Premium Only Content
Weekend Edition 1: Facebook Ready For Midterms?
Weekend Edition 2 – Need a Burner Phone? & More
Weekend Edition 3: Instagram Fined, Google Gears Up & More
Weekend Edition 4: Microsoft Screws up Security, Quantum Internet is Coming, and More…
Weekend Edition 5: Ungodly Surveillance, Musk & Twitter and More
Weekend Edition 6: Meta Is Shrinking? Newsome Overreaches Again, and More
Weekend Edition 7: Will He, Won’t He? AI Bill of Rights? And More…
Weekend Edition 8: Musk Investigated By SEC, Chip Ban Working the Way It was Supposed to? And More
Weekend Edition 9: Ebola’s Back? Here we go with the Midterm Health Scare… and More.
Weekend Edition 10: Big Tech In Big $$$ Trouble
Weekend Edition 11: No More Big Data + TikTok Ban and More...
Weekend Edition 12 – Big Tech Go Down the Hole and More!
Weekend Edition 13 – Big Tech, Crypto, FDA Issues, AI, and More
Weekend Edition 14 – China Declares Victory, Meta Passes the Buck, and More
Weekend Edition 15: Elon Plays God, Zuck Whines About Apple, and More
Weekend Edition 16 – TSMC + Bidan in Arizona, Apple Privacy Woes, and More
Weekend Edition 17 – SBF Arrested, Bad Twitter Influencers, Congress Looks to Ban TikTok, and More.
Weekend Edition 18 – Wow, It’s Legal Now... Lol What Hath Been Wrought Over the Holidays?
Weekend Edition 20: ChatGPT Goes to School, Trump Back on Social Media & More
Weekend Edition 19: Crypto, AI, FAA, and Social Media Roundup
Weekend Edition 21: Barely Legal... lol like Google
Weekend Edition 22 – Lots More Big Tech Financial News and More...
Weekend Edition 23 – The AI Wars Are Beginning Now, and More...
Weekend Edition 24 – From AI to Revivals, It’s been a Helluva Week
Weekend Edition 25: Revival & AI This Week... #smh
Weekend Edition 26: Tiktok Ban Coming in US?
Weekend Edition 27: Everybody’s Struggling... Change is Coming & More
Weekend Edition 28: Everybody’s Struggling... Change is Coming & More
Weekend Edition 29: All Sorts of AI News, Financial Follow-up & More
WE 31: Violence, Banks, and AI, Oh My!
Weekend Edition 30: AI News and Moore
Weekend Edition 32: Bob Lee, Twitter Drama & AI for the Week
Weekend Edition 33: Elon, AI, Digital Hygiene Tips, and More
Weekend Edition 34: Holmes, Amazon, Elon, and Social Media, Oh My!
Weekend Edition 35: Bob Lee Killer Pleads Not Guilty, Air Travel & 5G, and More
Weekend Edition 36
Weekend Edition 37: Holmes, Google, and AI News
Weekend Edition 38
Weekend Edition 39
Weekend Edition 40
Weekend Edition 41 - AI Bonanza
Weekend Edition 42: No More Social Media Collusion?
Weekend Edition 43
Weekend Edition 44: AI Actually Stupid?
Weekend Edition 45 - AI, MS, SBF
Weekend Edition 46
Weekend Edition 47: Fishing For Trump, Phishing, and AI Is Stupid ps 2
Weekend Edition 48: Black Hat 2023+
Weekend Edition 49: Malware, Autistic Hackers, AI, and More Big Tech Nonsense
Weekend Edition 50: Trojan Apps, Teams Now Separate in EU, NVIDIA News, AI, and Tesla Nonsense
Weekend Edition 51: Privacy, on the Rocks
Weekend Edition 52: AI Hype, Arm IPO, Security, Etc
Weekend Edition 53: AI All the Things & More
Weekend Edition 54: More AI Shenanigans, Elon World, and Internet for All?
Weekend Edition 55: Security, Elonworld, SBF Trial, and More...
Weekend Edition 56: Cyber Security, AI, Google Anti-trust News, and Misc
Weekend Edition 57: Whoa! Cyber Security, AI, and Tit-for-Tat from the CCP
Weekend Edition 61
Weekend Edition 60: All Manner of Things
Weekend Edition 59: Now It's Microsoft's Turn...
WE 58 - Let's Roast Facebook
Weekend Edition 26: Tiktok Ban Coming in US?
Tiktok News
AI
Cybersecurity Onus Shifting?
