#Bill Gates investments

[newtiative]

Bill Gates - Why You Shouldn't Care About Money | Newtiative | #investing #money #billgates #shots #billgates #investing #finance #money #business #entrepreneur #students #new #annualmeeting #podcastclips #podcast

Learn from Bill Gates. Invest wisely. Achieve financial freedom. Follow us for expert analysis, inspiring stories, and actionable tips.

[anreill]

I knew Kurzgesagt was polished tech-cuck propaganda but I didn't know just how much money the "charities" of billionaires give them to promote all these stupid faux-environmentalist grifts

[deliciousangelfestival]

"Darling, bad luck seems endless." - Bucky Barnes

Summary: You've always been haunted by bad luck your entire life, despising it deeply, until you meet someone who finds it amusing.

Character: dark!Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Author's Note: Hello, everyone; this story is for the sleepover event hosted by @the-slumberparty. What I chose is a strawberry sundae with gummy bears as the topping.

Chapter 1 , Chapter 2 .

Main Masterlist || support: Ko-fi

Thank you to anyone who gave a like, reblog, and left a comment. It motivated me to write more.

Bad luck.

You always felt that bad luck followed you everywhere. Growing up, you didn't realize it, but it became clear to you after becoming an adult.

There was one time when you had prepared for an exam, but two days before, you got a high fever and had to take the exam all by yourself.

When you got an offer to study piano abroad, your father's business went bankrupt.

Then, when you finally got into your dream college, your father's business went bankrupt. Again.

When you wanted to study and paid for an extra course, the teacher lied and told you to study alone. It turned out you could learn everything from the internet. You were taken in by his sweet talk because of his experience working in the industry.

After you graduated, you went to work at a studio, but it went bankrupt because the owner embezzled the money to buy a Ferrari.

Then, you were introduced by a relative to an investment. Because you saw her enjoying the profit, you put all your money into the investment. For eight months, it went great, but after that, everything went to hell because it was a scam. You lost the money, the money that your father had left you. It still pains you.

Each time it feels like life is going your way, it soon comes crashing down when you face another misfortune.

As a last resort, you went to a priest but received no answers. You visited a shaman but still found no answers. Then, you went to a paranormal who said, “Bad luck fucks you like Zeus fucks his prey.”

‘Well, shit,’ you thought.

Not knowing what life would bring you, you tried to find another way to make money by taking a class in jewelry making. You pretended to hate it and not enjoy making jewelry.

You were scared that each time you enjoyed or liked something, bad luck would come like judgment day with no warning and take all the joy from you.

But bad luck can't be fooled. It appeared again in another form. It turned out the jewelry store owner was actually a gangster in the diamond business. It was a risky job, but it helped to pay the bills.

Sir Galileo, with his grey hair and special glasses that he always wore to appraise diamonds, was an eccentric man. He always dressed as royalty and wore white gloves. He insisted from the beginning that you call him a 'sir.'

He always brought you with him whenever he went to see a client. Specifically, your job was to drive the car, take notes, and design jewelry for clients. The clients were unique, too: mafia, drug dealers, etc.

Of all the clients, there was only one that caught your attention. You liked him because he was a regular customer and always paid upfront.

James Buchanan Barnes, or his nickname ‘Bucky’. You didn’t know much about him, but he was loaded with money. His mansion, his vintage car collection, and the rings he wore on his fingers were all testaments to his wealth.

Every time you met him, it was always at a different place. It was never the same location.

Damn, each gold and diamond in his rings could solve world hunger. Even Sir Galileo respected Bucky.

Today, Bucky called both of you again.

When you both arrived at a new location, another mansion, you couldn't help but be impressed by its grandeur. The sprawling estate was surrounded by lush gardens and towering gates. The mansion itself was a blend of modern architecture and classic elegance, with large windows reflecting the sunlight and intricate details on every corner.

Bucky looked at you while opening his arms wide. “My Da Vinci,” he greeted warmly.

You blushed when he called you that. His nickname for you always made you feel a mixture of pride and embarrassment. You looked down briefly, trying to hide your flushed cheeks.

“I can't wait to see the design you've made,” he said, turning to Sir Galileo. “And I want you to take a look at that ruby stone I got.”

“Sure,” Sir Galileo replied with a nod.

Once everyone was seated in the lavishly decorated living room, you grabbed your tablet and showed Bucky the jewelry design you had created for him. Instead of the usual ring or bracelet, you had designed a watch that fit his character perfectly—sleek, elegant, and powerful.

Bucky inhaled his cigar, examining the design closely. “This is great,” he said, a rare smile forming on his lips.

You felt a surge of pride when your work was appreciated, but you quickly dismissed the feeling. You didn’t want another bout of bad luck to hit you like a truck.

“How did you get this ruby?” Sir Galileo asked, still scrutinizing the stone with his special glasses.

“Tsk,” Bucky clicked his tongue. “Don’t remind me. My man got hurt getting that.”

“Another incident?” Sir Galileo inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Bucky exhaled smoke from his mouth, his expression darkening. “We’ve never had a casualty like this before. I feel like we have bad luck.”

You flinched when you heard ‘bad luck.’ Could it be that your bad luck had moved to Bucky?

You hoped nothing bad would happen to Bucky because you enjoyed working for him.

But once again, bad luck visited you. This time, it came in the form of a bullet shooting through the window. It was a surprise attack.

“Fuck,” Bucky cursed as he shielded you from the bullet and hid behind a chair.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his face close to yours, making your heartbeat quicken.

