#Cloud infrastructure support

[jarrodcummerata]

Key Benefits of Hiring Offshore DevOps Engineers for U.S. and European Businesses

Discover the advantages of hiring offshore DevOps engineers for your U.S. or European business. From cost savings to access to global talent, learn how offshore teams can enhance your development processes and drive efficiency. Explore the benefits today!

[websyn]

A Strategic Approach to Cloud Migration: How Web Synergies Ensures a Seamless Transition

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, businesses are increasingly recognising the need for a well-planned cloud migration strategy. Moving operations to the cloud isn’t just about upgrading technology—it’s a critical step towards improving efficiency, scalability, and resilience. However, without expert guidance, this transition can present unforeseen challenges. At Web Synergies, we’ve fine-tuned our approach to ensure that cloud migration is a smooth, secure, and beneficial process for businesses of all sizes.

Why Cloud Migration Matters

As industries embrace digital transformation, cloud adoption has become essential for organisations to remain competitive. A successful cloud migration enables:

Increased Operational Efficiency: Cloud solutions allow businesses to streamline operations, reduce downtime, and eliminate costly on-premises hardware.

Enhanced Data Security: Today’s cloud platforms come with advanced security measures to protect sensitive data and ensure compliance with industry standards.

Scalability and Flexibility: With cloud infrastructure, businesses can effortlessly scale resources to meet changing demands and support growth.

However, the journey to the cloud requires careful planning and a tailored approach. That’s where Web Synergies stands out.

Web Synergies’ Proven Cloud Migration Strategy

Our team at Web Synergies understands that every business has unique requirements and goals. By focusing on a strategy-driven migration process, we ensure that each step aligns with your specific business objectives. Here’s how we do it:

Assessment and Planning The foundation of a successful migration is a thorough assessment. We begin by evaluating your existing infrastructure, identifying critical applications, and pinpointing potential challenges. Our team creates a migration roadmap that prioritises business continuity and minimises disruption.

Customised Migration Pathway Whether you’re moving to a public, private, or hybrid cloud, Web Synergies tailors the migration pathway to best suit your organisational needs. Our customised approach ensures that your business enjoys the full benefits of the cloud without unnecessary complications.

Data Security and Compliance In today’s digital age, data security is paramount. Web Synergies employs the latest security protocols, ensuring your data remains safe throughout the migration. Our compliance-focused solutions meet industry standards, offering peace of mind that your information is protected.

Optimising and Testing A seamless transition means thorough testing. Before the full migration, we conduct rigorous testing to identify and resolve any issues. This ensures a stable and optimised cloud environment tailored to your specific needs.

Post-Migration Support Our commitment doesn’t end once the migration is complete. We provide ongoing support to help you navigate your new cloud environment, optimise costs, and leverage advanced cloud features for enhanced productivity.

Benefits of Choosing Web Synergies for Cloud Migration

Partnering with Web Synergies means more than just moving to the cloud. It’s about setting your business up for success in a digital-first world. Here’s what sets us apart:

Proven Expertise: Our seasoned team has a wealth of experience across various industries, ensuring a smooth migration that fits your needs.

Future-Ready Solutions: We design scalable cloud solutions that not only support your current requirements but are flexible enough to adapt to future demands.

Enhanced Agility: With our cloud migration services, your business gains the agility to respond quickly to market changes, fostering innovation and growth.

Embrace the Cloud with Confidence

Migrating to the cloud is a significant step in your business’s digital journey. With Web Synergies’ strategic approach, you can make this transition confidently, knowing you have a partner committed to your success. From assessment and planning to post-migration support, we’re here to ensure that your journey to the cloud is seamless and secure.

Ready to take your business to new heights with cloud migration? Partner with Web Synergies today to experience a smooth, strategic, and secure move to the cloud.

[jatinbansalblog]

🔥Want to access 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 on cloud Anytime & Anywhere? Hurry up and connect with us🔥

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Quickest Setup, go live in 15 minutes

Zero Maintenance Cost

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Own Data Center infrastructure

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10000+ Happy Clients Pan India

 High Data Security

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 ☎️ +91-8800198868

visit now : https://kisitservices.in

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[century-solutions-group]

Accelerating Business Growth: Unleashing Scalability with Technical Expertise

Accelerating Business Growth: Unleashing Scalability with Technical Expertise- Read Blog- https://centurygroup.net/accelerating-business-growth-unleashing-scalability-with-technical-expertise/ 

#itinfrastructure #itsolutions #networkinfrastructure #itequipment #informationtechnology #cloudcomputing #cloudinfrastructure #cloudserver #datacenterinfrastructure #datacenter #networksecurity #networkequipment #builddatacenters #cloudstorage #itsecurity #itservices #itengineer 

[vastedge330]

Discover Vast Edge’s managed cloud services, offering end-to-end support and optimization for your cloud infrastructure. Focus on your core business while we handle the technical details.

[jcmarchi]

Josh Wong, Founder & CEO of ThinkLabs AI – Interview Series

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/josh-wong-founder-ceo-of-thinklabs-ai-interview-series/

Josh Wong, Founder & CEO of ThinkLabs AI – Interview Series

Josh Wong is the Founder and CEO of ThinkLabs AI. He previously worked at GE Vernova as a General Manager, Grid Orchestration. Josh Wong attended the University of Waterloo.

