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(Rainbow) Inclusivity and (Optional) Exclusivity Update

Proud to present an inclusive update; With an (optional) moving rainbow background and an expansion on the visual settings! Not only that, the menu itself received updated logic, a visual overhaul, new buttons, multi-page capabilities and is now scrollable. Code behind all of this is now more versatile and reusable; the rainbow background shares both logic and markup with 2 other optional backgrounds that work in similar fashion; “Red, White & Blue” and “Jah Bless!”.

“Initially I wanted to push out this update over the previous weekend, but am glad I didn’t; Otherwise I would’ve introduced you to some nasty bugs and would’ve felt the need to do emergency patch work ..or do a roll-back of the code-base!!” 😉


new (optional) inclusivity-themed background(s), more transparency,, more options!

Inclusivity can be awesome; I love treating people as equal! When it’s similar to this form, so outside of divisive activism or arbitrary “pride months“! Equally a little Nationalism doesn’t have to offend or completely alienate people either. Not wanting to go into diatribe; just mentioning it as I also implemented a (Dutch, French or American?) red, white and blue -theme as well as a Rastafarian color-schemed background with this update.

“Showing some love for my LGBTTQQIAAP Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally & pansexual-brethren, sistrin and everything in-between or outside that group!”

The mention of “exclusivity” is because also this update offers more functionality in adjusting (and/or disabling) visual features; Speeds can now be adjusted and transparency of the foreground-page two! Mobile devices should notice a slightly more transparent background (by default), bc these most screens on these devices offer less space around the page, obscuring the background animations otherwise. Check them all out, tweak them, by clicking the ‘Visual Settings’ option in the top-menu.

Work in this update should make it a lot easier to offer (future) choices of animated Nation-flag-colored themes and should help working towards offering choice of animated icon-themes in a future update two. Just needing to find the time to distil nations colors, name them in inclusive manners and draw some unique icons down the line, as ‘ripping’ icons from somewhere else isn’t my style!

<techno-babble>
//This might go over some of your heads; about this updates implementation’s-techniques..
The new moving backgrounds in this update are original and by hand; Endless diagonal scrolling gradients. I’ll share an example below. Also I had good fun polishing up the menu itself and implemented new ‘toggles’ that mimic option-lists and multi-value settings. The revamped the color-code and markup now offer a wider spectrum, allowing more edge-cases, settable in speed and faster to react to day-night theme-switching.

Next update I hope the expand on the application of these, hoping to implement multi-color variants of random shifting backgrounds, perhaps layering and fading into and out of backgrounds. I also have some snazzy static geometric backgrounds (from other creators) lined up, hoping to offer these as both static and animated options.

If you’re interested in the test-branch of the code-base, you can open the site with a special ‘arguement’ (“?experimental”) on any page or by clicking here. Doing that you’ll notice new options in the visual menu, hidden to normal visitors.
</techno-babble>

I already touched on the subject of errors and bugs; I have built, tested (somewhat thoroughly) and postponed this update and even got some help from friends (my thanks!). The most obvious mistakes have been tackled, yet some errors and crashes could still occur.. Specifically I’ve noticed animating the background-images does still take a lot memory, though it shouldn’t be problematic to modern computers and mobile devices. If you do notice any instability or have feedback, you are free to reply here (below) or on Facebook.

Happy to announce that FB, in the meantime, granted my page a unique and less cryptic identifier, so “KarmicKick” is now more searchable and identifiable there! Also contemplating getting back on Twitter, not as a person, but as a Media-entity. Beyond that I will certainly try to focus on getting presence on Youtube. So I will be doing some trial recordings soon(-ish)!