“I… I'm fine,” you stammered.

Bucky took a peek out the window, his eyes narrowing. “How did they find out my hideout?” he cursed.

You stayed quiet. Could it be because of you?

Sir Galileo, hiding behind a table, said urgently, “We should run.”

“No shit,” Bucky responded. He called his guards to prepare for an escape.

The three of you stayed low until you reached the garage. You all piled into a black SUV, the engine roaring to life.

Never had you imagined you’d be in a car chase. The adrenaline pumped through your veins as the SUV sped down the driveway, bullets ricocheting off the sides.

The roar of the engine filled your ears as the black SUV tore down the narrow streets. Bucky was driving with a fierce determination, weaving in and out of traffic, while Sir Galileo barked directions from the passenger seat. Behind you, the pursuing cars kept gaining, their headlights piercing through the dusk like the eyes of predators closing in on their prey. Bullets shattered the rear window, and the vehicle swerved violently as you tried to avoid the onslaught.

The situation felt hopeless. You could see the grim set of Bucky’s jaw, the way Sir Galileo’s hands gripped the dashboard. They were in danger because of you. You had to do something. You took a deep breath and made a decision.

“Leave me here,” you said, your voice trembling but resolute.

Bucky glanced at you, confusion and anger flashing across his face. “What? You've got nothing to do with this.”

“I think I do,” you whispered, feeling the weight of your bad luck pressing down on you. You reached for the door handle and flung the door open, the rush of wind pulling at you.

“You're crazy!!!” Bucky yelled, reaching for you, but you were already tumbling out of the car. The asphalt rushed up to meet you, and you hit the ground hard, rolling painfully to a stop. Your body ached all over, but you forced yourself to sit up. Through the haze of pain, you saw Bucky’s car speeding away. Relief washed over you, knowing they had a chance to escape.

“Click.”

The unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked froze you in place. You looked up to see several men emerging from the pursuing cars, their guns trained on you.

“You’re coming with us,” one of them said, his voice cold and devoid of emotion.

They hauled you to your feet, roughly searching you for weapons. You winced at the pain but felt a grim satisfaction knowing Bucky and Sir Galileo were getting away. The men shoved you towards one of their cars, and you knew your fate was now in their hands.

🍀🍀🍀🍀

The days blurred together as you sat in a dimly lit room, the only illumination coming from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Your captors had bound your wrists to the chair, and the rough rope chafed against your skin. They had been relentless, taking turns to interrogate you, their questions a mix of frustration and suspicion.

“Tell us about Bucky,” one of them demanded, leaning in close, his breath reeking of tobacco and stale beer.

“I’m just a jewelry designer,” you insisted, your voice hoarse from hours of questioning.

“No. You’re more than that,” he sneered. “Barnes never invited the same person more than twice. You must mean something to him.”

You blinked in surprise. That was news to you. Bucky had always seemed so casual, so composed. You had no idea he had such strict rules.

“I told you, I’m just a designer,” you repeated, trying to maintain your composure.

‘BANG.’

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the hideout. The walls shook, and dust rained down from the ceiling. Panic spread through the room as your captors scrambled, their plans falling apart.

“Fuck! Nothing’s going our way!” one of them shouted, his voice tinged with fear.

You couldn’t help but think that maybe this was your fault, that your bad luck had followed you here and was now wreaking havoc on these gangsters. The thought made your stomach churn with guilt.

Then, you heard gunshots. The sharp cracks echoed through the building, and you instinctively covered your ears, trying to block out the chaos. Moments later, the door burst open, and you saw Bucky standing there, a fierce determination in his eyes. He quickly dispatched your captors with a series of precise shots, his movements fluid and lethal.

“Fuck,” Bucky muttered, surveying the scene before his eyes locked onto you. He holstered his gun and hurried to your side, cutting the ropes that bound you.

Bucky helped you stand up, his eyes searching your face. “I still can't believe you."

“Me?” you began, trying to find the right words.

Bucky cut you off, a rare, almost gentle smile touching his lips. “You’re the only woman willing to sacrifice for me.”

He still can't believe that a girl like you, whom he only knew as a designer, was willing to sacrifice for him. Bucky has been interested in you because of your background, wondering how a good girl like you could end up working with Sir Galileo.

“It’s all…” You started, but then you felt something cold press against the side of your forehead.

'Click.'

You gasped in shock, your heart pounding as you realized Bucky was pointing a gun at you.

Bucky’s smile turned cold and frightening. “Now, dear, tell me why you said it’s all because of you before you jumped off the car.”

“Because I'm bad luck,” you whispered, your voice trembling.

“Huh?” Bucky's eyes narrowed.

“You probably think I’m insane, but I bring bad luck wherever I go,” you explained, your voice shaking.

“Hah!” Bucky's eyes widened for a moment before he burst into laughter. “Hahahaha…”

He laughed so hard that he wiped a tear from his eye. “This is getting more interesting.”

His laughter sent chills down your spine. He found it amusing, but to you, it was a curse. His grip on the gun didn’t waver as he stepped closer, his presence overpowering.

Bucky leaned in, his breath warm against your skin. “We’ll get along just fine,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous whisper.

Taglist:

@thezombieprostitute

@thetravelingtyper

@scott-loki-barnes

@mostlymarvelgirl

@chemtrails-club

@dexter99

@seresingirlie

@missvelvetsstuff

@kjah97

@tfatwsoldir

[starseedpatriot]

The globalist criminals are on display. If it weren’t for Trump forcing their hand a) they would have slow rolled this out and b) most people who know today wouldn’t because COVID tyranny was their redpill, which the globalist were forced to do to stop Trump in 2020.