ThinkLabs AI is a specialized AI development and deployment company. Its mission is to empower critical industries and infrastructure with trustworthy AI aimed at achieving global energy sustainability. The company is developing its flagship product, ThinkLabs Copilot, a digital assistant that comprehends the real world through proprietary physics-informed AI digital twins, providing a foundational model for engineering systems.

Can you tell us more about the vision behind ThinkLabs AI and what inspired its creation?

The vision behind ThinkLabs is a reliable, sustainable, and affordable energy infrastructure powered by trustworthy AI. We understand that the grid remains at the center of the energy transition. To decarbonize we must electrify. To electrify we need the grid, and the grid really must modernize. We believe the intersection of electric power systems engineering, AI, and cloud computing is the solution.

How does ThinkLabs AI differentiate itself from other AI startups in the grid management sector?

The grid is complex, and so much so that AI in itself cannot learn about the complex power flows and operational processes that exist in the grid space. ThinkLabs combine the rich history and confidence of traditional power systems engineering with AI, as trustworthy physics-informed AI, for confidence in scaled, automated inferencing and decision support for critical infrastructure. It also takes more than technology, but an experienced team that understands the nuances of the grid and how utilities and regulators think. Our team comes from the electric power systems space with proven track record, including founder Josh Wong who has sold his previous company Opus One Solutions to GE, and stands at the intersection of engineering, AI, and cloud computing.

What specific challenges in grid management does ThinkLabs AI aim to solve?

Automated analytics and recommendations for real time situational awareness across the grid, large scale simulations, and continuous learning and recommendations to mitigate grid constraints and optimize grid performance. Specific functional areas include:

Insights – near real time state estimation of grid power flow, detecting congestions, voltage violations and how capital assets are actually utilized.

Solutions – optimal dispatch recommendations, including switching, grid devices and DERs, for congestion relief, mitigate DERs interconnections, reduce losses, restore outages, etc.

Model validation – validation and corrections in utility source data sets for grid models, saving OpEx and increasing operator confidence for grid operations.

Operator’s Copilot – operator dispatch recommendations trained with grid physics, business rules, standard procedures, and operational experience, empowering workforce training and upskilling.

What is the ThinkLabs Copilot, and how does it enhance grid planning and operations?

ThinkLabs Copilot is a digital assistant that that understands the real world with proprietary physics-informed AI digital twins that provide a foundation model for engineering systems. It works with utility planners and operators, to model the grid into its “AI digital twin”, perform high speed and large scale analytics including in near real time, and make recommendations on grid operations, plans, and designs.

Can you explain what a physics-informed AI digital twin is and how it benefits grid reliability?

AI by itself can’t learn such a complex system as the grid with measurement data only. AI digital twins of the real world are trained by, work for, and work with engineering systems, hence “physics-informed”. Training is done using large amounts of synthetic data generated from engineering simulation. Traditional physics-only, impedance-based digital twins are deterministic and mathematically optimized, yet challenged by data quality, high computing power needed, and slow response time. Conversely, general AI techniques promise speed, yet sparse data, hallucinations, and “black box” effects concerns mission critical grid operations. A physics-informed AI digital twin offers transparent and trustworthy analytics, resilient and robust against bad data, fast response and action suitable for real time operations, preparedness with large pre-trained operating scenarios, and a closed-loop, continuous learning and improvement process.

How does ThinkLabs AI ensure the reliability and accuracy of its AI models in real-world scenarios?

Nature of physics-informed AI keeps AI grounded, tied to the real world, and bounded by the real world. We also do continuous learning and monitoring of model performance.

What makes your AI technology particularly suited for dealing with the complexities of modern electrical grids?

Being trained by determine engineering models, but handling the imperfect data quality of real world operations. AI also bring a wealth of optimization and generative techniques unmatched by traditional engineering mathematics.

How does ThinkLabs AI’s technology integrate with existing grid management systems like ADMS and DERMS?

ThinkLabs integrate as a Copilot with existing ADMS, DERMS, and AEMS, which will remain as the fundamental communications and control platform, while ThinkLabs will layer on additional intelligence and automation as similar to a vehicle’s driving assistance system.

What does the recent $5M seed investment mean for the future of ThinkLabs AI?

This seed investment has enabled us to spinoff and launch from GE, partner with a group of world class investors, invest in our team and product, coming to market with our first commercial Copilot, and work with a number of channel partners to bring this into the hands of our customers. This is the first foundational step to subsequent expansion and scale.

How do you envision the role of AI evolving in grid management and other critical infrastructures?

We see grid management and other critical infrastructure as being increasingly “AI first”, especially with physics-informed AI. Open up far greater understanding, situational awareness, and increasing automation decision making and orchestration of critical actions. Yet, always remain humble and trustworthy as AI, being true to the foundation laws of physics and engineering design.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit ThinkLabs AI.

[sabamvm]

IT Consulting: Navigating technological challenges, optimizing systems, and strategizing for digital transformation in businesses worldwide.

Title: Navigating the Dynamics of IT Consulting: A Comprehensive Guide

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, businesses are continually challenged to keep pace with the latest trends, innovations, and solutions to maintain their competitive edge. This challenge has propelled the significance of IT consulting firms, which offer expertise, guidance, and support in navigating the complexities of the digital realm. From streamlining operations to implementing cutting-edge solutions, IT consultants play a pivotal role in shaping the technological trajectory of organizations across industries.