Work on this update started off with a typo from a friend giving me the idea for a background aimed at rainbow inclusivity.. If you have feedback or a good idea; let me know so I may ponder and/or incorporate your idea 💡

As promised; a (simplified) example of the moving rainbow style-markup;

<style type="text/css">
.bg-panel.moving-rainbow {
	/*repeat colors so the transition is seamless*/
	background: linear-gradient(135deg, rgb(255,36,0),
	rgb(255,6,6), rgb(255,197,5), rgb(251,255,5),
	rgb(5,255,47), rgb(5,243,255), rgb(9,5,255),
	rgb(221,0,243), rgb(221,0,243), rgb(255,36,0),
	rgb(255,6,6), rgb(255,197,5), rgb(251,255,5),
	rgb(5,255,47), rgb(5,243,255), rgb(9,5,255),
	rgb(221,0,243), rgb(221,0,243), rgb(255,36,0));
	background-size: 200% 200%;
	-webkit-animation: diagonal-path 12s linear infinite;
	-z-animation: diagonal-path 12s linear infinite;
	-o-animation: diagonal-path 12s linear infinite;
	  animation: diagonal-path 12s linear infinite;
}
@-webkit-keyframes diagonal-path {
	0%{background-position:0% 0%}
	100%{background-position:100% 100%}
}
@-moz-keyframes diagonal-path {
	0%{background-position:0% 0%}
	100%{background-position:100% 100%}
}
@-o-keyframes diagonal-path {
	0%{background-position:0% 0%}
	100%{background-position:100% 100%}
}
@keyframes diagonal-path { 
	0%{background-position:0% 0%}
	100%{background-position:100% 100%}
}
</style>

Lead by Example

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The good, the bad and the fugly; the “Covid Behavioural Challenge”

We have seen the Dutch government employ behavioral-modifying measures throughout the pandemic, from hard to soft, some enforced with policing and fines, some on an advisory basis. We’ve seen shifting in these on a biweekly basis, from advice to explicit mandates, ‘new ideas’ implemented and enforced immediately, like our mask-mandate in public transport and shops wasn’t compulsory at first and got changed to an offense after a few months. Or the direct implementation of our, critically received, litigated, curfew laws, all to slow the spread of infections.

While in the final stages of publishing this piece the competition’s webite is suddenly completely emptied(!) Why would they scrub the website??


Oops! “this page cannot be found”; 404! 😮 😡

‘Behavioural Insights Netwerk‘, a Dutch government organization, and the Behavior Change Group, a private entity, have joined forces to come up with a challenge to get “well-founded, promising and innovative ideas” for behavior modification surrounding the ongoing pandemic. They have awarded prizes (not grants) to 9 winning promotional ideas ranging 3 topics; (footnotes1,2,3)

  1. Promoting staying home and getting tested
  2. Promoting vaccination against Covid-19
  3. Promoting mental health

Winners in each category get 15.000, 10.000 and 5.000 € respectively.. That’s 90.000 € of taxpayer money not counting setup costs for the competition itself(!) The ideas coming out of this competition range from sensible, predictable, to very very ‘shitty’. I’ll mention some good ideas and some of the bad. Going from one category to the next.(footnote4)

Promoting staying home and getting tested

There is only one sensible winning idea in this category and it got the 3rd place prize; An online checklist where symptomatic people can check if people with similar symptoms in their direct area tested positive recently. The other to ideas are ‘bad’ (in my opinion); 1st place went to a “Stay Home Challenge” where housemates of positive testcases get a ‘challenge’ to stay at home, possibly given incentives to do so(?). The runner up consists of an online campaign and quiz to make a personal or household quarantine plan, again the competition will likely be incentivized to boost interest.

Promoting vaccinations

This is the most egregious category, winners seem linearly bound to how intrusive ideas are! Least intrusive (3rd place) goes to promoting vaccine buddies, this means people are motivated to get vaccinated with friends, housemates (or family members?). Going from there it get pretty predictable; gathering non-factual-, non-sensible- stories from role-models for ‘narrative persuasion’! (it states this; I’m not making it up!) Finally first place goes to creating an ‘opt-out-registry‘ for vaccinations, akin to our existing opt-out for organ donor consent; a horrible system in my opinion! I’ll grant that this vaccine-focused version seemingly isn’t to force-inject people, but rather to hound them with messages reminding them to get their shot(s). I’m expecting this idea to mainly lead to a lot of paper-waste trying to stimulate behavior (compliance).

