Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“Google is not a charity; it’s a business. If it cannot generate revenue to make a profit through the combination of its advertising products, user data, and contracts with device manufacturers, it may have to raise prices on products that are presently enjoyed for free by consumers.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/23/the-doj-is-doing-its-best-to-make-google-unprofitable/
“The commission fined Apple on Tuesday for preventing developers from directly informing users of deals offered outside the App Store, thereby depriving consumers of the benefits of “alternative and cheaper offers.” The commission has ordered the company to remove these restrictions on pain of additional fines. Apple has called the penalty “yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free,”
On the same day, Meta was fined for offering Facebook and Instagram users a choice between free versions of the apps with personalized advertising and paid ones without advertising—something the commission calls a “pay or consent model.” In a statement, a spokesman for Meta accused the commission of “forcing us to change our business model” said this “effectively imposes a multibillion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service.””
https://reason.com/2025/04/28/european-commission-fines-apple-and-meta-800-million/
Tech moguls planned in private Signal chats how to turn the culture right and support Trump. This is closer to a secret group of powerful people trying to control society than anything the left does or the “deep state”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF4qM3hkECQ
The United States military is going to lose its technological edge because it doesn’t invest enough in science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRfh331wTCs
“Expropriating billions of dollars from American businesses is injurious and capricious. Citizens of the E.U. benefit from the American technology sector; siphoning capital from U.S. tech firms leaves them with less to commit to research and development, stymieing further innovation. The E.U. should stop penalizing American firms that outcompete their European counterparts.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/23/the-european-commission-is-assaulting-american-industry/
“Driverless trucks are officially running their first regular long-haul routes, making roundtrips between Dallas and Houston.
On Thursday, autonomous trucking firm Aurora announced it launched commercial service in Texas under its first customers, Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, which delivers time- and temperature-sensitive freight. Both companies conducted test runs with Aurora, including safety drivers to monitor the self-driving technology dubbed “Aurora Driver.” Aurora’s new commercial service will no longer have safety drivers.”
…
“Aurora is starting with a single self-driving truck and plans to add more by the end of 2025.”
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/transportation/articles/first-driverless-semis-started-running-213139083.html
U.S. air superiority is under threat. The country needs to invest in a new air superiority fighter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzXQqakQFjE
“The Defense Digital Service was created in 2015 to help the Pentagon adopt fast tech fixes during national security crises and push Silicon Valley-style innovation inside the Pentagon. It built rapid response tools for the military during the Afghanistan withdrawal, databases to transfer Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid, drone detection technologies and more.
Without the program, some key efforts to streamline the DOD’s tech talent pipeline and counter adversarial drones will be sunsetted, one soon-to-be former employee said.
Once dubbed the Pentagon’s “SWAT team of nerds,” DDS was one of the department’s earliest efforts to inject Silicon Valley ethos into its massive bureaucracy.”
…
“every employee interviewed said they wouldn’t have left if it wasn’t for DOGE.
One former senior Pentagon official, who asked not to be named because of possible retaliation, described DOGE’s wider incursion into the Defense Department as damaging and unproductive
“They’re not really using AI, they’re not really driving efficiency. What they’re doing is smashing everything,” the former official said.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/pentagons-digital-resignations-00290930
I Tried To Fix Government Tech for Years. I’m Fed Up.
https://reason.com/2025/02/13/i-tried-to-fix-government-tech-for-years-im-fed-up
In some ways, the U.S. has fallen behind in air-to-air missiles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FnVJ0ziRTE