 Understanding IT Consulting:

IT consulting encompasses a broad spectrum of services aimed at assisting businesses in leveraging technology to achieve their objectives efficiently and effectively. These services encompass various domains, including but not limited to:

1. **Strategic Planning**: IT consultants collaborate with stakeholders to develop comprehensive technology strategies aligned with the organization's goals and objectives.

2. **Infrastructure Assessment and Optimization**: Consultants evaluate existing IT infrastructure, identify areas for improvement, and recommend solutions to optimize performance, scalability, and security.

3. **Digital Transformation**: With the rapid digitization of business processes, consultants help organizations embrace digital transformation initiatives to enhance agility, innovation, and customer experience.

4. **Cybersecurity**: In an era of escalating cyber threats, IT consultants devise robust security frameworks, implement preventive measures, and conduct regular audits to safeguard sensitive data and mitigate risks.

5. **Cloud Computing**: Consultants facilitate the migration to cloud-based platforms, enabling businesses to leverage scalable infrastructure, enhance collaboration, and reduce operational costs.

The Role of IT Consultants:

IT consultants serve as trusted advisors, offering insights, expertise, and guidance to help organizations navigate technological challenges and capitalize on emerging opportunities. Their role encompasses the following key aspects:

1. **Needs Assessment**: Consultants conduct thorough assessments to understand the unique requirements, pain points, and objectives of the client organization.

2. **Solution Design**: Based on the assessment, consultants design customized solutions tailored to address specific business challenges and capitalize on opportunities for growth and innovation.

3. **Implementation and Integration**: Consultants oversee the implementation of technology solutions, ensuring seamless integration with existing systems and processes while minimizing disruptions to operations.

4. **Change Management**: Effective change management is critical to the success of any technology initiative. IT consultants facilitate organizational change by fostering buy-in, providing training, and promoting a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.

5. **Performance Monitoring and Optimization**: Post-implementation, consultants monitor the performance of IT systems, identify bottlenecks, and fine-tune configurations to optimize efficiency, reliability, and scalability.

The Value Proposition of IT Consulting:

The value proposition of IT consulting extends beyond technical expertise and encompasses various benefits for client organizations, including:

1. **Access to Specialized Skills**: IT consultants bring a diverse range of skills, experiences, and perspectives to the table, enabling organizations to tap into specialized expertise that may not be available in-house.

2. **Cost Optimization**: By outsourcing IT services to consultants, organizations can minimize overhead costs associated with hiring, training, and retaining full-time employees, while also gaining access to scalable resources and infrastructure.

3. **Strategic Insights**: Consultants offer strategic insights and industry best practices derived from their experiences working with diverse clients across different sectors, empowering organizations to make informed decisions and stay ahead of the curve.

4. **Risk Mitigation**: In an increasingly complex and dynamic technology landscape, IT consultants help mitigate risks associated with technology adoption, compliance, security breaches, and regulatory changes, thereby safeguarding the reputation and continuity of the business.

5. **Enhanced Agility and Innovation**: By leveraging the expertise of IT consultants, organizations can adapt quickly to changing market conditions, embrace emerging technologies, and foster a culture of innovation that drives sustainable growth and competitive advantage.

Challenges and Considerations:

While IT consulting offers numerous benefits, it also presents certain challenges and considerations that organizations must address:

1. **Alignment with Business Objectives**: It is essential to ensure that IT initiatives align closely with the broader strategic objectives of the organization to maximize the return on investment and drive tangible business outcomes.

2. **Vendor Selection**: Choosing the right IT consulting firm is critical to the success of technology initiatives. Organizations should conduct thorough due diligence, evaluate credentials, and seek recommendations to identify consultants with the requisite expertise, track record, and cultural fit.

3. **Communication and Collaboration**: Effective communication and collaboration between internal stakeholders and external consultants are essential for project success. Clear expectations, roles, and responsibilities should be established upfront to mitigate misunderstandings and ensure alignment throughout the engagement.

4. **Change Management**: Resistance to change is a common challenge in technology implementations. Organizations must proactively address cultural barriers, provide adequate training and support, and foster open dialogue to promote acceptance and adoption of new technologies and processes.

5. **Continuous Evaluation and Improvement**: Technology landscapes evolve rapidly, necessitating ongoing evaluation and optimization of IT strategies and solutions. Organizations should cultivate a culture of continuous improvement, embrace feedback, and adapt proactively to emerging trends and challenges.

Conclusion:

In an era defined by digital disruption and technological innovation, the role of IT consulting has never been more critical. By leveraging the expertise, insights, and guidance of IT consultants, organizations can navigate the complexities of the digital landscape, capitalize on emerging opportunities, and drive sustainable growth and competitive advantage. However, success in IT consulting hinges not only on technical proficiency but also on effective collaboration, strategic alignment, and a relentless commitment to innovation and excellence. As businesses continue to embrace digital transformation as a strategic imperative, the partnership between organizations and IT consultants will remain instrumental in shaping the future of technology and driving meaningful change across industries.

[acs-networks-and-technologies]

The Impact of Cloud Computing on IT Infrastructure Support

cloud computing has revolutionized IT infrastructure support, offering unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and efficiency. By embracing cloud-based solutions, organizations can overcome the limitations of traditional IT infrastructure models and unlock new opportunities for innovation and growth. However, the successful adoption of cloud computing requires careful consideration of security, integration, and skillset challenges. By following best practices and leveraging the transformative power of cloud computing, organizations can future-proof their IT infrastructure and drive sustainable business success in the digital age.