Promoting mental health

The final category is the field I do feel has been lacking in this health-scare; trying to positively influence the mental-health-pandemic (resulting from fear, the staunch measures and the general air of alarmism). That isn’t to say the ideas are all sound or desirable. First place winner’s idea is actually pretty good; intervening the mindset of older people (50+) together with artists and musicians, to boost a positive mindset. Last place ‘Happy at home’ is gearing towards the youth to question them and occupy them with assignments, also a good idea because our youth is reporting mental anguish through the lockdowns and loss of social- and physical-engagement. The rising stress-levels and reports of depressions in kids and households with children is worrying.

The first runner-up in this last category deserves it’s own paragraph because of the predictability that this stupid, wasteful, ‘original idea‘ would get traction; employing social media influencers.. (Barf!) ‘Influencers’ don’t do anything without getting paid, first off, secondly; they majorly push things through false advertisements already. They promote faulty products, or products that don’t comply with laws, services that don’t deliver, basically anything their ‘management’ can negotiate a price on!

Why would we even need to promote vaccinations? According to our deputy prime minister Hugo de Jonge our population’s vaccine preparedness mirrors ‘Korean levels‘ of willingness. Doesn’t that ‘factiod‘ mirror reality?

If this were the case it wouldn’t be the first time numbers were fudged this pandemic. Lately we’ve been inundated with news and opinion-pieces pushing the idea of ‘Covid-passports’. There is a clear campaign already going on that aims to boost the idea that getting your shots is a privilege, (bc) supplies are limited. Any talk of possible side effects and numerological fakery is actively combatted.

Wastefulness of this competition trend

The structuring of this competition is unusual; usually competitions grant startup capital for innovative ideas, so money goes towards implementing/operating a new initiative, towards the goal itself and only benefitting the persons behind the idea indirectly. Given the assignment required entries to project costs of starting-up and operating their ideas, this poses the question; Where is the rest of the monies needed coming from? What’s the complete operational budget of all of these plans?(footnote5)

This way of externalizing initiative doesn’t point at laziness or a lack of scope of the organizations behind the competition (imo In My Opinion). I doubt these ‘cognitive institutes’ lacked originality to come up with similar ideas themselves, rather I believe they theorized that ‘crowd-sourcing‘ these types of ideas grants some sort of ‘legitimization‘ and shields them from direct critique themselves.(!) Furthermore this structuring and way of rewarding people lump sums of free-to-spend-cash, leads me to believe that the ‘cognitive experts‘ themselves felt the normal way of ‘incentivizing’ (rewarding) wouldn’t motivate enough response, which would have dampened the plurality of ideas for them to pick and choose from.(!)

The result is that these scientists and our government received a ‘plethora’ of ideas to choose from and created the air of legitimacy to spend further money on these initiatives! Theses ideas aren’t very new or unique, just very critically received before; when some of them were coined earlier in the pandemic! Some of these ‘behavior modifying measures’ were indeed lacking, like improving mental health, a field that has seen budgetary cuts in years leading up to the pandemic.

Some existing measures, like the mandate to wear symbolic non-medical-masks, to follow arbitrary non-scientifically based 1.5-meter distancing rules and some of these ideas coming out of this competition; All point at a perception of a ‘control crisis’. This new wave of initiatives was to be expected, there are official documents hinting at a scala of possible avenues, ranging from soft ‘nudging’ to pushing as a step down from forcing things through, by mandates, laws, fines, etc. All towards boosting vaccination-compliance.(footnote6)

So we’ve seen other earlier ideas start off as advisory to later become law, I’m not expecting these to, these are meant to merely boost some aspects of compliance and to give the public a sense sciences are open to outside input and that no stones are left unturned. And, like I ventured; to externalize the initiatives and legitimize further budgets towards these.