____

Official Testimony Bill Gates Is The Driving Force Behind The World Health Organization Power Grab

The WHO also involved in “WHO sex crime scandal, where 83 WHO staff has sexually exploited girls and women — including rape — victims as young as 13”

“Gates bought the WHO, and they now recommend his products. It is that simple. WHO's current sugar daddy is Bill Gates, who has made billions out of his investment in the same vaccines that WHO promotes.”

h/t @WallStreetApes

https://x.com/wallstreetapes/status/1800346523529826373?s=46

[lifeonmarz-blog]

💰 Easiest Placements for wealth 💰

Creativity manifested into materials. These placements help creating abundance be more of a second nature. Rather through mentorship or investing time into particular interest.

Jupiter in the 2nd House

Mark Zuckerberg, Jay Z, Bill Gates, Selena Gomez, Madonna, Lee Van Cleef, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare, Kylie Jenner, Julia Roberts, Donald Trump, Shakira, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Celine Dion, Ivana Trump, Zendaya, Steve Ballmer (mircosoft)

Jupiter in the 8th House

Coco Chanel, Drake, Micheal Jackson, Tiger Woods, John F Kennedy, Joe Biden, Gigi Hadid, Janet Jackson, Al Capone, LeBron James, Pierre Balmain, Pink, Snoop Dogg, Ray Charles, Jennifer Lawrence. Naomi Campbell, Ellen DeGeneres, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ashanti, Mr Beast

Pluto in the 2nd House

Robert Downey Jr., Lauryn Hill, Cher, Robert Deniro, Johnny Depp, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Marilyn Manson, Michael B. Jordan, Usher, Bill Gates, Ari Fletcher, Phil Knight (nike)

Moon in the 2nd House

Elon Musk, Princess Diana, Pablo Escobar, Lee Iacocca, Blueface, Miuccia Prada, Lauren London, Drew Barrymore, Julia Roberts, Avril Lavigne, NBA Youngboy, Coco Chanel, Beyonce, AR AB, Raven Symone, Demi Moore, Kai Cenat, SZA, Kendall Jenner

Do you have any of these placements?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Microsoft pinky swears that THIS TIME they’ll make security a priority

One June 20, I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. On June 21, I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On June 22, I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel and a keynote at the LOCUS AWARDS.

As the old saying goes, "When someone tells you who they are and you get fooled again, shame on you." That goes double for Microsoft, especially when it comes to security promises.

Microsoft is, was, always has been, and always will be a rotten company. At every turn, throughout their history, they have learned the wrong lessons, over and over again.

That starts from the very earliest days, when the company was still called "Micro-Soft." Young Bill Gates was given a sweetheart deal to supply the operating system for IBM's PC, thanks to his mother's connection. The nepo-baby enlisted his pal, Paul Allen (whom he'd later rip off for billions) and together, they bought someone else's OS (and took credit for creating it – AKA, the "Musk gambit").

Microsoft then proceeded to make a fortune by monopolizing the OS market through illegal, collusive arrangements with the PC clone industry – an industry that only existed because they could source third-party PC ROMs from Phoenix:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/ibm-pc-compatible-how-adversarial-interoperability-saved-pcs-monopolization

Bill Gates didn't become one of the richest people on earth simply by emerging from a lucky orifice; he also owed his success to vigorous antitrust enforcement. The IBM PC was the company's first major initiative after it was targeted by the DOJ for a 12-year antitrust enforcement action. IBM tapped its vast monopoly profits to fight the DOJ, spending more on outside counsel to fight the DOJ antitrust division than the DOJ spent on all its antitrust lawyers, every year, for 12 years.

IBM's delaying tactic paid off. When Reagan took the White House, he let IBM off the hook. But the company was still seriously scarred by its ordeal, and when the PC project kicked off, the company kept the OS separate from the hardware (one of the DOJ's major issues with IBM's previous behavior was its vertical monopoly on hardware and software). IBM didn't hire Gates and Allen to provide it with DOS because it was incapable of writing a PC operating system: they did it to keep the DOJ from kicking down their door again.

The post-antitrust, gunshy IBM kept delivering dividends for Microsoft. When IBM turned a blind eye to the cloned PC-ROM and allowed companies like Compaq, Dell and Gateway to compete directly with Big Blue, this produced a whole cohort of customers for Microsoft – customers Microsoft could play off on each other, ensuring that every PC sold generated income for Microsoft, creating a wide moat around the OS business that kept other OS vendors out of the market. Why invest in making an OS when every hardware company already had an exclusive arrangement with Microsoft?

The IBM PC story teaches us two things: stronger antitrust enforcement spurs innovation and opens markets for scrappy startups to grow to big, important firms; as do weaker IP protections.

Microsoft learned the opposite: monopolies are wildly profitable; expansive IP protects monopolies; you can violate antitrust laws so long as you have enough monopoly profits rolling in to outspend the government until a Republican bootlicker takes the White House (Microsoft's antitrust ordeal ended after GW Bush stole the 2000 election and dropped the charges against them). Microsoft embodies the idea that you either die a rebel hero or live long enough to become the evil emperor you dethroned.

From the first, Microsoft has pursued three goals:

Get too big to fail;

Get too big to jail;

Get too big to care.

