John Humprhys, Nonsense, Stolen Facebook Data

                                              BBC

After 32 years, John Humphrys is to leave the BBC radio four Today programme.One of his colleagues there is Justin Webb who wrote in the Sunday Times.  

Adieu, Edmund Blair Leighton (1852-1922)

Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]

“In the world of the sleek and well connected, John is a stranger, an outsider. He doesn’t give a bugger who you are or think you are. He wants to ask you things for a few minutes and then get on with his day…

He listens intently to what you say. If it is flabby, cliché-ridden or downright foolish, he pounces…

He hates authority and is suspicious – and will be until his dying day – of those who wield it…

In a media world in which almost everyone went to university – and most to a posh one – John stands out. Look at Today. Sure, we all have our own paths and life experiences, but we all went to fancy schools and top universities. Except John. He left school at 15 to become a reporter.

Intellectually, morally, viscerally, he is a man who sees the world through the eyes of a working-class guy from South Wales who made it big…

Yes, the rest of us on Today would describe ourselves as sceptical of authority. But did we have to struggle to get where we are? Does that anti-authority stuff come from the gut or from a book?

And what a loss for Today. The boy from Splott is not being replaced, we are told. He couldn’t be anyway.”

 (The Sunday Times, 2019)

A tenacious, sceptical and forthright interviewer who is not afraid to openly question figures of authority on their actions, views and beliefs. A true critical commentator!


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What is industry 4.0

“Industry 4.0 is the information-intensive transformation of industries and businesses in a connected environment of data, people, processes, services, systems and IoT-enabled industrial assets with the generation, leverage and utilization of actionable information as a way and means to realize smart industry and ecosystems of industrial innovation and collaboration.” – Tech Target

A communication from the Institute of Civil Engineers.

(Private Eye, No 1503)


Books

A Portrait with Books, Madge Gill (1882-1961)

Photo Credit: London Borough of Newham [CC BY] 

Zucked: Waking up to the Facebook Catastrophe – Roger McNamee.

The author was a big investor in tech companies and backed Facebook in 2013 but later had disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s chief operating officer – Sheryl Sandberg.

McNamee maintains that if you were on Facebook between 2011 and 2014 all your data was almost, “certainly ‘harvested.” That is, sold or handed on to third parties. It is out there forever but you’ll never know where. So what? Well this data is not innocent. Facebook can snoop on you even when you’re not on the site and even if you’re not a user.”

When asked by one Congress member how many data points the company had on each user Zuckerberg said he didn’t know. McNamee claims it is 29,000. He also states that children’s mobile phones should only ever be used to make calls, nothing else.

Appleyard, the reviewer writes:

“This is a dangerous book for Facebook because it will be widely read – apart from Jaron Lanier’s work it is the best anti-Big Tech book I’ve come across. Its real strength is that McNamee knows how these attention and information stealing systems work.”

(Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times, 2019)

The book may well be widely read but will it have the slightest influence on the hordes who worship Facebook?