Some of these plans actually state outright that they mean to manipulate emotions and behavior, regardless of sensibility or facts. Others open avenues to further incentivize compliance and still others to reward Z-list-celebrities. Like I said, some of these ideas are actually okay in my eyes, like getting artists involved to quell some mental anguishes; I’m not against these, but do greatly question the total monetary-costs of this competition and all the plans it promotes..

It’s very odd..

It’s odd that only a little more than a month after declaring the winners of this competition the website seems completely scrubbed. I have found some snapshots of the pages in the ‘web.archive.org’, but this comp was paid for by taxpayer-money and therefore data may not be erased, by law(!) I have asked for a reply on this from both organizers and through the email I found in the archive.. I will update if I get a reaction. Suspect behavior no?

footnotes:

note1: About Behavioural Insights Netwerk Nederland here.

note2: About Behavior Change Group here.

note3: About the Covid Behavioural Challenge here.

note4: (deadlink: offered for reference) Winners of Covid Behavioural Challenge here.

note5: Rules Covid Behavioural Challenge here.

note6: Healthboard’s “Ethical and legal considerations of Covid-19-Vaccination” (pdf) here.

Behave Yourself

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Dutch- Dragnet and Data Drama; An End to End-to-end-Encryption

Since 2018 here in these Netherlands we’ve had sweeping new law dealing with bulk collection of data, breaking into devices and sharing information with foreign powers dubbed; (the) ‘dragnet-law’ (footnote1). But powers that be would like more data, more access and less encryption(!)


satirical picture of me; “data hacker extraordinaire” (browser-hacker at best)

Meanwhile we voted against the dragnet via a referendum but as a result we only got a few legislative caveats, some minor limitations and some hollow promises. Meanwhile the same government scrapped the whole notion of referendums(!!)

A few years on now, all of our data scraped from every connection in 2018, should be wiped somewhere this year. But along the way the idea grew that insight into parts of our data was too cumbersome. End-to-end-encryption and the rising use of this technical solution, to thwart prying eyes, in popular niche messaging apps, is a ‘thorn in the eye’; a Dutch saying, to parts of our leadership.

“Wouldn’t it be nice and easy if ‘we’ could pass laws to weaken encryption or force parties to share encryption-keys?” (sarcasm)

Barring the fact our security services have tools at their disposal to monitor traffic, collect data and if need be hack devices. Having the keys to the kingdom is what some legislators would like (footnote2); having all our communication in ‘plain text’ to data-mine and analyze(!)

This would apply to popular apps like Telegram’s messenger, Facebook, Whatsapp, anything that currently forms a barrier, anything still considered somewhat private! Like I said; agencies already have tools and go-ahead to hack. This existing precedence isn’t limited to individuals either; we’ve seen the agencies here hijack Encrochat’s infrastructure last year; with purportedly ‘tens’ of currently pending criminal court cases as a result. (footnotes3,4,5)

Proving that if our security apparatus meets resistance in their hunger for data, other means are very possible! Sure, it takes more effort and no; I’m not a fan of criminality! But I do value privacy and departments of the Dutch government have displayed a lack of securing data it collects in the (not too distant) past;

This past January Dutch health-authority ‘GGD’ got in the spotlight (again) for flagrantly flaunting private data, including, but not limited to (our equivalent of) social security numbers, name, age, sex, addresses, phone numbers, current email addresses and more. Quite the leak and largely due to neglect; they had multiple early warnings of data being sold off!

Instead of monitoring who was accessing (and indeed exporting) large data-sets, or screening workers for registered offences (as was the law), the higher-ups were criminally-neglectful and are hiding behind the currently-ongoing health-scare and influx of work and subsequent influx of workers, as some sort of excuse! (footnote6)

My personal data was possibly compromised and so were millions of other Dutch citizens! Due to a hype of testing and ‘contact-tracing’ and a total lack of focus for data-security-practices. Tens of thousands of newly recruited external workers had ‘carte blanche’ and the organization didn’t attract a single new ‘data officer’ and didn’t perform any serious vulnerability assessment!

