Archive for November 18, 2023

Media Matters To Elon Musk: “We Will Win”

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 18, 2023 by itnerd

If you check out this story from earlier today, you’ll see that Elon has lost his marbles by threatening a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters who found that advertising from big name companies was showing up next to Nazi and racist content. This along with Elon himself endorsing antisemitic posts on Twitter has led to IBM and Apple among others pulling their ads from the platform. Media Matters has now responded to Elon’s lawsuit threat. Here is their response via their CEO Angelo Carusone in full:

Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Musk is a bully who threatens meritless lawsuits in an attempt to silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate. Musk admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified. If he does sue us, we will win.

Honestly, if Elon is stupid enough to sue Media Matters, he’s focused on the wrong thing. Advertisers were fleeing Twitter from the moment he took over Twitter. Musk himself admitted that in September that the company’s U.S. ad business was down 60%. At the time he was blaming the ADL for his issues at the time:

And his latest issues are simply adding to this. Besides IBM and Apple, Lionsgate, Disney, Comcast/NBCU, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery among others have pulled ads from Twitter. If Elon were smart, he’d figure out how to walk his stupidity back and create an environment where advertisers feel that they can safely put their ads on Twitter without being exposed to anything that may cause their brands pain. Like for example Nazi and antisemitic content. But he’s too busy trying to threaten and bully organizations that call him out. That’s not a winning strategy. Which he’s about to find out the hard way when Twitter implodes.

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Elon Musk Goes Loco By Threatening “Thermonuclear Lawsuit’ Against Media Matters

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 18, 2023 by itnerd

Well, Elon Musk has officially lost his marbles.

I say that because in the wake of IBM, followed by Apple, followed by a host of other advertisers pulling their ads from Twitter, Elon Musk is now threatening Media Matters who outed the fact that big name advertisers were appearing next to Nazi and hate speech content with a lawsuit:

Let’s recap something here:

  • Media Matters found that Nazi and hate speech was appearing next to big name advertisers.
  • Twitter when they were called on it said “its system does not intentionally place brands “actively next to this kind of content”, and the content cited by Media Matters would no longer be able to make money off its posts.” Which to me sounds like an admission that what Media Matters said was accurate.
  • Elon himself also “endorsed an antisemitic post on X that falsely claimed members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred against white people.”

Thus I am failing to see how this is fraudulent to use an Elon phrase. I also don’t see how any lawsuit that he files would last five seconds in court. Having said that, I’m a computer nerd and not a lawyer.

But his threats of lawsuits against people who show Twitter for what it is, which is a tactic he’s used before, is meant to ensure that nobody shines a light on everything that is bad about Twitter. The thing is that this time it will not work. Because I believe that we’ve now reached a point where Elon’s bad behaviour is no longer acceptable and advertisers are taking their advertising budgets elsewhere. And that’s good as far as I am concerned because taking advertising cash out of Elon’s pocket will do one of two things. Either he will alter his behaviour. Which for the record I do not see happening. Or he will be forced to use his own resources, be it selling Tesla or SpaceX stock, to fund Twitter. And that is sure to hurt him and his businesses and make him feel some pain. And it’s high time he has to face some consequences for his behaviour because it is abhorrent and unacceptable.

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Review: EnGenius Cloud Managed ECW220 Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) 2×2 Indoor Wireless Access Point

Posted in Products with tags on November 18, 2023 by itnerd

Today, we’re going to have a look at a WiFi access point for businesses that is easy set up and easy to manage. And that’s the EnGenius Cloud Managed ECW220 Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) 2×2 Indoor Wireless Access Point. Here’s a look at it:

This access point is pretty low key and doesn’t occupy a lot of space. In fact, it’s on the thin side It may even go unnoticed by most people. The only thing that you see on the outside are a set of LEDs along the top.The first is power, while the second indicates whether you’re connected to your router. The third and fourth lights indicate the status of the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands respectively. You should also note that on the bottom right side of the picture is a Kensington lock slot for making sure that the access point doesn’t grow legs and walk away.

Underneath is a recessed area where there is your power connection if you’re not using POE (Please note that the power adapter is not included), and a gigabit Ethernet jack that supports POE, both on the right. And on the left is a hole to reset the access point via a paperclip. I should also note that all the brackets and screws that you need to mount this are in the box. 

The access point supports the following speeds: 

  • 5Ghz: 1,200Mbps 
  • 2Ghz: 574Mbps 

And it support up to WiFi6 as well. Plus it supports 2×2 Mu-MiMo. Which means that if you have a lot of devices, you should not notice any slowdowns.

Setup in typical EnGenius fashion is simple. Download and install the EnGenius smartphone app available in Android and iOS versions, scan a QR on the back of the housing and spend a few minutes getting settings that work for you configured. You might also want to check for a firmware update to make sure that you’re good to go. And I should also mention that there’s web management available as well if managing your access points from a smartphone isn’t your thing. But I will say that there does not appear to be any offline management available which might bother some people.

The best way to test this is to use POE. So using this EnGenius POE switch, I set it up and did some performance and range testing. I should note that besides getting the power adapter from EnGenius, you can also use a POE adapter like this one that EnGenius sent me to power the access point.

I used a WiFi 6 enabled device to do my testing of this access point and got these results:

  • 375Mbps from 4.5 meters away
  • 241Mbps at 10 meters and a pair of concrete walls to deal with

These are all respectable speeds and is in line with the best WiFi hardware that I have tested. I also tried to get this access point to trip up by throwing 10 WiFi 6 devices playing videos from YouTube at it. None seemed to have an issue in doing so. Thus I am certain that whatever your use case is, this access point will be able to handle it.

The EnGenius Cloud Managed ECW220 Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) 2×2 Indoor Wireless Access Point is available now for a price of $299 USD. If you’re looking to blanket your office, or even a large home with WiFi that won’t let you down, this is totally access point is totally worth looking at.

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