[applore]

Cloud Support Services Noida

Cloud support services in Noida are provided by Applore Technologies that specialize in managing and maintaining cloud infrastructure. These services include cloud migration, deployment, optimization, security, and ongoing support. With their expertise, these companies help businesses to leverage the power of the cloud, reduce infrastructure costs, and increase operational efficiency. If you're looking for reliable cloud support services in Noida, there are several reputable companies to choose from. Applore Technologies | Phone No: +91 8076589533 | 715 World Trade Tower, Sector 16, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301

[jatinbansalblog]

🔥Want to access 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 on cloud Anytime & Anywhere? Hurry up and connect with us🔥

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Quickest Setup, go live in 15 minutes

Zero Maintenance Cost

🔴Why choose us

Own Data Center infrastructure

23 years of experience

10000+ Happy Clients Pan India

 High Data Security

 24/7 Support

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 ☎️ +91-8800198868

visit now : https://kisitservices.in/

#tallyoncloud #cloudcomputing #cloud #tally #AWS #krishna #cloudservices #tallycloud #busy #margoncloud #busyoncloud #dataprotection #privacy #security #krishnacloudservices #krishnacloud #kisitservices #kisit

[it-support]

Things To Consider Before Hiring An IT Consulting Company.

When you are hiring an IT company for any service, then you also have to find out whether their services are as per your requirement or not. Sometimes, you need someone who can help you with a local area network.

[metamatar]

Crowdstrike did this to our production linux fleet back on April 19th, and I've been dying to rant about it.

The short version was: we're a civic tech lab, so we have a bunch of different production websites made at different times on different infrastructure. We run Crowdstrike provided by our enterprise. Crowdstrike pushed an update on a Friday evening that was incompatible with up-to-date Debian stable. So we patched Debian as usual, everything was fine for a week, and then all of our servers across multiple websites and cloud hosts simultaneously hard crashed and refused to boot.

When we connected one of the disks to a new machine and checked the logs, Crowdstrike looked like a culprit, so we manually deleted it, the machine booted, tried reinstalling it and the machine immediately crashes again. OK, let's file a support ticket and get an engineer on the line.

Crowdstrike took a day to respond, and then asked for a bunch more proof (beyond the above) that it was their fault. They acknowledged the bug a day later, and weeks later had a root cause analysis that they didn't cover our scenario (Debian stable running version n-1, I think, which is a supported configuration) in their test matrix. In our own post mortem there was no real ability to prevent the same thing from happening again -- "we push software to your machines any time we want, whether or not it's urgent, without testing it" seems to be core to the model, particularly if you're a small IT part of a large enterprise. What they're selling to the enterprise is exactly that they'll do that.

from hn thread

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Unpersoned

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

My latest Locus Magazine column is "Unpersoned." It's about the implications of putting critical infrastructure into the private, unaccountable hands of tech giants:

https://locusmag.com/2024/07/cory-doctorow-unpersoned/

The column opens with the story of romance writer K Renee, as reported by Madeline Ashby for Wired:

https://www.wired.com/story/what-happens-when-a-romance-author-gets-locked-out-of-google-docs/

Renee is a prolific writer who used Google Docs to compose her books, and share them among early readers for feedback and revisions. Last March, Renee's Google account was locked, and she was no longer able to access ten manuscripts for her unfinished books, totaling over 220,000 words. Google's famously opaque customer service – a mix of indifferently monitored forums, AI chatbots, and buck-passing subcontractors – would not explain to her what rule she had violated, merely that her work had been deemed "inappropriate."

Renee discovered that she wasn't being singled out. Many of her peers had also seen their accounts frozen and their documents locked, and none of them were able to get an explanation out of Google. Renee and her similarly situated victims of Google lockouts were reduced to developing folk-theories of what they had done to be expelled from Google's walled garden; Renee came to believe that she had tripped an anti-spam system by inviting her community of early readers to access the books she was working on.

There's a normal way that these stories resolve themselves: a reporter like Ashby, writing for a widely read publication like Wired, contacts the company and triggers a review by one of the vanishingly small number of people with the authority to undo the determinations of the Kafka-as-a-service systems that underpin the big platforms. The system's victim gets their data back and the company mouths a few empty phrases about how they take something-or-other "very seriously" and so forth.

But in this case, Google broke the script. When Ashby contacted Google about Renee's situation, Google spokesperson Jenny Thomson insisted that the policies for Google accounts were "clear": "we may review and take action on any content that violates our policies." If Renee believed that she'd been wrongly flagged, she could "request an appeal."

But Renee didn't even know what policy she was meant to have broken, and the "appeals" went nowhere.

This is an underappreciated aspect of "software as a service" and "the cloud." As companies from Microsoft to Adobe to Google withdraw the option to use software that runs on your own computer to create files that live on that computer, control over our own lives is quietly slipping away. Sure, it's great to have all your legal documents scanned, encrypted and hosted on GDrive, where they can't be burned up in a house-fire. But if a Google subcontractor decides you've broken some unwritten rule, you can lose access to those docs forever, without appeal or recourse.