The GGD didn’t make a report to our Authority of Personal-data (Dutch: “AP: autoriteit persoonsgegevens”), an agency charged to deal with data-leaks and theft. GGD also neglected to contact people who’s data was likely compromised. Both of these actions are required by law!

I made a formal complaint to our Ministry of Justice, 2 months ago and haven’t hear a peep. I asked GGD for information on who was in the chain of command there, similarly I only received a message-receipt on my queries. I also notified the AP of my personal and general complaints. (footnote7 for reference)

This is a complete travesty! The lack of data-protection combined with the renewed calls for breaking the fundamentals of encryption from legislators has me perplexed! It’s ludicrous, it’s farcical; it’s indeed vicious!

“I will be following up on this in a separate article and renew my efforts to get those responsible up the chain to feel the consequences..”

The news I’m getting points at a perverse motivation to go after encrypted platforms and a few low-level data-sellers in the leak scandal, there is zero news of any consequences for (mis-)management; the actual data-brokers. I am working on a reconstructing a timeline on the GGD-data-leak that is startling: Early signs of data-theft and -sale from mid 2020 and security-holes acknowledged but left open from early 2020, up to reporters blowing the lid off of the case in early 2021.
(I will add a link to that here once it’s ready)

Update (March 11, 2021): even more examples of why our agencies DON’T need any change to encryption or a wider mandate; they hacked another service, ‘Sky ECC’, which denies being hacked, but still resulted in a string of arrests in the Netherlands (and Belgium). (footnote8, 9) Also it was in the news that our legislators are now actively working to limit oversight on our agencies through new legislation(!). (footnote10)

footnotes:

note1: Read about our existing ‘intelligence and security services’-laws here.

note2: On the push for willingly weakening encryption and/or forcing parties to share encryption keys here.

note3: On the case of ‘Enchrochat’ from 2020 here.

note4: A security bulletin on ‘Enchrochat’ from Europol, our EU focused sibling of Interpol here.

note5: A news article on ‘Enchrochat’ and resulting prosecutions here.

note6: About the Dutch GGD data leak and theft here. (more on this in an upcoming article here on KK)

note7: About our Dutch official authority for personal data ‘Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens’ here.

note8: On SkyECC being compromised and services looking in on messages here

note9: A news article on SkyECC denying the hack here

note10: An in-depth article on our oversight commissions being possibly reighned in by new legislation here

Data Drama

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Added a custom Night-mode and Option Dialog

I quietly designed and implemented a dark theme or ‘night mode’ and built a custom options menu, but with snazzy transitions! Both are still new and need to be finetuned some more, but should already work well on desktop and mobile devices, so I have now enabled both for as options for you to use via the top-menu -> click ‘visual setting’ to try them!


New Night-mode and the new Options-dialog

The options menu itself is pretty cool two; instead of opting for an off-the-shelf solution (there are many), I designed and coded my own! Taking inspiration from modern cookie-permission menus, seen across the web; I designed some fancy ‘radio-buttons’. All of which are done in web-media standard CSS Cascading Style Sheets and jQuery/Javascript.

It has been a longtime wish to also options to disable the background animations for users that don’t want them.. So I added those as options two!

For now I’ve added these options under a singular main menu option that’ll only highlight by the adding ‘(new)’ to que usage, but in a future addition to my scripts I’ll add animated ques for users that haven’t used (set) preferences. I’ll also look at making the dialog do scrolling for really small mobile screens, for now it should just about fit most screens. (I hope; let me know if yours doesn’t or if you have any other feedback, here or on Facebook, a link is in the ‘footer’).

“KarmicKick has been secure since 2018, see the little lock-symbol and note the address features a ‘https:‘ ahead of the domain name. It remains in development and at this point I will focus more on writing actual articles to publish on the platform!”

