Weekend Edition 16 – TSMC + Bidan in Arizona, Apple Privacy Woes, and More

We 16.1 – TSMC + Bidan in AZ, What Could Go Wrong?

TSMC stands for Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and they fabricate many chips for many different companies, including Apple and AMD. The AZ plant, which is one of two they have committed to building in the US, will focus on 3 and 4 NM process nodes for Apple’s ARM silicon. Trump started the ball rolling on this, but Bidan is capitalizing on it, as the fact is that these are planned to be in full operation before the 2024 election. TSMC is making a 40 billion dollar investment in the US, split between 2 plants, one in AZ and the other in OH. This is great news for US nationals, to not be so dependent on Chinese fabrication plants for our chips, for everything from cars to cell phones, smart fridges, IoT devices, and computers.

What bothers me, but is a typical feature of politics, is that the useless lump who can’t make it through a whole sentence without a nearly catastrophic stumble is getting to take credit for the work and ideas that Trump put in place during the 2020 election cycle. Then again, there were some major landmines that Trump left for the Bidan joke of an admin... From the stimulus checks and ConVid measures (including Fauci and co), left in place to make the economy tank through inflation and alleged shortages. I don’t know, maybe that gives Trump too much credit for strategy. Don’t crucify me too hard in the comments on this one, just talking and expressing some opinions, here. I want to believe that Trump is that good, but I’m not so sure at this point. Time will tell.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63883047
#weekendedition #tsmc #bidan #trump #tech #madeinamerica #TechFreedom

WE 16.2 – Meta May Drop All US News from US Timelines

In response to the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act or JCPA, Meta has stated that not only does it feel that its platform has actually helped struggling journalists by allowing them to draw more eyeballs to their websites, but that the news on Meta news feeds only accounts for 4% of total revenue for the platform.

What is the JCPA? It aims to allow local news stations, newspapers, and independent journalists the ability to collectively bargain with the platform to get a larger cut of the ad revenue pie. This article equates it to a piece of similar legislation that passed in Australia in March 2021, and resulted in a temporary moratorium on news on Facebook in Australia, until the Aussie gov’t struck a deal with Facebook later that year. What’s true, here? Is this seemingly compassionate legislation a good move by our legislators? How many of these smaller publishers and outlets are actually adding something important to the landscape of the news in America, anyway? How many are just parroting 3 AM talking points given to them by the higher-ups in their affiliated networks vs actually reporting accurately on things that are really happening? Who knows? How many who were actually telling the truth got demonitized, shadow-banned, Facebook jailed, or deactivated by Facebook, though? I sense that there were many. How many tweaked things so that the “fact checkers” (propagandists) at Facebook wouldn’t slam them? Possibly even more... How many avoided the problem altogether by becoming parrots of the accepted narrative, and betrayed the trust of the American viewer and reader?

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63869013
#weekendedition #meta #news #jcpa #goodbadorugly #TechFreedom

WE 16.3 – Are AirTags a Safety Concern?

Two women are suing Apple, alleging that their exes used AirTags to stalk them, one, where the guy placed one in a plastic bag, colored with a sharpie, and hid it in a wheel well in her car, and the other, where AirTags kept appearing in her son’s backpack after visits with his dad (complaintant’s ex-husband). These cheap, bluetooth tiles, meant to make it easier to track down lost keys in your house, misplaced luggage or other items, can too easily be abused to track people, rather than just items. It is argued that there are not enough security protections on these devices to prevent them from being misused. Gee whiz, I seem to recall making that case in one of my first Weekend Edition streams, and that is without any real research on my part, just simple common sense. I am also deeply concerned with any proprietary tech like this, as it is unable to be audited by anyone outside of the company who created it. Anyway, I told you so... Of course, the article I talked about these things in relation to was primarily about child safety at school. I do not trust these things at all. Prove that I’m wrong, I’ll change my opinion. I’m waiting.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/06/tech/apple-airtag-lawsuit
#weekendedition #apple #airtags #creepy #stalking #privacy #security #TechFreedom

WE 16.4 – SEC and Crypto Intermediaries

SEC Chair Gensler warned crypto lenders and others who play with crypto that doesn’t really belong to them that the SEC might be coming for them soon (see Alameda Research, Nexo, BlockFi, FTX, and the like). He called them “crypto casinos”, and stated that if they touch US markets, they must come into compliance with US laws and regulations if they are going to continue functioning.

My sense on the whole crypto thing is that it is ultimately better to invest in precious metals and other physical assets than in digital, ephemeral, so-called assets. In the way of disclosure, I have done a smidge bit of dabbling in crypto, but am essentially out of the market now. Now that that is out of the way, the volatile nature of crypto has always scared me. If a coin or token is directly tied to say an oz or a gram of physical silver or gold, or any other precious metal you might think of, and one can directly redeem that token or coin for that physical asset, it could be worthwhile. If it is as 99.999% of them have been, and purely based on speculation and strings of code, then get out, now, before it crashes fully. I sense a mass death spiral coming in the crypto space, particularly with the FTX situation, among others. HODL, or get out. Quit trading for a living. Let the market implode and the truly real and viable ones rise from the ashes before you do too much more. Not financial advice, and I am not an expert, just someone who has watched, mostly from the sidelines sharing his opinion.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/sec-chair-says-crypto-intermediaries-should-come-into-compliance-with-law-2022-12-07/
#weekendedition #crypto #lending #fintech #volatility #physicalassets #gold #silver #SEC #TechFreedom

WE 16.5 – SBF May Be a Challenge to Actually Arrest... Oh Brother...

As a follow up of sorts to the articles from the last couple of weeks where I mused about the fact that SBF has yet to be arrested for what appears to be at least a handful of potential fraud charges related to how things went or didn’t go at FTX and related companies. On one hand, he is very well-connected and paid-up with those who would be coming after him on the Federal level. On the other, the records are scant within FTX, so proving much of anything is going to be a major struggle for investigators. If he is ever arrested, it may take years of painstaking investigations first, so that they can be confident in charging him with crimes. In the interim, he is open to civil litigation, which is already mounting, and has a much lower burden of proof (simply “beyond a reasonable doubt” in a judge’s mind), rather than incontrovertible evidence being placed before a jury in a criminal proceeding. Investigators do not want to just throw shit at the wall to see what sticks, as they also want to avoid double jeopardy issues, where if one very similar charge is thrown out in court, that person cannot be charged with a substantially similar crime in the future. The bottom line is that the wheels of justice turn slowly in cases like this. We may want his head, but we need to make sure that charges actually stick, so he actually gets convicted of at least one crime from this whole scenario, and justice is served.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/05/sam-bankman-fried-could-face-years-in-prison-over-ftx-meltdown.html
#weekendedition #sbf #ftx #crypto #prison #fines #ouch #patience #justice #TechFreedom