Algorithms Galore: The Musk Saga Continues (1 Viewer)

[Isaac]

You didn't say that. If the government provides vouchers, that could work but it would be really hard to define the amount per student since the cost of living varies so much around the country. But it would be better than the current system and dramatically reduce the leakage of funds that happens with the present allocation method.

Sorry if I wasn't clear but yeah I meant with vouchers so the money you're paying into the system for school per student you get it and you choose Arizona is doing a lot of that recently

 

[Isaac]

Other then when he has lied his way out of every misstep, and taken credit for every success. What ever happened to his promise of a great new medical program? the "best ever", the "incredible". All those Trump words.

How do you know anything about the security issues of TikTok? Other than whatever propaganda source you listen to.

I have a feeling that there's a lot of data leakage and sharing and commandeering by countries that we'd rather not think about by way of many of our apps. It seems like tick tock may have been the worst and or just a scapegoat

 

[Pat Hartman]

China has a policy of requiring all companies to disclose all information to the central committee. So anything produced by or controlled by China is suspect. All your phones and computers could be reporting to the mother ship regularly. I think that is why Trump isn't as worried by TicTok as others are. I'm sure he knows stuff we don't know.

A friend of mine is in the import business from China, mostly batteries. He ended up buying a share of a Chinese company - foreigners cannot own businesses outright {you should never loose sight of that) - because he wanted to manufacture a special battery for cell towers that phoned home and reported status periodically. The government wouldn't buy them unless he had the software rewritten by a US company.

 

[Pat Hartman]

What ever happened to his promise of a great new medical program? the "best ever", the "incredible". All those Trump words.

John McCain is what happened. You can't seem to remember that the President does not enact laws. That is the job of Congress. Congress makes laws. The Executive Branch enforces them or if you are Biden, ignores or outright breaks them. If Congress doesn't/won't do it, it doesn't get done. Executive orders are temporary fixes and do not carry the weight of law. They are emergency measures that direct employees of the Executive Branch on procedures. If Congress thinks these orders are worthy, the intention is for them to enshrine them into actual laws.

 

[Thales750]

John McCain is what happened. You can't seem to remember that the President does not enact laws. That is the job of Congress. Congress makes laws. The Executive Branch enforces them or if you are Biden, ignores or outright breaks them. If Congress doesn't/won't do it, it doesn't get done. Executive orders are temporary fixes and do not carry the weight of law. They are emergency measures that direct employees of the Executive Branch on procedures. If Congress thinks these orders are worthy, the intention is for them to enshrine them into actual laws.

And yet you blame Obama for the ACA. You seem to not understand the power of the Bully Pulpit. You seem to think it make you sound clever to talk to me like I'm an idiot.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

This is what you asked for. Winner take all. Well, we're not exactly doing all the winning now, are we?

So far, we have survived the contests. Sometimes by outright winning, such as WW II. Sometimes by outlasting, as when Reagan finally outspent the USSR and they failed to keep up.

For the record: My post #75 was in response to the implied question of why TikTok was being banned.

 

[Thales750]

So far, we have survived the contests. Sometimes by outright winning, such as WW II. Sometimes by outlasting, as when Reagan finally outspent the USSR and they failed to keep up.

For the record: My post #75 was in response to the implied question of why TikTok was being banned.

It's more complicated than that. Your phone was made in China. And, your heart meds too. But hey, we gotta stop those damn commies from knowing what we watch on TikTok.

 

[Pat Hartman]

And yet you blame Obama for the ACA.

Only because he repeatedly told bald-faced LIES to the American public to sell the plan. They refused to talk about what the bill really contained and Pelosi's most famous line comes from that era. "You have to pass the bill to know what's in it".