I did add some copyright disclaimers to my scripts as I don’t like the idea of my work being copied willy-nilly. Sure one can look at and take inspiration from my scripts and mark-up, but ripping and reusing I frown upon! I am available for custom work on -and-off-site 😉 😉

Custom Solutions

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Zen and the art of Website-maintenance

Keeping the website up and running is no effort, but keeping it fresh and filled has been a challenge to put it mildly! Recent life events and societal phenomena but are best typified by the term upheaval. Moving house through the health-scare and dealing with the influx of news has been chaotic and laid claim to most of my attention. Though lately I have found renewed energy and drive to clean house and make time for my own endeavors.

On the website end this means I have done lots of small tweaks and technically changed a lot of layout practices, something that is an ongoing effort. Visually I updated the logo and revised my background animation-script. I also rewrote the frontpage text to be less politically colored as I hope to do more media-creation and a broad manifest style statement on the frontpage could put readers and viewers off..

On the home front I have been gaining energy from taking things step-by-step, taking more joy and energy from actively getting small things done. Not just being goal oriented, but rather during the activities that seem mundane and menial. This helps actually doing them and taking pleasure from things even before seeing noticeable results.


Borrowed and colorized this Zen-themed photo from ‘theportugalnews‘

Being a an (ex-professional) web developer I want to stay on top of newer developments and compliance, for instance working on decent social media integration and presence. To this end I upgraded some structures, upgraded some code, so now previews on social media will display imagery from content and not the site logo.

I expanded on my earlier custom background animation script adding functionality for per-page customization (and ‘intelligent’ defaulting) of hashtag displayed in the upper left corned of all pages. Also I added another idea in the code; fluctuating gradient colors! This helps the pages look less static, though the shifting is very subtle as to not take away too much attention from content.

I do hope to get some feedback one of these days on the background, bc I have no real idea on how (or if) the visitors experience is influenced. Most of the reactions I get directly on-site seem to be from spam-bots that are all to willing to fill out the ‘website’ field in the forms below my pages. I will be changing the accompanying text to dissuade (real) visitors from filling that field, bc I don’t have time to check and verify sites in reactions, so I usually just ignore them. Fearing most are automated, malicious and purely commercial attempts to flatter me in the hopes I’ll repost their comment (and all too obvious; their links!).

I also silently added a new page to track, test and demonstrate the sites markup (linked below). It’s nothing to brag about, but a nice aid and reference (mainly to myself).

Markup Feature Demonstration

Zen

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Markup Feature Demonstration

I learned a few important lessons editing, proofing and publishing books; consistency in layout is key, text reads easier when justified and using footnotes helps both the readers that are up to speed as it does those who want more background information. Being a coder and web-designer from an early age also taught me to use and build solutions to accommodate readers with visual ques and small aides, like tooltips for abbreviated definitions and tools for viewing images, or emoticons. 😎

-reminder to add a custom lightbox(!)

This page is mostly a demonstration and a reminder to myself; so I have a reference to usability-features and as a compliancy test-case(!) These days most browsers are pretty decent at rendering pages with little need for specific codes, but it helps to test and remind me of things I built and don’t frequently use. Like the Hashtags that show up at the top of the page that can (now) be overridden. And for future features..!

-“This text has emphasis..”

Paragraphs should justify nicely across the page, going all the way from left to right, by default.

Left aligning paragraphs are still possible, it just looks horrible to me, yet most websites don’t bother with it. Why? Idk, possibly they just can’t be bothered to consistently markup or don’t know how to change stylesheets..

This left aligning paragraph has a break above it..
,, and a new line inside the paragraph!

Right aligning paragraphs are still possible and possibly nice to get readers focus on something? Idk.

Justified H2 Headlines are now default, they just need to be long enough to notice!

Left aligning H2 Headlines are still possible

Justified H3 Headlines are now default, they also just need to be long enough to notice!