That's what happened to "Mark," a San Francisco tech workers whose toddler developed a UTI during the early covid lockdowns. The pediatrician's office told Mark to take a picture of his son's infected penis and transmit it to the practice using a secure medical app. However, Mark's phone was also set up to synch all his pictures to Google Photos (this is a default setting), and when the picture of Mark's son's penis hit Google's cloud, it was automatically scanned and flagged as Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM, better known as "child porn"):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/22/allopathic-risk/#snitches-get-stitches

Without contacting Mark, Google sent a copy of all of his data – searches, emails, photos, cloud files, location history and more – to the SFPD, and then terminated his account. Mark lost his phone number (he was a Google Fi customer), his email archives, all the household and professional files he kept on GDrive, his stored passwords, his two-factor authentication via Google Authenticator, and every photo he'd ever taken of his young son.

The SFPD concluded that Mark hadn't done anything wrong, but it was too late. Google had permanently deleted all of Mark's data. The SFPD had to mail a physical letter to Mark telling him he wasn't in trouble, because he had no email and no phone.

Mark's not the only person this happened to. Writing about Mark for the New York Times, Kashmir Hill described other parents, like a Houston father identified as "Cassio," who also lost their accounts and found themselves blocked from fundamental participation in modern life:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html

Note that in none of these cases did the problem arise from the fact that Google services are advertising-supported, and because these people weren't paying for the product, they were the product. Buying a $800 Pixel phone or paying more than $100/year for a Google Drive account means that you're definitely paying for the product, and you're still the product.

What do we do about this? One answer would be to force the platforms to provide service to users who, in their judgment, might be engaged in fraud, or trafficking in CSAM, or arranging terrorist attacks. This is not my preferred solution, for reasons that I hope are obvious!

We can try to improve the decision-making processes at these giant platforms so that they catch fewer dolphins in their tuna-nets. The "first wave" of content moderation appeals focused on the establishment of oversight and review boards that wronged users could appeal their cases to. The idea was to establish these "paradigm cases" that would clarify the tricky aspects of content moderation decisions, like whether uploading a Nazi atrocity video in order to criticize it violated a rule against showing gore, Nazi paraphernalia, etc.

This hasn't worked very well. A proposal for "second wave" moderation oversight based on arms-length semi-employees at the platforms who gather and report statistics on moderation calls and complaints hasn't gelled either:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/12/move-slow-and-fix-things/#second-wave

Both the EU and California have privacy rules that allow users to demand their data back from platforms, but neither has proven very useful (yet) in situations where users have their accounts terminated because they are accused of committing gross violations of platform policy. You can see why this would be: if someone is accused of trafficking in child porn or running a pig-butchering scam, it would be perverse to shut down their account but give them all the data they need to go one committing these crimes elsewhere.

But even where you can invoke the EU's GDPR or California's CCPA to get your data, the platforms deliver that data in the most useless, complex blobs imaginable. For example, I recently used the CCPA to force Mailchimp to give me all the data they held on me. Mailchimp – a division of the monopolist and serial fraudster Intuit – is a favored platform for spammers, and I have been added to thousands of Mailchimp lists that bombard me with unsolicited press pitches and come-ons for scam products.

Mailchimp has spent a decade ignoring calls to allow users to see what mailing lists they've been added to, as a prelude to mass unsubscribing from those lists (for Mailchimp, the fact that spammers can pay it to send spam that users can't easily opt out of is a feature, not a bug). I thought that the CCPA might finally let me see the lists I'm on, but instead, Mailchimp sent me more than 5900 files, scattered through which were the internal serial numbers of the lists my name had been added to – but without the names of those lists any contact information for their owners. I can see that I'm on more than 1,000 mailing lists, but I can't do anything about it.

Mailchimp shows how a rule requiring platforms to furnish data-dumps can be easily subverted, and its conduct goes a long way to explaining why a decade of EU policy requiring these dumps has failed to make a dent in the market power of the Big Tech platforms.

The EU has a new solution to this problem. With its 2024 Digital Markets Act, the EU is requiring platforms to furnish APIs – programmatic ways for rivals to connect to their services. With the DMA, we might finally get something parallel to the cellular industry's "number portability" for other kinds of platforms.

If you've ever changed cellular platforms, you know how smooth this can be. When you get sick of your carrier, you set up an account with a new one and get a one-time code. Then you call your old carrier, endure their pathetic begging not to switch, give them that number and within a short time (sometimes only minutes), your phone is now on the new carrier's network, with your old phone-number intact.

This is a much better answer than forcing platforms to provide service to users whom they judge to be criminals or otherwise undesirable, but the platforms hate it. They say they hate it because it makes them complicit in crimes ("if we have to let an accused fraudster transfer their address book to a rival service, we abet the fraud"), but it's obvious that their objection is really about being forced to reduce the pain of switching to a rival.

There's a superficial reasonableness to the platforms' position, but only until you think about Mark, or K Renee, or the other people who've been "unpersonned" by the platforms with no explanation or appeal.

The platforms have rigged things so that you must have an account with them in order to function, but they also want to have the unilateral right to kick people off their systems. The combination of these demands represents more power than any company should have, and Big Tech has repeatedly demonstrated its unfitness to wield this kind of power.

This week, I lost an argument with my accountants about this. They provide me with my tax forms as links to a Microsoft Cloud file, and I need to have a Microsoft login in order to retrieve these files. This policy – and a prohibition on sending customer files as email attachments – came from their IT team, and it was in response to a requirement imposed by their insurer.