It has succeeded on all three counts. Much of Microsoft's enduring power comes from succeeded IBM as the company that mediocre IT managers can safely buy from without being blamed for the poor quality of Microsoft's products: "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft" is 2024's answer to "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."

Microsoft's secret sauce is impunity. The PC companies that bundle Windows with their hardware are held blameless for the glaring defects in Windows. The IT managers who buy company-wide Windows licenses are likewise insulated from the rage of the workers who have to use Windows and other Microsoft products.

Microsoft doesn't have to care if you hate it because, for the most part, it's not selling to you. It's selling to a few decision-makers who can be wined and dined and flattered. And since we all have to use its products, developers have to target its platform if they want to sell us their software.

This rarified position has afforded Microsoft enormous freedom to roll out harebrained "features" that made things briefly attractive for some group of developers it was hoping to tempt into its sticky-trap. Remember when it put a Turing-complete scripting environment into Microsoft Office and unleashed a plague of macro viruses that wiped out years worth of work for entire businesses?

https://web.archive.org/web/20060325224147/http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/newsinfo/collateral.aspx?cid=33338

It wasn't just Office; Microsoft's operating systems have harbored festering swamps of godawful defects that were weaponized by trolls, script kiddies, and nation-states:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EternalBlue

Microsoft blamed everyone except themselves for these defects, claiming that their poor code quality was no worse than others, insisting that the bulging arsenal of Windows-specific malware was the result of being the juiciest target and thus the subject of the most malicious attention.

Even if you take them at their word here, that's still no excuse. Microsoft didn't slip and accidentally become an operating system monopolist. They relentlessly, deliberately, illegally pursued the goal of extinguishing every OS except their own. It's completely foreseeable that this dominance would make their products the subject of continuous attacks.

There's an implicit bargain that every monopolist makes: allow me to dominate my market and I will be a benevolent dictator who spends his windfall profits on maintaining product quality and security. Indeed, if we permit "wasteful competition" to erode the margins of operating system vendors, who will have a surplus sufficient to meet the security investment demands of the digital world?

But monopolists always violate this bargain. When faced with the decision to either invest in quality and security, or hand billions of dollars to their shareholders, they'll always take the latter. Why wouldn't they? Once they have a monopoly, they don't have to worry about losing customers to a competitor, so why invest in customer satisfaction? That's how Google can piss away $80b on a stock buyback and fire 12,000 technical employees at the same time as its flagship search product (with a 90% market-share) is turning into an unusable pile of shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Microsoft reneged on this bargain from day one, and they never stopped. When the company moved Office to the cloud, it added an "analytics" suite that lets bosses spy on and stack-rank their employees ("Sorry, fella, Office365 says you're the slowest typist in the company, so you're fired"). Microsoft will also sell you internal data on the Office365 usage of your industry competitors (they'll sell your data to your competitors, too, natch). But most of all, Microsoft harvest, analyzes and sells this data for its own purposes:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

Leave aside how creepy, gross and exploitative this is – it's also incredibly reckless. Microsoft is creating a two-way conduit into the majority of the world's businesses that insider threats, security services and hackers can exploit to spy on and wreck Microsoft's customers' business. You don't get more "too big to care" than this.

Or at least, not until now. Microsoft recently announced a product called "Recall" that would record every keystroke, click and screen element, nominally in the name of helping you figure out what you've done and either do it again, or go back and fix it. The problem here is that anyone who gains access to your system – your boss, a spy, a cop, a Microsoft insider, a stalker, an abusive partner or a hacker – now has access to everything, on a platter. Naturally, this system – which Microsoft billed as ultra-secure – was wildly insecure and after a series of blockbuster exploits, the company was forced to hit pause on the rollout:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/microsoft-delays-data-scraping-recall-feature-again-commits-to-public-beta-test/

For years, Microsoft waged a war on the single most important security practice in software development: transparency. This is the company that branded the GPL Free Software license a "virus" and called open source "a cancer." The company argued that allowing public scrutiny of code would be a disaster because bad guys would spot and weaponize defects.

This is "security through obscurity" and it's an idea that was discredited nearly 500 years ago with the advent of the scientific method. The crux of that method: we are so good at bullshiting ourselves into thinking that our experiment was successful that the only way to make sure we know anything is to tell our enemies what we think we've proved so they can try to tear us down.

Or, as Bruce Schneier puts it: "Anyone can design a security system that you yourself can't think of a way of breaking. That doesn't mean it works, it just means that it works against people stupider than you."

And yet, Microsoft – whose made more widely and consequentially exploited software than anyone else in the history of the human race – claimed that free and open code was insecure, and spent millions on deceptive PR campaigns intended to discredit the scientific method in favor of a kind of software alchemy, in which every coder toils in secret, assuring themselves that drinking mercury is the secret to eternal life.

Access to source code isn't sufficient to make software secure – nothing about access to code guarantees that anyone will review that code and repair its defects. Indeed, there've been some high profile examples of "supply chain attacks" in the free/open source software world:

https://www.securityweek.com/supply-chain-attack-major-linux-distributions-impacted-by-xz-utils-backdoor/

But there's no good argument that this code would have been more secure if it had been harder for the good guys to spot its bugs. When it comes to secure code, transparency is an essential, but it's not a sufficency.