Nuclear Fusion
WE 26.1 – Oooh, Tiktok is in for a Bruisin’
So on one hand the US has banned it from use on gov’t phones over theoretical concerns (which I have covered ad nauseam over the last couple of months or so), but indulge me and we will talk about them once more. Concern 1: Amount of data collection. Concern 2: It’s CCP Spyware. Concern 3: Algorithm could be used to brainwash users. Of course the company has addressed these 3 concerns recently, and according to them, “we collect an amount of data that is in line with the rest of the social media industry”, and this has been independently confirmed by both the Citizen Lab and the Georgia Institute of Technology. However, there was an Australian study that came out last year which claimed the opposite. Needless to say, I would much rather advocate for a far more private internet where we only share as much as each of us is comfortable with sharing, not metadata which could lead to direct ad targeting or even more nefarious things.
This leads directly into concern 2: which the company refutes as strongly as it can, stating that the company “has not provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we if asked “. The problem and the source of this concern for myself and other privacy experts (not that I call myself an expert, I’m a ‘pert’, just pointing you to people who know more, and providing some solutions to these issues I see), is that there is a clause in Chinese law which states that “all Chinese organisations and citizens should support, assist and co-operate" with Chinese intelligence efforts.” Is this as much of a bugaboo as we think? Some think that this is cherry-picked and far out of context, in that there are other clauses which expressly protect the privacy of Chinese nationals as well as other who have data moving in and through China. Am I convinced that it is ok? No. On the other hand, they very loudly claim that they do not store any US user data in China, but do keep it in US and Singaporean data centers. I see a company which is desperate to not lose a huge market. Beyond the data and the privacy, how do we know that the algorithm couldn’t be harmful? Here lies concern 3:
It could brainwash users into believing or acting in ways that do not benefit their own nations, even to the point of becoming suicidal. It is said that the algorithm is like crack cocaine, and users become dependent on the content and even become influenced by what they are being uncritically fed. One concern is that censorship could be utilized at the behest of the CCP to run influence operations, aside from the tracking potential, along with deep knowledge about preferences and pain points for US citizens and officials. When tested by Citizen Lab, it was found that there was very little censorship on the platform, even of content critical of the CCP and even President Xi.
I started with on one hand, well here is another: as of Tuesday 3/7 the Canadian gov’t will take similar action with its federally assigned phones for officials and employees. Another aspect of this is that the overall US ban is getting closer and closer to being a reality, with the House likely to pass it onto the Senate in the coming week. On one hand, excellent, on the other, many people have become TikTok influencers and make a living that way. It is a tough situation, as much as I would personally love to see this questionable app get completely shuttered in the US.
TikTok itself has implemented a half-measure to curb use of the app by minors. Plaudits where plaudits are due, however, it is very easy to bypass the 1 hour limit. It is kind of like the warnings that the Nintendo Wii used to give about “getting outside” because you had been playing for too long at a sitting. On the other hand, it is a speedbump, and if parents have set up family accounts with TikTok, they have enhanced parental controls. Again, *slow clap*...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/28/new-tiktok-ban-is-poised-to-advance-in-congress-.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64797355
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64792894
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64813981
#weekendedition #tiktok #banhammer #mixedbag #fear #lackofclarity #TechFreedom #FOSSNews
WE 26.2 – AI News for the Week
2a) YouTube to “Balance Generative AI with Responsibility
The new CEO has signaled his priorities for the platform for this year, and developing “thoughtful guardrails” for generative AI so that it doesn’t get abused on the platform. He fully recognizes the potential for both abuse and amazing creativity. He also listed a litany of other stats to highlight how YouTube is adding desirable features (this CEO used to be the head of product development for the platform).
· YouTube has captioned more than 6 billion videos.
· More than 1 billion viewers daily are watching videos with captions enabled.
· YouTube generated 2 trillion views of gaming-related content last year.
· 6 million viewers paid for YouTube channel memberships in December, a 20% increase from a year earlier.
Those are some eye-watering numbers. Then again, YouTube is a titan in the industry, a pioneer in the VOD and streaming space. It will be interesting to see how things shake out with AI powered videos on YT.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/youtubes-new-ceo-says-hell-balance-generative-ais-creativity-with-responsibility/
2b) ChatGPT EVERYWHERE... Why?
OpenAI has opened up their API for everyone to access, so you can expect to see integrations in many apps and websites. A few big ones that are experimenting are Instacart, Snap, and Quizlet. Snap looks to use their integration for making recommendations, helping users to make plans, or even write haiku in seconds. Quizlet will use it to generate quiz questions to help their users to prepare for exams and the like. Shopify and Instacart are looking to add in the ability to ask the app questions to help guide your shopping decisions.
There is an arms race on now, among these larger companies, so that they do not fall behind their competitors in gathering more user data, marketing more effectively, and the like. You can trust that I will never utilize anything like that. There will always be a person on the other side of the screen in relation to my business.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/tech/chatgpt-api
So, mega-corporations are looking to save money and boost profits through experiments with chatbots fueled by ChatGPT... Big surprise. We will likely see these tools more frequently over the next few months as companies race one another to make sure that they don’t miss out. YouTube says that they are going to develop “thoughtful guardrails” for the use of generative AI in videos... We’ll see what that means. The stats they list have me rather gobsmacked. It is tempting to create tutorials using AI videos... That would solve many problems for me in terms of logistics, but I have deep feelings about using and not using tools like that. What do you guys think?
