Mondays are often slow, but yesterday I only found one article. It wasn’t worth publishing my Blog. Depressing.

I could be wrong, but this hints at an algorithm that didn’t work as planned…

https://therealdeal.com/2021/11/01/zillow-eyeing-2-8b-for-7000-homes-report/

Zillow eyeing $2.8B for 7,000 homes: report

Company paused iBuying program 2 weeks ago

… The company is aiming to sell 7,000 homes for $2.8 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The outlet reports Zillow is likely looking to move the homes in many transactions, rather than trying to package and offload them in one single swoop.

The Bloomberg report comes just days after an analysis published by Insider last week showed 64 percent of the homes were listed for less than the Zillow paid for them, with a median difference of $16,000.

… Two weeks ago, Zillow hit pause on its iBuying business pointing to a backlog of properties as the reason the company was “beyond operational capacity.”

Interesting forensics.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/on-cell-phone-metadata.html

On Cell Phone Metadata

Interesting Twitter thread on how cell phone metadata can be used to identify and track people who don’t want to be identified and tracked.

Similar to the case in Canada.

https://www.pogowasright.org/run-a-credit-check-without-consent-in-norway-and-it-may-cost-you/

Run a credit check without consent in Norway and it may cost you

Suppose a company ran a credit check on you despite the fact that you had no relationship to that company and had not requested nor consented to any credit check.

What do you think the government would do to the company, if anything?

Well, if you are in Norwary, the Norwegian DPA might fine that company 12,500 euros (about $14,500.00) and require them to prepare written routines to comply with Article 24 of the GDPR.

You can read more about the Ultra-Technology AS complaint and decision here.

We may never have a robotic Pope.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/7-lessons-learned-vaticans-artificial-intelligence-symposium

7 lessons learned from the Vatican's artificial intelligence symposium

Sometime before December 2019, Bishop Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council of Culture, and Michael Koch, then the German ambassador to the Holy See, had a series of discussions on the long-term societal and philosophical ramifications of artificial intelligence that led them to jointly sponsor a symposium, "The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence for Human Society and the Idea of the Human Person.”

… The topic was not a new interest of Tighe's. In September 2019, his office, along with Cardinal Peter Turkson's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, hosted a three-day seminar on "The Common Good in the Digital Age” with leaders from the digital industry and from concerned nongovernmental organizations, as well as members of the academy and the Curia. Tighe is a natural at bringing together a wide variety of disparate stakeholders as necessary interlocutors.

Perspective. Hardware marches on…

https://www.engadget.com/5-d-storage-could-fit-500-tb-on-cd-sized-disc-095039455.html

'5D' storage could fit 500TB on a CD-sized glass disc

That would be 10,000 times more data than Blu-ray discs.