The problem here isn't merely that I must now enter into a contractual arrangement with Microsoft in order to do my taxes. It isn't just that Microsoft's terms of service are ghastly. It's not even that they could change those terms at any time, for example, to ingest my sensitive tax documents in order to train a large language model.

It's that Microsoft – like Google, Apple, Facebook and the other giants – routinely disconnects users for reasons it refuses to explain, and offers no meaningful appeal. Microsoft tells its business customers, "force your clients to get a Microsoft account in order to maintain communications security" but also reserves the right to unilaterally ban those clients from having a Microsoft account.

There are examples of this all over. Google recently flipped a switch so that you can't complete a Google Form without being logged into a Google account. Now, my ability to purse all kinds of matters both consequential and trivial turn on Google's good graces, which can change suddenly and arbitrarily. If I was like Mark, permanently banned from Google, I wouldn't have been able to complete Google Forms this week telling a conference organizer what sized t-shirt I wear, but also telling a friend that I could attend their wedding.

Now, perhaps some people really should be locked out of digital life. Maybe people who traffick in CSAM should be locked out of the cloud. But the entity that should make that determination is a court, not a Big Tech content moderator. It's fine for a platform to decide it doesn't want your business – but it shouldn't be up to the platform to decide that no one should be able to provide you with service.

This is especially salient in light of the chaos caused by Crowdstrike's catastrophic software update last week. Crowdstrike demonstrated what happens to users when a cloud provider accidentally terminates their account, but while we're thinking about reducing the likelihood of such accidents, we should really be thinking about what happens when you get Crowdstruck on purpose.

The wholesale chaos that Windows users and their clients, employees, users and stakeholders underwent last week could have been pieced out retail. It could have come as a court order (either by a US court or a foreign court) to disconnect a user and/or brick their computer. It could have come as an insider attack, undertaken by a vengeful employee, or one who was on the take from criminals or a foreign government. The ability to give anyone in the world a Blue Screen of Death could be a feature and not a bug.

It's not that companies are sadistic. When they mistreat us, it's nothing personal. They've just calculated that it would cost them more to run a good process than our business is worth to them. If they know we can't leave for a competitor, if they know we can't sue them, if they know that a tech rival can't give us a tool to get our data out of their silos, then the expected cost of mistreating us goes down. That makes it economically rational to seek out ever-more trivial sources of income that impose ever-more miserable conditions on us. When we can't leave without paying a very steep price, there's practically a fiduciary duty to find ways to upcharge, downgrade, scam, screw and enshittify us, right up to the point where we're so pissed that we quit.

Google could pay competent decision-makers to review every complaint about an account disconnection, but the cost of employing that large, skilled workforce vastly exceeds their expected lifetime revenue from a user like Mark. The fact that this results in the ruination of Mark's life isn't Google's problem – it's Mark's problem.

The cloud is many things, but most of all, it's a trap. When software is delivered as a service, when your data and the programs you use to read and write it live on computers that you don't control, your switching costs skyrocket. Think of Adobe, which no longer lets you buy programs at all, but instead insists that you run its software via the cloud. Adobe used the fact that you no longer own the tools you rely upon to cancel its Pantone color-matching license. One day, every Adobe customer in the world woke up to discover that the colors in their career-spanning file collections had all turned black, and would remain black until they paid an upcharge:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

The cloud allows the companies whose products you rely on to alter the functioning and cost of those products unilaterally. Like mobile apps – which can't be reverse-engineered and modified without risking legal liability – cloud apps are built for enshittification. They are designed to shift power away from users to software companies. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to add an ad-blocker to it. A cloud app is some Javascript wrapped in enough terms of service clickthroughs to make it a felony to restore old features that the company now wants to upcharge you for.

Google's defenstration of K Renee, Mark and Cassio may have been accidental, but Google's capacity to defenstrate all of us, and the enormous cost we all bear if Google does so, has been carefully engineered into the system. Same goes for Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and anyone else who traps us in their silos. The lesson of the Crowdstrike catastrophe isn't merely that our IT systems are brittle and riddled with single points of failure: it's that these failure-points can be tripped deliberately, and that doing so could be in a company's best interests, no matter how devastating it would be to you or me.

If you'd like an e ssay-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/2024/07/22/degoogled/#kafka-as-a-service

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[mariacallous]

lol philadelphia inquirer bodying nyt

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/first-presidential-debate-joe-biden-donald-trump-withdraw-20240629.html

President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race.

But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.

In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that?

To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America.

Throughout the debate, Trump repeatedly said we are a ��failing” country. He called the United States a “third world nation.” He said, “we’re living in hell” and “very close to World War III.”

“People are dying all over the place,” Trump said, later adding “we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”

Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world.

Trump’s response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection he fueled was farcical. He said a “relatively small number of people” went to the Capitol and many were “ushered in by the police.”

After scheming to overturn the 2020 election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins.

The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.

Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.

Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.

Trump spent chunks of time watching TV, tweeting, and hanging out at his country clubs. Over his four-year term, Trump played roughly 261 rounds of golf.

As president, Trump didn’t read the daily intelligence briefs. He continued to use his personal cell phone, allowing Chinese spies to listen to his calls. During one Oval Office meeting, Trump shared highly classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

Trump’s term did plenty of damage and had few accomplishments. The much-hyped wall didn’t get built. Infrastructure week was a recurring joke. Giant tax cuts made the rich richer, while fueling massive deficits for others to pay for years. His support for coal, oil drilling and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement worsened the growing impact of climate change.

