somerset wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 6:10 pm
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Mon Dec 20, 2021 10:28 am
I just bought a new computer last week and migrated my normal stuff to it. So, in one week, the disk has 221.04 GB of data stored on it - apps, data, music, photo, the works.
That's all?
Lol, yeah, my BIG archive is copied onto two external disks, one of which is kept at another location.
But the "Ooglebytes of data seized" thing has become something of a set piece in clickbait yellow journalism of the type posted above.
Most people have "thousands of files" in the smartphone they carry around all day, but never really think about it that way. In these types of stories - "police seize thousands of documents and files in raid on suspected crime boss", the implicit understanding between the author and reader is that there is a huge secret trove of damning information because, yeah, when I'm engaged in longstanding criminal activity I keep an office cabinet with a file system organized by 18 USC sections to record my misdeeds with meticulous care. Now, sure, there are folks like Philly's famous "fast Eddy" (Google that one for a trippy story) who kept plastic garbage bags full of evidence accumulated over the years, and it is those kinds of stories with whom this type of empty-calorie clickbait is intended to resonate.
Eventually, we'll never see these "thousands of files" which will ONLY mean that the authorities are covering them up, thus proving the extent of the conspiracy.
But the "legit" reporting is also intended to resonate with the conspiracy theory underground, in the same way that political rhetoric can take an apparent high road by only borrowing certain catch phrases or themes from those emails that are passed around by crazy uncles. It's why Sarah Palin could say things along the lines of "who really is Barack Obama?" without expressly stating any particular birther theory - because the audience is already primed to answer that question for themselves by the undercurrent of bullshit on social media.
The media has been doing the same thing with the Maxwell trial. The actual story of this useless bag of flesh attaching herself to a warped parasite of the wealthy and powerful isn't really tremendously interesting beyond the circle of those involved and affected. But what gets the eyeballs is the "any day now" hype of the Big Reveal, The Storm, Judgment Day - the final apocalyptic reckoning when the evildoers will be exposed and deposed so that all of my imagined bogeymen will be vanquished.
So, yeah, a wealthy influence-trader flew people around on his airplane. What makes that front-page news? Particularly when its news we've all heard before. Oh, oh, but now we know HOW MANY TIMES and WHERE THEY WENT! Holy cow! Trump and his varying entourage flew from Palm Beach to New York and back a few times. Wow! Gosh ,that MUST mean they are all abusing teenagers!