If Obama and the Democrats had told the truth about the ADA, the bill would never have passed. What did the House have? 2 days to read a couple of thousand of pages and figure out what it all meant. The media - ALL OF IT - failed miserably to inform the public of how bad the bill was and that Obama was telling outright lies about how it would impact the average family. AND HE KNEW IT. Members of the Congressional office that audits bills and scores them testified to Congress after the fact that Obama was briefed and KNEW the bill would NOT save the average family any money and could cost significantly more than existing plans. Forcing insurance companies to offer pregnancy coverage on EVERY policy was one of the more stupid rules. I guess it was a misguided attempt to spread out the cost of procreating so everyone contributed. I'm not saying that the insurance industry didn't need fixing. I personally paid a very high price for my ignorance. At the time my daughter was born, policies issued to women did not automatically cover pregnancy and that is what I had. When my husband and I got married, it never occurred to us that I had to drop my coverage and be added to his plan. I couldn't add him to my plan even though it was better because I was a woman. So a few months later when I found I was pregnant, turns out that neither policy covered the pregnancy and so we footed the bill out of pocket. The cost was approximately 25% of our annual income for that year. It was a very expensive mistake. The cost was as high as it was because they gave me a staf infection during the 3 AM emergency c-section delivery and Christine and I ended up spending 10 days in the hospital instead of the normal (for the time) 3 days.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

But hey, we gotta stop those damn commies from knowing what we watch on TikTok.

I don't give a rat's patootie because I don't use TikTok. The problem is that people rather carelessly post things that CAN be critical. If someone stole or remote-hacked my phone, they would find NO financial data on it because I don't bank by phone. I do that from a PC running an up-to-date (and spontaneously updating) anti-virus package. All they would find are some old grocery lists, a few contacts, and a few conversations I haven't gotten around to deleting yet, plus some pictures. Heck, not even pix of old girlfriends - because I've been married and faithful to my wife for 30+ years. If anything, my phone is a weapon because someone going through it would be bored to death.

 

[Isaac]

Tic tok dumbs everyone down, i wouldn't miss it

 

[The_Doc_Man]

To me the "fire in a crowded theater" doctrine is relevant. TikTok "Challenges" have been the cause of hundreds of injuries and many deaths because someone posts a challenge and some lemming dives off a cliff in response.

 

[Thales750]

I don't give a rat's patootie because I don't use TikTok. The problem is that people rather carelessly post things that CAN be critical. If someone stole or remote-hacked my phone, they would find NO financial data on it because I don't bank by phone. I do that from a PC running an up-to-date (and spontaneously updating) anti-virus package. All they would find are some old grocery lists, a few contacts, and a few conversations I haven't gotten around to deleting yet, plus some pictures. Heck, not even pix of old girlfriends - because I've been married and faithful to my wife for 30+ years. If anything, my phone is a weapon because someone going through it would be bored to death.

Same here. But you strayed from the point didn't you? Our lives are an open book, and our economy is completely intertwined with most of the rest of the world. those are the facts.

We chose to get in bed with the Chinese, it's a little late to say we will never be friends with them. We better figure this out.

 

[Thales750]

Tic tok dumbs everyone down, i wouldn't miss it

The young people using it to make a living will. I don't see too many TikTok vids. I'm not a subscriber. But I do have an interest in video marketing. As such, I belong to some groups on Face Book where the main theme is building web based businesses. It's amazing the grass roots entrepreneurs making their way on streaming videos. Young people creating and working and breaking the strands that have been assigned to their generations.

They are the casualties of this TikTok war. just like American small business succumbed to the Walmart onslaught in the 80s and 90s.

 

[GaP42]

I don’t get it:

TikTok – if the rationale is to force it to be sold to American interests because the app may secretly be used to “spy” on what you are doing/saying or influencing you, then:

If it is sold, are you not buying the “algorithm” that is TikTok? If you are buying the TikTok algorithm, then is the algorithm expected to be changed by the new owners? ie it is no longer TikTok - it is now TikTokUSA.

So TikTok USA is bought by you and that means you have the source code to modify so it no longer has the capability to “spy” on you, or no longer reports activity back to the Chinese. Would not that be apparent or discoverable in the original source code – so TikTok is exposed for what it is accused of – a security risk?

If the complete source code is not provided or what is provided compiles to something different, then what is the value of what you purchased as TikTok? How would you be confident that you obtained value for money? Even then if some apparently clean source code is provided would there not be a risk of any underhand ways in which backdoor access may still be hidden deep in the system or functions turned on thru some encrypted code?

And if the algorithm stays the same are you not stuck in the same situation? How does changing owners change things?