Left aligning H3 Headlines are also still possible


image with sub-text and picture frame

Blockquotes are always centered!

Even if blockquotes have paragraphs in ’em!

Hyperlinks: Links can have nice titles so the reader gets an idea what’s up, for instance: Hyperlink also mind it has a target ‘_blank’ so it opens in a new tab(!)

Footnotes: Sometimes definitions are unclear, but explaining them inline isn’t a great idea; then we can a reference to a Footnote1!

Tooltips for Abbreviations: Using obscure shorthand can leave readers puzzled, talking about web markup languages like ‘CSS Cascading Style Sheets‘ or ‘HTML Hyper Text Markup Language‘, using some script tooltips can go left, right, top or bottom of the defeinitions.
(!)I will have to see if I want to combine these with footnotes and automate numbering, if I ever feel the need(!)

Emoticons: smile: 🙂 razz: 😛 cool: 😎 wink: 😉 biggrin: 😀 twisted: 😈 mrgreen: :mrgreen: lol: 😆 rolleyes: 🙄 confused: 😕 cry: 😥 surprised: 😮 evil: 👿 neutral: 😐 redface: 😳 mad: 😡 eek: 😯 sad: 🙁 arrow: ➡ idea: 💡

<script type="text/basic">
10 print"Mind the special characters!"
20 goto 10
</script>

<style type="text/css">
.test{
	/*a test to see if tabs-are preserved*/
}
</style>

Place footnotes below a break, but the link above it; so the footnotes don’t get hidden behind the menu that’s a the top of the page. Also linking to a singular anchor helps keep things consistent and is less prone to mistakes. Place the anchor inside a hidden paragraph so it doesn’t take space in layout

footnotes:

1Footnotes rule! Use them!

Custom Hashtag

Posted on

Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Hugo de Jonge caught lying about Compliance Numbers

Earlier this week our (Dutch) Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Deputy Prime Minister Hugo de Jonge held another presser, with bad news and some small eases of measures, but not the promised lifting of our ongoing curfew!


photo from rtlnieuws.nl

Here in the Netherlands we currently have the most stringent measures across Europe; Amongst them are flailing closings of schools and shops, lockdowns, once touted as ‘intelligent’ and the most recent addition; a nightly curfew!

Reasons for continuing and adding to these measures are often found in trends ‘not dropping fast enough’, so even when numbers of hospitalizations are flatlining or dropping, numbers of measured ‘infections’ are steady, we get lines like: “We are cautiously optimistic, but..”

“If we loosen measures now we expect ‘the English variant’ to cause a sharp rise” (paraphrase)

We have seen endless variation in reasons why measures, like the critically received curfew, should continue.. This week again we were explained that we need to attain measures, extending the deadlines, but this time the reason was a new one: behavioral- ‘Compliance numbers’ (for measures) that were supposedly dropping!

Now I’m always interested in data, so I decided to look for these numbers and got at them after some calls; Sad to say that in my (statistically trained-) expert eyes, the trends are anything but worrying(!) None of the monitored topics are significantly ‘dropping-out’, in fact while one is slightly lower compared to the previous poll, some others are on the rise. Here you can look at the data yourself; Compliance and Support | Dashboard coronavirus | Rijksoverheid.nl

Here is our Deputy PM replying to a press-member and stating a bold-faced lie: Time-coded link to this weeks preconference of Rutte en De Jonge

A member of the press ask Hugo de Jonge: “Looking at the current numbers we are doing more than is justified based on infection numbers, how do you really feel about this?”

After admitting this is a political choice he charges the following: “If you look at the current compliance numbers you can see them going down ‘quite rapidly’..”

-Is he hoping we won’t look them up? Did he even look at the numbers himself?!

Go look at the stats yourself, they are provided in plotted graphs. The only subject that is seeing a small drop is our ‘one guest per household-rule’, which is a strong suggestion and not an enforceable law(!)

Besides the lie and the data; Why are we even accepting continuation of measures based on a behavioral study that polls an extremely small group of below 5000 respondents? (!)