Trump stacked the judiciary with extreme judges consisting mainly of white males, including a number who the American Bar Association rated as not qualified. A record number of cabinet officials were fired or left the office. The West Wing was in constant chaos and infighting.

Many Trump appointees exited under a cloud of corruption, grifting and ethical scandals. Trump’s children made millions off the White House. His dilettante son-in-law got $2 billion from the Saudi government for his fledgling investment firm even though he never managed money before.

Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic resulted in tens of thousands of needless deaths. He boasts about stacking the Supreme Court with extreme right-wingers who are stripping away individual rights, upending legal precedents, and making the country less safe. If elected, Trump may add to the court’s conservative majority.

Of course, there were the unprecedented two impeachments. Now, Trump is a convicted felon who is staring at three more criminal indictments. He is running for president to stay out of prison.

If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?

Trump allegedly stole classified information and tried to overturn an election. His plans for a second term are worse than the last one. We cannot be serious about letting such a crooked clown back in the White House.

Yes, Biden had a horrible night. He’s 81 and not as sharp as he used to be. But Biden on his worst day remains lightyears better than Trump on his best.

Biden must show that he is up to the job. This much is clear: He has a substantive record of real accomplishments, fighting the pandemic, combating climate change, investing in infrastructure, and supporting working families and the most vulnerable.

Biden has surrounded himself with experienced people who take public service seriously. He has passed major bipartisan legislation despite a dysfunctional Republican House majority.

Biden believes in the best of America. He has rebuilt relationships with allies around the world and stood up to foes like Russia and China.

There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president. The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be.

[solxamber]

If you would be oh so kind and say what Leona’s dream was. I am nowhere near getting to book 7 but I know what happens leading up to it (I also procrastinate playing the game but love reading fanfics so it’s a ended sword) and I just want to know what everyone is freaking out about. I want to freak out too!

hi! of course, (spoilers under the cut for anyone who doesn't wanna know what happens)

Detailed Leona's dream below the cut! I'm gonna go chapter by chapter so you get the full story!

so after ruggie's dream, they all end up in sunset city. right now the gang is ruggie, jack, azul, sebek, silver, idia, ortho, yuu and grim.

but unlike other's happy dreams, everyone here seems to be on edge and like everything is desolate and dilapidated. and when ruggie tries to ask someone what's wrong, they freak out saying that there's no food here and shoo him. it looks like people are biased against hyenas.

they go to the royal palace and the guard are rude and sebek and jack get annoyed and there's a fight.

the guards call for backup, ortho calls idia for emergency support and idia ends up being able to open the palace door. and they go in. ruggie scolds sebek and jack for picking a fight.

and then we hear kifaji!! he's lecturing leona and we find out that leona's father is dead from illness and falena and cheka are also dead due to an accident.

Leona argues back that he kept his promises and he cleaned up the slums and invested in infrastructure. but kifaji argues that the development was too fast, animals have been chased away, nature is polluted and Leona ignored the wishes of the people so now there's no food or water.

Leona says that his plan was perfect, people suck and they ruined it, it's not his fault. Kifaji tells him that Leona is extremely intelligent but waiting for someone to appear won't work, and they have to do something immediately. Kifaji notes that the workers in the palace couldn't keep up with Leona so they left and now Leona hired people who are causing problems (They're referring to hyenas and kifaji seems to dislike them)

Leona says that he gave work to people who needed it and it's Kifaji's job to keep them in line.

Outiside, Fake! Ruggie (or dream Ruggie) appears, and he's causing a riot. he's loudly proclaiming that Falena was the better king. And everyone starts yelling at Leona to give them back their nature, food and country. Fake Ruggie says they dont need a king. Leona tells them to fuck off if they're not happy.

Kifaji laments that Leona has been like this since he was a child and he focuses on efficiency and not on people and Leona tells him to keep everyone in line and he's gonna continue doing whatever he wants.

Real Ruggie takes the gang to regroup and discuss in a restaurant (from the cloud calling event!) and ruggie is all like "idia you're loaded and I've always wanted to eat here" except there's no food or water even in the restaurant, but they're allowed to sit.

Ortho hypothesizes that Leona might already know he's in a dream and idia says that no one will be 100% sure they're in a dream (exception being silver) and this isn't fully a dream, it's a world created by malleus.

Silver wonders why Leona’s dream is so depressing. cause malleus gave everyone happy dreams but Leona lost his family and everyone seems to hate him.

Idia hypothesizes that dreams are like a sandbox game. Malleus' powerful magic + Leona’s powerful imagination has limitless possibilities and Leona subconsciously chose what he believes to be a realistic simulation. Ruggie adds that Leona seems to be doing what he shouldn't like he knows what he should he doing for the country and he's actively choosing not to.

Sebek then gets mad that Leona's imagination went so far as to kill his family to make him the king but he just said screw the responsibility.

Idia points out that there is something very unusual about this dream. Because usually they have to stay close to the dreamer themselves. Or else the entire gang could be in danger. But Leona's dream actually has the entire sunset savannah which is kind of very unusual.

Ortho then points out that basically, Leona has constructed an entire country in his dream. And idia says that at first, it probably was fun, but like at some point he had to manage the entire country on its own here. he had to allocate resources and had to manage infrastructure. And at one point he probably just gave up after becoming overwhelmed.

