have a friend who keeps being scammed or falling for charlatans, repeatedly (despite my warnings about almost all of these scams). As a scholar, he has been scammed by Saudis, Chinese, Italians, and something in Malaysia and/or Korea. That last one nearly killed him, after it had wiped out all of his life savings.

I don’t know why he falls for it, I keep warning him about these things and he should know better, he’s a professor.

I think the first example goes back more than 15 years ago. He suggested I go work for some college in London, which probably turned to be somewhat of an unprofessional diploma mill. I smelled something wrong and didn’t go to an interview they had invited me to. Good. My friend later said they were horrible (he didn’t specify all the reasons; he was too focused on having a rowing machine in his office) and he inadvertently fooled some colleague from Manchester into going there; it turned out to be a mistake. Thankfully I wasted almost no time on it.

Strike 1.

A decade ago he tried to convince me to invest in some company he told me he had become a partner with. He said the head or founder was super-rich and had a castle. Not too long afterwards, after I told him he was likely faking the finances (genuinely rich people don’t need to get pretentious by getting castles), the guy filed for bankruptcy. So I was right about this.

Strike 2.

It seems like some people are naturally susceptible to work that does not pay them, making false promises or even takes money only to make it vanish away.

Strike 3 is the one he told me nothing about (until he swallowed his pride and it was already way too late).

The world is full of people who cheat, lie, and scam other people. It’s good to be cautious and presume no innocence.

anCity seems unstoppable. From almost 4-1 (pre-VAR) it turned into 3-2 and almost a draw.

There are lessons to learn.

his is looking like another season for City to “put in the bag”. They are appealing the verdict and, for now, they prove their worth.

Enzo has a flawless PL season so far. The tall Norwegian makes it easy for him.

ecently, on at least 3 occasions, I showed how BBC was ignoring important news and football news about ManCity to constantly ‘incite’ against ManCity.

I don’t know if – or to what extent – other broadcasters do or did the same.

They created an atmosphere wherein everything about ManCity is negatively rated, e.g.

It’s even more obvious in other such updates.

ix years ago, in October 2020, I worked on making a text-only (bulletin) version of Techrights. The sister site would have the same thing 3 years later.

In the same month I experimented with putting these bulletins in IPFS, then I looked into more protocols (like Gemini Protocol, which I had already explored before but did not adopt).

So there’s a sort of anniversary in late October. It coincided with the COVID-19 stay-home directives.

Free software (like IPFS) has since then stagnated somewhat. Like blockchains, we barely hear about it anymore.

It still exists, but how many people use it?

I don’t think RMS knows much (or anything) about IPFS. He’s not a fan of fake-coins, so he would probably find IPFS off-putting.

t is 4 degrees here right now, 2 hours ahead of a very sunny day (same as yesterday afternoon; I managed to sunbathe twice). It seems like “going tropical” [1, 2] was well timed. All the shells/snails stay at the bottom.

Today there’s a home match here, one that should be a lot simpler than the PSG battle. It starts at 3 (kickoff), so we’ll mostly manage to avoid the rush of fans.

We’ve managed to stay focused, productive and relaxed lately. That’s what we expected. The journey to the Court of Appeal in the coming year or years is paved with growing certainty. It’s something we are positive about and look forward to.

he latest from the petitioner (for the end of Reform UK Party Limited as it cannot meet financial obligations to cover the election costs) is advancing.

So far he has shown: 1) Farage is a corporate actor pretending to be a politician; 2) Reform UK Party Limited is a cover; 3) there are financial problems; 4) lies were issued to the media and now to the Court.

This cannot end well for Reform UK Party Limited.

here is an election coming up in the US. “Decisions [are] outsourced to the highest bidder(s),” a friend has told me, wherein “One dollar : one vote…”

“Elections become auctions, just the way the broligarchs like it. The nations have to choose either millionaires/billionaires/trillionaires or a democracy…”

“Business friendly government” is code for government that gets bribed or compromised to outsource common-wealth to few external actors (sometimes for kickbacks). It is a form of plunder. It’s sold as “jobs”.

In Techrights this was covered in passing under:

• ‘Broligarchs’ Don’t Want Science, They Want Entertainers to Entertain Them (and Make Them Richer)
• Wikipedia – Funded by Slop-pushing Companies and ‘Broligarchs’ – Gave Benefit of the Doubt to Slop, Then Regretted It
• How Can the ‘Broligarchs’ Love Us When They Don’t Even Love Themselves?
• Broligarchs Speech-Policing, Faux ‘Community’ or ‘Hub’ in ‘User-Driven’ Clothing
• What is “Computer Science”? It is What Broligarchs Reject.

he more I read into the tweetfests (or “storms”) of Wilson, the clearer it seems to me that Wilson’s obsession with Lewis is due to hurt.

Yes, Lewis really hurt him.

In a nutshell, and in chronological order:

• Wilson said some darn things
• These darn things led to backlash
• Wilson threatened to sue over those bouts of backlash (over the above-mentioned darn things)
• Wilson filed a lawsuit he can barely afford against people who had insufficient assets to cover his legal bills
• Wilson soon realised he would not manage to settle the matter
• Wilson spent all his money trying to “win” the case (a pyrrhic victory)
• Wilson “won” but received nothing (could not and still cannot even recover the money he lost in litigation)
• Wilson now protests against the solicitor and barrister, as a distraction from the fact his lawsuit was redundant, misconceived, and fruitless

Sounds familiar, right?

arlier today I shared some statistics for the first half of October. Earlier this year I decided to breathe fresher life (or air) into schestowitz.com, which I sort of neglected because I was busy in other sites.

This blog is now 22 (Harvey’s too will be 22, but he passed away almost 4 years ago; I still miss him) and I am emboldened by the feedback I receive on it.

I hope more people will get back to blogging. They just need to quit social control media. They waste time there.