The architects of that campaign are genuinely awful people, and yet they're revered as heroes by Microsoft's current leadership. There's Steve "Linux Is Cancer" Ballmer, star of Propublica's IRS Files, where he is shown to be the king of "tax loss harvesting":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/24/tax-loss-harvesting/#mego

And also the most prominent example of the disgusting tax cheats practiced by rich sports-team owners:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#economic-substance-doctrine

Microsoft may give lip service to open source these days (mostly through buying, stripmining and enclosing Github) but Ballmer's legacy lives on within the company, through its wildly illegal tax-evasion tactics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/13/pour-encoragez-les-autres/#micros-tilde-one

But Ballmer is an angel compared to his boss, Bill Gates, last seen some paragraphs above, stealing the credit for MS DOS from Tim Paterson and billions of dollars from his co-founder Paul Allen. Gates is an odious creep who made billions through corrupt tech industry practices, then used them to wield influence over the world's politics and policy. The Gates Foundation (and Gates personally) invented vaccine apartheid, helped kill access to AIDS vaccines in Sub-Saharan Africa, then repeated the trick to keep covid vaccines out of reach of the Global South:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation

The Gates Foundation wants us to think of it as malaria-fighting heroes, but they're also the leaders of the war against public education, and have been key to the replacement of public schools with charter schools, where the poorest kids in America serve as experimental subjects for the failed pet theories of billionaire dilettantes:

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/millionaire-driven-education-reform-has-failed-heres-what-works

(On a personal level, Gates is also a serial sexual abuser who harassed multiple subordinates into having sexual affairs with him:)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/technology/microsoft-sexual-harassment-policy-review.html

The management culture of Microsoft started rotten and never improved. It's a company with corruption and monopoly in its blood, a firm that would always rather build market power to insulate itself from the consequences of making defective products than actually make good products. This is true of every division, from cloud computing:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/28/other-peoples-computers/#clouded-over

To gaming:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/27/convicted-monopolist/#microsquish

No one should ever trust Microsoft to do anything that benefits anyone except Microsoft. One of the low points in the otherwise wonderful surge of tech worker labor organizing was when the Communications Workers of America endorsed Microsoft's acquisition of Activision because Microsoft promised not to union-bust Activision employees. They lied:

https://80.lv/articles/qa-workers-contracted-by-microsoft-say-they-were-fired-for-trying-to-unionize/

Repeatedly:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/activision-fired-staff-using-strong-language-about-remote-work-policy-union-2023-03-01/

Why wouldn't they lie? They've never faced any consequences for lying in the past. Remember: the secret to Microsoft's billions is impunity.

Which brings me to Solarwinds. Solarwinds is an enterprise management tool that allows IT managers to see, patch and control the computers they oversee. Foreign spies hacked Solarwinds and accessed a variety of US federal agencies, including National Nuclear Security Administration (who oversee nuclear weapons stockpiles), the NIH, and the Treasury Department.

When the Solarwinds story broke, Microsoft strenuously denied that the Solarwinds hack relied on exploiting defects in Microsoft software. They said this to everyone: the press, the Pentagon, and Congress.

This was a lie. As Renee Dudley and Doris Burke reported for Propublica, the Solarwinds attack relied on defects in the SAML authentication system that Microsoft's own senior security staff had identified and repeatedly warned management about. Microsoft's leadership ignored these warnings, buried the research, prohibited anyone from warning Microsoft customers, and sidelined Andrew Harris, the researcher who discovered the defect:

https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-solarwinds-golden-saml-data-breach-russian-hackers

The single most consequential cyberattack on the US government was only possible because Microsoft decided not to fix a profound and dangerous bug in its code, and declined to warn anyone who relied on this defective software.

Yesterday, Microsoft president Brad Smith testified about this to Congress, and promised that the company would henceforth prioritize security over gimmicks like AI:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/microsoft-in-damage-control-mode-says-it-will-prioritize-security-over-ai/

Despite all the reasons to mistrust this promise, the company is hoping Congress will believe it. More importantly, it's hoping that the Pentagon will believe it, because the Pentagon is about to award billions in free no-bid military contract profits to Microsoft:

https://www.axios.com/2024/05/17/pentagon-weighs-microsoft-licensing-upgrades

You know what? I bet they'll sell this lie. It won't be the first time they've convinced Serious People in charge of billions of dollars and/or lives to ignore that all-important maxim, "When someone tells you who they are and you get fooled again, shame on you."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again

[austinsastrology8991]