Ruggie, Azul and Jack draw parallels with book 2. Leona had realized that no matter how hard he tries right now, he will fail so he just entirely gives up.

Silver is like "this dream is extremely complex.So it's gonna be really hard to wake Leona up".

Azul comes up with the plan that they will try to wrestle the control away from Leona so they can wake him up so Jack and ruggie decide that the king must be overthrown now.

Sebek says that previously if the king had to be overthrown a new king has to be set up so Ortho creates a fake Cheka. But STYX doesn't have enough time to fully flesh him out so he's basically just a puppet.

After convincing Ruggie, Ruggie is gonna use his unique magic to puppet cheka. ( There are some drawbacks of course, like Ruggie's magic will only work for a few seconds before he has to recast it. And during those few seconds where he has to recast it, cheka goes back to being a puppet)

They go back to the Royal palace and the Royal guards and the mob outside have gotten into physical altercations. Silver and sebek want to go and help them. But they're not able to handle the entire fight on their own. So what Azul does is he sends a ruggie and cheka directly to the throne room. So Jack becomes a wolf and cheka and ruggie ride on him and yuu and grim are also going in.

And then inside the throne room. Leona and Kifaji are talking and Leona asks kifaji to bring him food and kifaji is like there is no food. And then Leona threatens kifaji.

Then, fake Cheka is put into the room and kifaji's like Cheka sounds weird and ruggie is like "shut up". Cheka proclaims that he is the actual king and tells Leona to give the throne back. But Leona sees right through it and he's like "I'll never give the throne to some a fake" And then he attacks it and the hologram of cheka disappears.

Leona attacks Ruggie, Yuu and Grim and Kifaji, despite being a part of Leona's darkness helps the gang and attacks Leona with fire and says that he has been waiting for Leona to finally wake up.

Hyena guards come to help Leona, and kifaji is on the dream gang's side and kifaji is very strong and Leona disappears.

Kifaji leaves to calm the mob down and Ortho is confused about who kifaji is and how he knows this is a dream. Jack guesses that Leona made him so accurate to irl kifaji to the point where he stands against even him.

On Leona's side, the guards are telling him that they're his only friends and they drag him further into the darkness.

The entire gang reunites and the follow Leona into the dark. It goes to Book 2: Spelldrive and here, they succeed in beating Malleus. (As in Savanaclaw is gonna win here)

But Jack is upset at the underhanded method they used and Ruggie agrees that Leona would probably not be happy with that victory even if they had gotten it.

They then reenact Book 2 and the same dialogue from then ends up kinda waking Leona up and he's surprised to see double ruggie. Fake Ruggie calls Leona their king and Jack gets angry and declares "He's not your king, he's our housewarden" and then battle.

Jack tells Leona to remember who he is and Leona finally fully wakes up. Leona tells them to be gentle while waking him up and ruggie is like "yup that's our Leona alright"

The darkness attacks and drags ruggie in, Leona tries to drag him back but then Leona says he's gonna give up. They're all shocked but what Leona means is that he's giving up on saving himself. He throws ruggie to jack and takes his place and gets dragged into the darkness.

When Leona comes to in the darkness he calls for ruggie and Jack but ends up facing his overblot self. OB!Leona says that he'd be 1000x the king falena can be. Real Leona says that these words mean nothing and OB!Leona says that Real Leona has to stay here forever. Real Leona says he's leaving this shit hole behind.

Real Leona overblots on purpose and fights the Lion version of his overblot. And wins.

Leona says that he the overblot part of him will always be with him inside and it'll keep crying for recognition. And he declares that one day, he'll get his own throne and own pride, he will not give up.

After that, Leona wakes up and meets with Kifaji and the classic Lion King scene happens where Kifaji declares that everything that the light touches is rules by Leona. They talk a little and Kifaji asks if Leona noticed this is a dream and Leona says he did. Kifaji calls him his king and Leona is like "I'm not your king" and that if he ever becomes king, kifaji is getting fired.

Leona uses his UM and Kifaji is happy. He dissappear after telling Leona to go back where he belongs.

The dream starts breaking down and the entire gang reunites. Azul is shocked that Leona sacrificed himself for someone. Ruggie says he was scared that he'd be abandoned like in Book 2 again.

Leona says they're even now but ruggie says "nuh uh, you still owe me for Book 2" but thanks Leona anyways. Jack cries while denying he's crying. Jack says he likes the real versions of themselves better.

Then there's a savanclaw group hug!

They then fill in what happened and Leona is like "of course that lizard caused this, I always knew he'd snap like that"

And Ortho tells him to join the dream gang and Leona is like "nah, I'm gonna sleep, wake me up when it's time to beat malleus' ass" and idia is like "absolutely not we worked so hard to wake you up, you have to work now"

Leona is like Azul is a housewarden too, they don't need him but Azul is exhausted from the dream hopping and fighting all those guards. Ruggie and Jack have used a lot of magic up too so Leona is like "Ugh okay" and joins the gang.

Ruggie and Jack go back to their own dreams for now.

They then make a fake Leona, set him up to rule this country and (idia and Ortho are gossiping that maybe this fake Leona could make the country actually prosper lmao) they go to the next dream!

that's all! this was way longer than I remembered it being but I hope you understand my rambling/retelling