Liar

Posted on

INCOMING MESSAGE! -Jetzt geht’s LIVE!- THIS IS NOT FAKE NEWS!

“Hey amigos and amigas!

-I’m somewhat proud and have been hesitant up to now, to give you all a first glance at this..”

I am busy getting this new .com-site in order; those of you who know me will know I like reusing and repurposing stuff.. Also you’d perhaps know I am opinionated and technically capable, as a web-developer, former statistical analist and volunteer amongst plenty of other specific and general interests.. I have insight, experience and often take time to delve into subjects that are prone to shifts or are yet unfamiliar to me.

Enough about me, this is about my site, which is still very bare bones and barren at the moment. If I put off showing this site until ‘it’s done’ that’d be a while still and wouldn’t motivate me as much to keep going, as when I know that people could be looking in on my progress.

With focus and activities as wildly varying as mine and without prying eyes; I did manage to hook all of you up with this-here secure website with no tracking and NO ADS! [And] before ‘launch’ I did feel I needed to stress my dedication to re-usage by creating a unique first version of a scripted background-animation, that reuses the (and randomises) the social icons already embedded in the page!

“-please let me know if the background animation is too much, if it makes your devices run hot, makes fans spin up ..or if it triggers a seizure!”

Anyway, I have plenty of reusability experience and some *fun* reusability-projects planned, next to wanting to reflect & interject on current affairs and trends.

“-feel free to comment here or via social, directly or publicly. I love getting constructive critiques, positive, negative, funny, indifferent or oppositional, any feedback is welcome <3″

#Reusing, reporting and reflecting on the current state of “the interwebs”, internet-trends, web-development, high-end work-stations, “modding”, nature and politics..
,, occult knowledge, (fake) news, censorship, identity politics, mis-information, tailored science, post modernism, humanism & mind control.

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Yay another few steps!

So proud already of my little project! It’s still in it’s infancy, but we’re taking steps and learning to walk. Pretty soon I might even take time to add actual content!

Yay Secure SLL / Animated background script / Page Consistency / Policy !

Since my last post I worked on keeping the styles minimal and getting them (more) consistent across pages. While keeping bells and whistles intact I added scripts, styles and hookups for (my custom) minimal animated backgrounds; Using minimal elements like ‘svg-imagemaps’ animated by triggering/randomizing ‘css’ (style) through javascript.

Granted I still need to write a ‘toggle’ to switch the added behavior off, I decided to add some animation for now. Currently it stops after filling background with social icon images. Perhaps I can even get it to visually mash with ‘nighttime theme’ at some point, I haven’t tried but can imagine most of the effect will be lost in darkness.

Meanwhile I also got an automated nudge to add a ‘privacy policy’ to the site, so I also took considerable time to flesh-out some of my thoughts on privacy and policy as it applies here. *not at all important for the current format and still subject to change!

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Procrastination Style Development

Building websites is my thing, but usually involves me receiving external input and direction. This site being my own, it’s up to me to decide on a style and layout.

Being an indecisive turd when it comes to larger questions in life, the indecisiveness in choosing a theme, color-pallet and layout is not surprising! Luckily I am versatile in throwing things together and radical change-ups in style on running projects.

For now let’s go with a bland, understated look. At least I decided on a logo that’s recognisable and pretty well suited to karma and kicking.

Playfully kicking against aspiring power structures, new technologies, social trends, censorship, taboos, dogmas, ideologies and activism. Shit sticks/stinks and irrational arguments are usually hollow and not structurally sound. I see plenty of things to highlight daily, so much so that the reoccurrence of BS seems rhythmic and patterned(!)

Sadly over time we are in a loosing game against outrage-culture; progressively giving up rights, privacy (, language, ..) for a false sense of security. I don’t like ‘alarmists’ and ‘activism’, because of the sad state both have devolved to; ‘virtue signaling’ and unreasoned repeating of mantra’s (and violence).