Mercury in da HoUSe (s) mercury and why you think your smart - you only think your smart, you don't even know if you are because you can't think any other way. I dont care if people tell you your smart, they don't even know if they are smart because they have the same dilemma as you....... but if you think your dumb your probs right.... okay enough chit chat we gotta do some astrollogy >> Mercury in the first - These guys talk the talk, hella good at talking, talk too much, but at least they know how to talk. but it gives everyone in the rooom a headache. also there voices go a million directions... they like to put on voices. actually i hate your voice. its too earpiercing its like your looking at there voice even if you look away. how are you able to make me look at yo voice, its meant to be auditory but i can fucking see it STFUUUU Mercury in the second - I like money but not as much as this guy. this guy will think of every scam, every business every investment possible just to prove his worth (typically with money) as kids they are hustlers with money, everyone knows they gonna make coin, but typically as they get older, money don't mean shit to them and they start investing into something substantial and if they dont grow outta this mindset, they become shells of themselves like bill gates or the amazon guy. mercury in the third - okay these guys are actually smart, but its almost hard to tell. because there intelljgence isn't attached to anything beside intelligence itself. so its hard to notice, but they are very smart people. quick learners but i notice not quick thinkers, or at least they don't voice it much. which i guess makes them smart because they ploying liek dat mercury in the fourth - subtle intelligence, almost manipulative intelligence, they are the types to make you make a point jsut so they can point out the flaws in your point rather than make a argument themselves.... then make an argument once yours has been smashed to pieces. assholes honestly... but i rate it its just smart tactics but make em talk first and they speechless lmao mercury in the fifth - funny yes your funny, yes i see what you did there, oh yes this next joke is also funny because it ties in with your last joke.. did i mention your funnY? oh im not that funny, well im sorry i can't do it like you becayse yourr liek for real funny. okay can someone else speak now, this guys voice wasn't annoying but now it is. fr comedians but every comedian over do it, and so do they mercury in the sixth - annoying intelligence, always pointing out the flaws in whatever the fuck you just said. like dude im trying my best to think, to then speak it, and to respect you as a person. and your lookjing for flaws, in my speech? oh you can't help it? well i can't help but not wanna talk to you. annoyingly nitpicky with what i say you say she say, why so serious? oh your too smart? thats what every dumbass has ever said to me stfu. mercury in the seventh - always on your back, but can you get off my back, im still working on my argument i dont need you to suck me off about it jeezes. id rather you criticize me honestly. oh now your critical of me. well why can't you just think for yourself. oh you don't know how to. you only don't know how to because you just wanna learn more and more and more and more and more. and now you dont know how to think for yourself. congrats you played yoself mercury in the eighth - so mysterious wow so profound, i never saw it that way. no you just were thinking of something cool to say this whole time and you jsut thought of it. your only quiet so you dont look like a fool. insecure bitch ass. oh but now you just wanna insult me yeah thats because i called you out. honestly these guys are just looking for a deep chat, and its only deep because they were digging for so long.

mercury in the ninth - these guys know way too much bullshit. like they read a lot and just spit random facts and its hard to talk to them without feeling patronized. like yeah we get it, you read a lot. most peole don't because we like to be a human, not live in a book. go outside its nice. oh thats where you get your information > outside, books, the world is your dictionary - god you really are annoying. oh you knew that already. fuck off man.

mercury in the tenth - shrewd; always thinking and saying the best possible thing to say for each scenario, and its typically just sayings they read in hustler books, or what they dad said once. yeah your street smart, but no one else advertises it as much as you, which means you don't understand the streets as well as you think. yep thats right re-strategise; they just wanna own the streets i swear. and no one tries as hard as them. and thats saying something mercury in the eleventh - stop protesting you mong, you really think convincing us the realities of the world, will change the world? oh itll start the butterfly effect, okay true go on, tell us how eating veggies gonna stop the meat industry. oh you were just saying this crap for bants. yep that was annoying. oh now you wanna talk about how attitudes has shaped the world, dude why you always trying to integrate everysingle philsophy of the world into one conversation. you do realise its all bullshit? but everyone likes em because they invite everyone in on the conversation... hey someone gota do it Mercury in the twelfth - these guys are the worst i swear, cant be more manipulative than these lot, they will act innocent, but come at you aggressivly, and itll just confuse ya. youll think they just dumb and naive but they klnow damn well what da hell they doing. play yo game with someone else... oh you don't like to play with them because they fall for your shit, yep so you only like people who set you straight ehhhh you should just come at me straight or ill set you straight. oh you just struggle with convos well it shows.

[reality-detective]

A recent History Lesson 👇

Bill Gates invested a whopping $55 MILLION in BioNTech that made the Pfizer mRNA injection.

You will never believe the date that this happened...

Is this just a coincidence?

You know, the company that partnered with Pfizer to make their mRNA covid vaccine and drove Pfizer's revenue to a record $100 billion in 2022.

Well, I had a look and found something very interesting indeed. When did Bill Gates invest this large sum of money?

Turns out that it was on the 4th of September 2019.

Covid was discovered just two months later in November 2019 (at least the first time we got to hear about it).

This turned out to be very profitable for Bill Gates, his investment increasing by 10 times. The original $55 million was worth over $550 million just a few years later.

"The collaboration will fund the identification of potential HIV and tuberculosis vaccines and immunotherapy candidates in their pre-clinical development. It will further enable BioNTech to build out its infectious disease infrastructure, including platform development" - it says in the press release from BioNTech.

Guess what?

Bill Gates has also donated some $20 million to the BBC.

Now it is being reported that the BBC misrepresented the risk of covid in order to boost public support for lockdown.

In other words, the mainstream media deliberately mislead the public and scared them into supporting draconian lockdown measures, and also probably scared people into rushing to get the brand new mRNA injections.

Meanwhile Bill Gates investment grew and grew...

"One example is that they gave the impression that hospitals were being overwhelmed during the first wave. Some (mainly in London) were, but overall hospital bed occupancy was at an all-time low during that period" Professor Mark Woolhouse said.

Remember when we were told that the hospitals were completely full and we had all the dancing nurses on TikTok? Remember how some people were labelled "conspiracy theorists" for questioning this?

Turns out that the so called "conspiracy theorists" were right once again. The hospitals were not full. We were being lied to. I visited two hospitals during that time and they were empty.

Surely it is just a coincidence that Bill Gates just happened to invest large amounts of money into BioNTech just two months before covid?

In fact there was a patent for the mRNA shot before Covid. They lied about everything including the use of masks to stop the spread of an unconfirmed invisible made up virus.

