CTO/co-founder of agri-tech startup Sixty-5 Technologies Ltd, (@sixty5tech) hands-on code-tweaker, occasional blues guitarist
Northern Ireland
Joined July 2009
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Colin Mitchell retweeted
The phone company would send this GIANT book to your house (I’m talking like 8 inches thick on super thin paper) and it doxxed everyone in your town. Their address, their phone number, etc.. And they sent it to everyone in town. For free. Just because. Wild.
Colin Mitchell retweeted
The 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand may have interrupted an Israeli intelligence operation.
On February 22nd, 2011, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Christchurch. The city center was severely damaged, and more than 180 people died. Among the dead was Israeli Ofer Benyamin Mizrahi, crushed by a collapsing column while sitting in a parked van on Gloucester Street. His body was trapped inside the vehicle and could not immediately be recovered.
Three other Israelis, all ostensibly backpackers on vacation, were able to extricate themselves from the destroyed vehicle. Within 12 hours they were on a flight out of New Zealand, with the assistance of officials from their embassy.
Meanwhile, a rescue team was dispatched from Israel to assist with recovery efforts. But the team was not accredited and NZ authorities refused to allow them to participate in recovery efforts. Undaunted, the team was later discovered working in the city center and were confronted by armed NZ police officers before they were forcibly removed from the area.
Another team of Israeli forensic analysts were initially welcomed to assist with casualty identification. But concerns quickly arose due to their access to government databases, and that access was soon removed to prevent the insertion of spyware or the altering of data, according to reporting by Stuff.co.nz.
Days later, when Mizrahi’s remains were recovered, investigators found five passports in his belongings. NZ authorities began to focus on the unusual circumstances surrounding the death of Mizrahi, leading to tense diplomatic discussions between the two governments. The next day, Prime Minister John Key later stated investigators found no evidence linking Mizrahi to Israeli intelligence.
In March 2004, two Israelis suspected to be Mossad agents were arrested attempting to secure false New Zealand passports, leading the NZ government to enact diplomatic sanctions against Israel.
Since then, neither government has been forthcoming about the incident, but questions remain as to what Mizrahi and his companions were doing in Christchurch when the disaster struck.
#earthquake #christchurch #mossad #israeli #newzealand
Colin Mitchell retweeted
The Guardian in a single sentence. Unprovoked, illegal wars of aggression overthrowing the Venezuelan government and attempting to overthrow the Iranian government, threatening a nuclear holocaust, are merely 'military strikes'. Why? Because for the great and the good of the 'mainstream' press, bombing and invading other countries is just what 'we' do; it's completely normal and unexceptional:
'He has acted unilaterally on tariffs and military strikes on Venezuela and Iran.'
theguardian.com/us-news/2026…
Colin Mitchell retweeted
Germany’s Merz supported Trump and Israel’s war of choice when they started it.
Now he complains about what the war has done to European economies and calls for its swift end.
Unclear whether he means a quick military end or diplomatic end…
Germany's Chancellor Merz on Iran War:
We now have costs exceeding €100 billion for Europe alone over the last eight months, solely because of the increase in energy prices caused by this conflict.
More than €100 billion extra has been paid by businesses and consumers in Europe because energy has become more expensive as a result of this conflict.
We have an economic interest in bringing this conflict to an end as quickly as possible.
Colin Mitchell retweeted
Consider what the Pacific looked like from Washington in 1945.
Japan defeated and occupied. The Pacific Ocean effectively an American lake. The Philippines a client state. South Korea incoming. Taiwan secured. The entire western Pacific rim available to be organized into an American-administered order.
And at the center of it all, the most populous country on earth, exhausted from war with Japan, torn by civil conflict, economically devastated, seemingly available to be shaped.
Not colonized in the 19th century sense.
Something more modern. More deniable. More sustainable.
Shaped.
Through aid, through recognition, through the careful cultivation of a leadership class that understood which way the money flowed and what was expected in return.
What Mao’s victory ended was not just American influence in China.
It ended the possibility of that Pacific architecture operating as designed.
You cannot build a managed Pacific order with an unmanaged China at its center.
And that is what China has been, from 1949 to this moment:
Unmanaged.
On its own terms.
According to its own calculations.
The wound in the American Pacific project that never closed.
Colin Mitchell retweeted
The reason for the return of diplomacy between Europe and Russia is the change in the geopolitical and geoeconomic environment. With oil at over $100, and France on the brink of a debt crisis, Europe is politically and financially not able to maintain its support for Ukraine at the level needed for Ukraine to resist Russia's advance, let alone push back. At no point during the last five years did western European leaders have a strategy to secure Ukraine's victory. Nor did they have a strategy for peace. It is too early to say what yesterday's call between Støre, Stubb and Putin will accomplish, but we are now entering a different phase.
eurointelligence.com
Colin Mitchell retweeted
Let’s go through the peace deals Zelenskyy rejected.
• Istanbul agreement, 2022
Ukraine needed to refuse NATO accession, reduce the army, Russia would withdraw from the Kyiv reg., possibly from the Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. At that point the scale of destruction was still limited and the number of dead was far lower. In April 2022 Zelenskyy declined the deal.
• End of 2022
Russian forces withdrew from part of the Kherson region. Zelenskyy traveled to meet Biden and, acc. to my sources, later confirmed by Mr. Blinken in the New York Times, persuaded the WH to continue the war. The precise terms of any proposed deal remain unknown, but sources indicate there was readiness to declare at least a ceasefire.
