Комментарии к Законопроекту “О Кибердружинах в Российской Федерации”

Меня пригласили 4 марта в Общественную Палату на нулевое чтение федерального закона о кибердружинах. Мои комментарии к этому закону с точки зрения блогера и публициста: Основная масса моего материала выходит в американском журнале The Unz Review. Я пишу на многие темы, в том числе и о России. Пишу, в основном, с положительной точки зрения – […]

Revealed Preference

Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/15): Revealed preferences: The language settings on Vkontakte social network throughout Ukraine.

Translation: The 35 Cyber-Friends of Navalny

35 CEO’s of Russian Internet companies have signed a public letter supporting Navalny in return for his promise to ensure accountability and the rule of law. Navalny’s 35 Friends Small businesses get involved in politics. Thirty-five representatives of Internet businesses are to speak publicly in support of the candidate for post of Moscow mayor, Alexei […]

The Social Thaw: Change in Facebook Policy

My response to Snowdengate, the new Graph Search, its inevitable integration with Google Glass? I will be minimizing my privacy settings and for all intents and purposes making my Facebook public. So good ahead, look up my profile. Friend me. Whatever. I don’t mind. Sounds counter-intuitive, huh? There’s a logic behind the madness. It’s now a […]

Russia is Now an Internet Society

The Russian Spectrum presents the results of Levada, FOM, and VCIOM polls over the past dozen years showing the rapid digitization of Russian society. The Internet in Russia The three questions used were all similar: “Do you use the Internet, and if so how frequently?” Also in the latest Levada poll: “Do you use the […]

Delving Into Bitcoins And The Deep Web

Several days ago, the USD/BTC exchange rate soared to dizzying heights, reaching almost $250 for one unit of the virtual, decentralized currency. Then it crashed to $55. But since then, it has gone back up to $100. I’d heard of them before, but I had assumed it was some sort of pyramid, and that the […]

Why De-Russification Isn’t On The Cards

My post last week on the increasing visibility of the Russian language on the Internet provoked a heated counter-attack from commentator Ildar Adi, who asserted (without much in the way of proof) that it is actually in significant retreat in Europe, the Near Abroad, and even Russia itself. He believes that whereas there were almost […]

Russian Is The Internet’s Second Most Popular Language

In the wake of Russia’s Internet penetration breaking the 50% mark (now – 55%) and overtaking Germany in total number of users last year, we now have news that Russian overtook German as its second most popular language. It is used on 5.9% of all the world’s websites. It is projected that Russia will maintain this […]

US-Russia.org, New Site For Russia Watchers

It’s been a few months in the building, since the decision to launch it at the WRF 2012, and I feel it is now developed enough to make it more widely known. I hope it will become as prominent as the current best specialized English-language Russian politics resource on the Internet, Russia: Other Points of […]

What Is The Point Of Articles Like These?

Mashable tells students about 12 things they should never do in social media. By now this doesn’t apply to me, as between my non-anonymous Russophilia, HBD-ing, gaming, and AGW-ing I’ve long ostracized myself from both liberals and conservatives and torpedoed myself any hopes of “respectable” employment anyway. I do however wonder about the point of such articles […]

Russia Is Now An Internet Society

One of the most common arguments made to explain why Russians don’t finally overthrow the evil Putin in a bloody bunt is that they are brainwashed by the regime’s TV propaganda stations. This isn’t actually very accurate at all. Russian TV isn’t any more propagandistic than in the West, and on some issues, less so; […]

Welcome Back!

Dear readers, As you’re probably aware, the site was down for much of the past week. The lowdown is that the old blog, Sublime Oblivion, was infected by a nasty pharma hack that destroyed its SEO ratings. There was however a silver lining, in that it allowed me to carry out a reorganization that I’ve desired […]