I'm sure this information has already been out there by other sources. I'm just giving a reminder, the information is still available and you are free to löök this up for yourself. 🤔

[formulatrash]

what do you think about formula e seemingly wanting to replace all of their street circuits in the calendar with permanent tracks? it feels like it’s starting to lose its street circuit racing identity already (and, that’s more of a personal opinion, but the permanent track racing feels like it has been much worse, it just doesn’t suit formula e cars at all)

it's very odd, at a point when F1 can't stop adding street tracks specifically to get hype venues and big-ticket promotional races, Formula E is hiding itself further and further away in permanent circuits.

they're sort of doing it for the same reasons, is the funny thing. little circuits will host FE much cheaper than the immense cost and logistics of building a street track and the lower the bill, the bigger likelihood a local business or tourist board will foot it. for F1, the cost of building a new, permanent facility is so staggering even oil states would likely baulk at it now. Yas Marina has cost over $1.3 billion so far, which Abu Dhabi can foot but isn't small change even for them and has led to other programmes being focussed around re-using and extracting value from the facility. (like the autonomous racing thing I was at earlier this year)

not that street tracks come much cheaper but you can build them faster, for an instant gratification on that investment.

F1 can boast massive figures for what a city stands to gain for hosting a grand prix. $449 million additional spending for Miami, for instance. Formula E... cannot throw around those numbers. it's not really a tourism draw and personnel are limited. so to go to a facility that desperately needs events, with an audience reliant primarily on local interest, means it can show an impact. FE claims that it brought an $84 million boost to the Hyderabad economy, for instance but a lot of that will have been in circuit construction.

so the financials add up. but also FE is supposed to be its own, distinct, world championship with a high profile not "F1 but it's electric and goes to lower grade circuits."

if a series does not have a profile of sufficient size, it has no hope of selling out venues. this happened to F1 - Silverstone didn't use to sell out at all, you could walk up to the gate and buy a ticket and I'm talking, like, 2016 not 1994. it took a long pathway of turning its visibility around to reverse that and yes they hit lightning in a bottle with DTS during lockdown but even things like social media had been a huge start in undoing a long, regressive slide into an ageing, shrinking fanbase.

FE cannot be small. manufacturers like Porsche are not in it for it to be small - yes, it is a useful test laboratory for regen but with long periods of homologation for powertrains, the marketing has to be a significant part of the draw. and you also need, reasonably, to be able to succeed: a manufacturer's board will not keep signing off on a racing budget, however small, if there are no or frustrating results on track. and no marketing function.

I know I've been saying this for years but it's still true: FE needs to keep developing itself, keep acting like a startup (since it is one) and continue to grow. ever since COVID it feels as though the championship just said "ah well, this is what we are now" and decided it wouldn't try to progress anything any further. it's a very odd lack of ambition for what could be such a hugely important series both to OEMs and fans.

[newspatron]

Bill Gates in India: Philanthropy or Power Play?

Share your thoughts! Do you view Bill Gates' work in India as positive or problematic?

Image Source – Newspatron Creative Team AI-Generated Image for representative purpose [Read About Us to know more] Timeline: Bill Gates and India 1997: Initial visit as Microsoft’s CEO. Addresses top business leaders, educators, and politicians, highlighting India’s potential in the IT sector. Early 2000s: Microsoft establishes significant development centers in India, fueling growth in the…

[queeranarchism]

The eating insects thing

A far-right anti-vax conspiracy theory that has existed for a few years now has recently increased in popularity and has been breaching containment, especially in vegan circles, so I guess we have to talk about it:

Keep an eye out for scary sounding posts about eating insects.

Some of the claims to expect are this:

Governments are secretly allowing more insects to be put into food. - It is true that more edible insects have been approved for the EU market lately, but this process is not secret at all.

Some people are allergic to Chitine, which is found in shellfish and hard-shelled insects - this is true.

Chitine is also dangerous to people who are not allergic to it and causes cancer - this is not true. It traces back to study that has been taken out-of-context about the impact of concentrated Chitine in cancer identification and treatment.

Eating large amounts of the insects being approved would damage your stomach lining or other intestines because of ‘toxic chitine’. - this is not true. It traces back to an old dietary advice on a Dutch website which only mentioned that insect consumption was safe up to 45 grams at a time. What this meant was: we didn’t find a study that researched higher doses. There are plenty of studies by now and it turns out it’s fine.

Insects are ‘bird food’ and humans did not evolve to digest the insects currently being approved for consumption. - this is not true. There are 1500 insect species that are regularly safely consumed by millions of people around the world. The insects that are currently being approved for the European market have been consumed by humans for as long as we can trace the human diet and many are consumed by our closest primate relatives.

Bill Gates and other insert-conspiracy-name-here billionaires are buying up farm land to deliberately cause food shortages and to force us to eat bugs - this is not true. Land is just a popular investment right now due to other economic pressures.

Governments are pushing for lower meat consumption to force us to eat bugs. - this is not true. Any minimal encouragement of reduced meat consumption by governments is in response to the impact of meat consumption on climate change.

If you buy in to some of these scare stories, the next claim is that forcing people to eat bugs serves some darker government purpose, either simple misery and humiliation (accompanies by the claim that we’ll be forced to eat weeds and drink sewage water), forced population control (the Great Reset bullshit) or preparing us for the rule of reptilian overlords (antisemitism crap).