• Beginning of 2023
Through unofficial channels between the United States and Russia, an understanding took shape: Putin agreed to withdraw to the borders that existed before the full-scale invasion—freeing nearly everything conquered that year—in exchange for Ukraine’s refusal of NATO accession and recognition of Crimea as Russian. Zelenskyy and Yermak refused. Since then nearly a million people have been killed or wounded, several million have become refugees, parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions have been occupied, more of Zaporizhzhia has been taken, Kherson lies in ruins, the Chernihiv and Sumy regions face constant shelling, Kyiv itself has become almost a front-line city, the energy system has been destroyed, businesses cannot operate, exports have stalled, and the country is degrading.
• July 2024
An arrangement that began with an energy ceasefire, modeled on the Istanbul understandings and mediated through the Middle East. While negotiations were under way, Zelenskyy also planned the Kursk operation, which ultimately disrupted all the arrangements.
• March 2025
After the Oval Office clash between Trump and Zelenskyy, European leaders gathered in London in early March. The British government stated that a number of options were on the table and that Ukraine had to choose. As always, nothing came of it.
Whether Putin was prepared each time to implement any agreements remains unknown, yet on several occasions he carried out what he had promised. Does this remove his responsibility for the deaths, the horrors, and the destruction in Ukraine? No.
But the country is degrading, the state apparatus is degrading, and corruption finishes what Putin’s missiles, drones, and bombs did not destroy. Inhumanity has effectively become a state strategy and a national ideology promoted at every turn.
Ukraine simply cannot win this way—there are neither economic, nor demographic, nor any other grounds for it. Therefore, if Zelenskyy does not agree to a deal with realistic terms now, Ukraine will be forced to capitulate. And that is deeply alarming, because it can actually cost the country its independence and sovereignty.
Colin Mitchell retweeted
Elon Musk is without a doubt the most grotesque example of extreme wealth being mistaken for virtuous genius that I’ve ever seen, no contest.
A dude whose business empire has had the exceptional luxury of upwards of $38 BILLlON in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits that lectures us on government waste, fraud, and abuse.
He takes a literal fucking chainsaw to government aid, while hundreds of thousands die from the lack of access, and simultaneously engorges himself at the public pig trough of endless money.
He then takes the grift cash to buy elections, outright rig them, gains extraordinary access to the backrooms and convinces panting sycophants that he’s “fighting the establishment.”
He IS the establishment.
Years and years of missed deadlines, self driving promises just around the corner. Spectacular theatrical marketing presentations presented as new technology, with an army of ball riding zombies to explain why his latest failure is actually evidence of 5D chess wizardry.
All in line to be the friend he doesn’t have.
He was emailing Epstein to find about the “wildest parties” on child rape island, and you people still clamber.
Speaking of mouth breathing followers, the cult surrounding him is even more disturbingly dangerous.
Every glaring contradiction becomes an insult worthy misunderstanding.
Every dumb comment is a masterpiece. Every legitimate totally fair criticism becomes proof that the questioner is stupid, jealous, or secretly working against humanity itself.
It’s so blatantly a cult.
At what point does this bizarre admiration become deliberately and completely giving up independent thought?
You can acknowledge the success of his companies and the remarkable engineering feats without cosplaying that he’s some infallible prophet.
And give his employees some credit.
He’s a trillionaire with huge political influence, a pretty pathetic appetite for public attention indicative of someone that’s insecure, and a documented history of promise after promise that he doesn’t deliver on.
Please, don’t confuse money with intelligence.
They rarely go hand in hand.
Also, realize that proximity to great power is not synonymous with moral authority. The truth is historically the opposite.
And for fucks sake, stop worshipping people who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.
Colin Mitchell retweeted
Security redesigned our guest Wi-Fi.
Visitors must now authenticate using a company-managed account.
I asked how someone who doesn't work here gets a company account.
"Their host provisions a temporary identity."
Fine.
Tuesday we had six investors visiting.
I created six temporary accounts.
By 9:30 AM, all six had received:
Mandatory cybersecurity training.
An employee handbook.
A calendar invitation to the quarterly all-hands.
An email asking them to set their professional development goals.
Apparently HR's onboarding system automatically picks up new company identities.
I told HR.
They said temporary accounts should be excluded.
I asked them to exclude them.
"That requires a change request."
One investor completed the cybersecurity training because he thought it was required to access Wi-Fi.
He scored 60%.
HR emailed his sponsor recommending additional training.
At 5 PM, the accounts expired.
This triggered our automated employee offboarding workflow.
All six investors received exit surveys.
One was asked to return his company laptop.
Another received an email asking why he had decided to leave the organization.
Our CEO called me furious.
"Why are investors being treated like employees?"
I explained that Security requires guests to be employees before they're allowed to be guests.
He's meeting with Security tomorrow.
The investors have already been invited to their exit interviews.
Colin Mitchell retweeted
I hate the clocks going backwards and forwards. When I was young, we didn’t even have clocks. If we got hungry, we ate each other. We were poor, but we were happy. Good times. Not that we had time. It hadn’t been invented. We had to make our own time out of string and cholera.
Colin Mitchell retweeted
I'm just going to point out that there are two people at the start of this hike.
