers may well be topped again. 

“I was at the Olympic Games in Marseille earlier this year and no spectators were allowed within 75 metres of the racecourse,” Coutts says. “Even the fan zone on shore was created almost as an afterthought instead of the whole thing being choreographed so that you’re engaging with the fans. It was as if the fans were an unwanted distraction.”

Olympic organisers aren’t the only ones missing a trick.

“Many of the other sailing properties and products seem to think that it’s a big show watching boats dock out and dock in,” he says. “Imagine if you’re watching motorsports and you only saw the car leaving the garage and coming back into the garage. People would say, ‘Are you crazy?’”