WE 26.3 – Interesting Move, Brandon... Not Sure How This is Gonna Work
Well, the Resident and his Depends (and handlers, as there is no way in God’s green earth that he has any idea what is in this policy or anything other than perhaps an ice cream cone in his hand) have decided (sure he did) that Big Tech should shoulder more of the cyber security burden than they already do. Up until now, it has been mostly the public’s responsibility to learn how and then to stay safe. On one hand, this shift makes sense, but only if we trust Big Tech and other large software developers with security concerns, when they clearly do not care much for privacy in relation to leaving customer data in customers’ hands (sure they keep it safe from anyone but their bots and admins, who comb through your data to ascertain if there is anything questionable or worthy of using to target you more effectively with ads). Then again, if my hunch is correct, that is basically asking the fox (US intel community) to guard the hen house (our private data). Big Tech is a front (I allege) of the USIC (NSA, FBI, CIA, etc), and we have seen just how intense their desire to target decent Americans for harassment is, yet we are supposed to trust them to watch out for us? This sounds like a power play on the IC’s behalf. I’m not claiming that every big software/ tech company is a front for the USIC, but I can about guarantee that Alphabet, Amazon, Twitter, and Meta are, at the very least. Hmm.... Interesting indeed.
WE 26.4 – Are We Nearer the Verge of Nuclear Fusion than Ever? Possibly... Let’s talk about it
If you were around a few months ago, thank you, and you may remember me talking about this story just after it happened, with some healthy skepticism. To recap that story, the experiment took place about 3 months ago, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In its course, scientists aimed 192 high powered laser beams at a cylinder containing a tiny, synthetic diamond capsule which held a tiny amount of dueterium and tritium, which are the isotopes of hydrogen used for fuel. Around that pellet, which has to be absolutely flawless, and takes 2-3 months to create a viable batch of 20-40 peppercorn-sized pellets. These are initially formed around a silicon carbide core, but that is replaced at LLNL with a glass tube containing the fuel. Then they place the pellet in a a gold and depleted uranium cylinder, which is housed in an aluminum cylinder for cooling the mix prior to initiating a reaction.
The experiment actually produced enough of a reaction this time, to release slightly more energy than it took to produce the reaction, which is actually a first. Yes, they have been laboring at this for about 70 years, and just now produced slightly more energy than it took to create the fusion reaction. The question is how to reliably and reproducibly scale up output , then conversely, to reduce input, to actually become viable as a means of clean power generation, as the article suggests. I don’t know, y’all, this feel a bit like the quest for the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail to me, at the moment. I don’t know that we will actually succeed in this, ever. I want to believe that we will, but at what cost? Also, how would it be monetized in a way that would not destroy Big Oil or Big Coal? It seems to me that the powers that be are too interested in keeping things as they are to actually allow this sort of research to bear real fruit. Maybe I’m missing my tinfoil hat, here, but that seems to be the “rub” so to speak, for just about any truly freeing technology that has been developed in the last 150 years.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64553796
Alright, enough for now. It is game time.
-
1:03:36
We The Free News
2 months agoOOPS... We the Free ep 16 - Linux on a 4004 and more
57 -
1:01:17
The StoneZONE with Roger Stone
7 hours agoChristmas Edition: Why the Panama Canal is Part of the America First Agenda | The StoneZONE
51.3K20 -
LIVE
LFA TV
17 hours agoLFA TV CHRISTMAS EVE REPLAY
787 watching -
4:33:48
tacetmort3m
1 day ago🔴 LIVE - THE ZONE KEEPS PULLING ME BACK - STALKER 2 - PART 15
44.3K12 -
22:45
Brewzle
14 hours agoI Went Drinking In A Real Bourbon Castle
29.4K3 -
48:36
PMG
1 day ago $1.87 earned"Parkland Parent Speaks Out On Kamala Harris Using Victims"
22.4K3 -
4:06
The Lou Holtz Show
13 hours agoCoach Lou Holtz’s Heartfelt Christmas Message 🎄 | Family, Faith & Notre Dame Spirit 💚 #christmas
16.8K -
51:35
Dr Steve Turley
1 day ago $18.37 earnedROSEANNE BARR - Her Journey, TRUMP, and the MAGA GOLDEN AGE! [INTERVIEW]
52.1K51 -
57:38
The Tom Renz Show
10 hours agoMerry Christmas - The Tom Renz Show Christmas
87.8K17 -
2:59:10
Wendy Bell Radio
21 hours agoThe Bridge Too Far
167K301