Now, let me be clear: there are valid reasons why you might want to avoid eating insects. ‘I just don’t want to’ is a good enough reason. Being vegan is an excellent reason. We know very little about the inner lives of insects but observations suggest that they are intelligent and feel pain. We do not currently know what constitutes a high quality of life or a painless death, so we could not ‘humanely’ farm insects even if we wanted to.

However, most of the claims above are misleading, racist and dangerous. They pave the way into far-right anti-vax and antisemitic conspiracy theories. Recognize them and avoid them. If you see your vegan friends share these claims: let them know what they’re doing. Don’t give this shit space.

[darkeagleruins]

RACISM: Why are America's largest corporations and wealthiest Democrats funding a self-described Black nationalist with $20 million to promote racial segregation—the very system it took decades to dismantle in America? Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Nike, and NBC are investing millions in Sharif El-Mekki, a Black nationalist with family ties to the Black Panther Party, to support his efforts to re-segregate American schools.

Notably, El-Mekki also has personal and familial connections to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which raises additional questions about his influences and motivations.

[trickricksblog08]

⚫️ Boycott Heineken:  Bill Gates’ new investment.

[paper-mario-wiki]

How do I stop being jealous of other people

I'm going to assume you've already considered the whole "learn to be grateful with what you have in life, and understand the beauty of individuality" line of thinking, so I'll try to give you actionable advice. This is, of course, barring existential setbacks. If you are jealous of Ryan Seacrest because he looks exactly like Ryan Seacrest and you want to look exactly like Ryan Seacrest and that's as deep as your reasoning can possibly go, then unfortunately there's not much that can be done beyond going to therapy and talking about your weird obsession with Ryan Seacrest. As for everything else, here's what I can tell you;

Identify why you're jealous of them beyond them having something that you want. Understand why you you do not have it and why they do. Think about why you want what they have, and see if you can uncover some secret, other, achievable thing that you can get for yourself. Sometimes we trick ourselves into thinking something is unachievable because we envision it only being something we can do under the most unbelievably strenuous and impossible circumstances.

Example. I'm jealous of billionaires like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos because they have a lot of money. I also, of course, feel a lot of other emotions about people like this for reasons beyond this, obviously there's a whole ethical debate about having that much money to begin with, but the fact of the matter is that I want more money.

Okay, so why do I want that money? Well, I've been really stressed about paying bills this month. I've been searching for jobs but coming up short, and I'd like to be able to have and save money, and to be able to find mobility. Why do I want security and mobility? Well, I want to be able to move to wherever I want, like New York or Chicago or LA without it being a life changing process that I can't come back from. How can I do those things? What exactly do I need? Well, first I'd need to be a certain tax bracket, I'd need to have enough money to rent more than one home, probably. And I'd need to find a job that specifically allows me to move around, so something remote. If I can work my way up to making something like 100k a year, I can probably get pretty close to what I want. It's tough, but it's nowhere near as tough as becoming a billionaire, and I know it's something I'm capable of.

Now, the exact way I went about this process may not match you, but the crux of my method is breaking down my problem, finding out the key aspects of my desire beyond "I want a lot of money", and creating a more realistic way for me to achieve something like that. In doing so I decentralize the problem from being about one person, and turned it into a broad range of steps. If you can turn your envy of someone into a plan, then you'll quickly find your spite turning into drive. Other people having something doesn't mean that you can't have it, but it can be demoralizing to see them already achieve it while you haven't made much progress on it. Realize that you're just anxious about starting, and try to get started on it in a way that's possible for you.

This will of course only work if you legitimately take these steps to heart. Sometimes, unfortunately, the reason we want to feel jealous is because it can feel good to be angry. We can find reasons to be angry at people without being emotionally invested in them, and that's okay. I used to not let myself get angry, and that's not healthy. Anger exists for a reason, and one should allow themselves to feel it without letting it become destructive.

This is the best advice I can give. I'm not a life coach or therapist by any means, but I hope you can find something to use in this.

[queerpyracy]

When you’re told there’s a simple solution to a very complex problem, you’re probably not getting the whole story.

Today’s meat consumption is a good example. Meat and dairy are increasingly under the world’s microscope as livestock—which rely on huge quantities of feed crops and occupy nearly 80 percent of global farmland—accounts for between 14 percent and 30 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It’s also the source of more frequent antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, and much of the global livestock and seafood industries have been exposed for unsafe and abusive working conditions.

This complex web of problems requires more than one answer. And yet “alternative proteins”—from plant-based to lab-grown “fake” meat and dairy—are being promoted as a simple solution. Products like the Impossible Burger, with its 15-plus ingredients, are now in supermarkets and fast food establishments worldwide. Lab-grown chicken has been on the market in Singapore since late 2020 and will likely soon be approved in the U.S. and elsewhere. These products are being sold as a “win-win-win” for animals, people, and the planet. According to Patrick Brown, the outspoken CEO of Impossible Foods, livestock is “the most destructive technology on earth,” and meat substitutes are “the last chance to save the planet.”

Dramatic claims about plant-based meat, lab-grown meat, and “cellular agriculture” have already succeeded in drawing billions of dollars to the sector, including from big-name investors like Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Governments are now paying attention as well. China is readying major investment in lab-grown meat as part of its latest Five-Year Agricultural Plan, and the U.S. government is ploughing $10 million into a National Institute for Cellular Agriculture. Denmark is also backing alternative proteins through a $98 million plant-based food fund.

But these products and their sustainability credentials rest on shaky ground, as I show in a new report out today, “The Politics of Protein,” from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).

[Keep Reading]